>><< two Saturday Night Specials, one at the end of each arm. >>
Dear Katherine,
I always enjoy your wisdom and responses-this is one of the best!! BTW, this
was the only way I ever got a bit of milk expressed!! Even while hospitalized
for gallbladder surg(my son was 18 mos, I did better than with the hosp
electric pump!!)<<

I had a Mary Jane cylinder pump that I used with my first baby, before I
learned to mellow out and just take him with me. It worked okay, but I often
fooled with hand expression, too. My early efforts resulted in bright red,
sore breasts as a result of the sliding and pressing I did...........  when I
finally figured out the Marmet technique, I got pretty good at it, though I
needed it only infrequently by then.

Then came my third born, who suddenly developed meningitis symptoms at 9 days
of age. We landed in the hospital for a week, and though I stayed with her
for the duration and nursed her, the IVs caused her to eat less and me to be
engorged!  So I asked for bottles to express my excess milk into. The staff
offered to bring me a breastpump, which I tried to decline. They *insisted*
that I would need it, overruling me, and went to retrieve it. Fine. In the
time it took to bring the pump downstairs to the pediatric unit, I had the
bottle filled with milk from manual expression.  Just said to them, "I *told*
you I could do this!" and they didn't bother me again.  ;-)

-Lisa Marasco, hand expression champion of Santa Maria, CA