Elisheva's post to Maka made me laugh out loud and brought back memories of desperately pumping (1981-- an old manual cylinder-style pump) in preparation for two or more hours away from my daughter, when I finally phoned my husband at work and forced him to converse with me about ANYTHING other than babies or breastfeeding.  Thirty seconds later the milk was streaming.  I had to just sort of turn off my brain, at least the obsessive "there's only 6 hours before you leave and she could starve to death in your absence if you have no milk to give her" part of it.
What a joke-- she never even took a bottle except for tiny sips in extreme need, preferring to fast til I got home!  Fortunately my childcarer was also BF her same-age daughter and we agreed it was fine for her to offer to nurse my child as well.  She rarely took her up on it but seemed pleased to know there was a breast available in emergencies.  I was able to visit at lunch time so things worked out exceptionally well.
Breastfeeding while working or studying apart from your child does make for interesting situations.  Whenever I was returning home, I would experience a MER as soon as the car was headed that way, and then another one as I turned on to my street, so that I was always uncomfortably engorged and usually leaking milk as I walked in the door.  This continued as long as I was lactating at all, and often when I arrived my daughter would just have signaled hunger, regardless of how long I had been gone or when it was.
The MER is highly subject to conditioning, not always intentional.  My babies didn't cry much, so crying babies never got to be a cue for me.  But I could not walk past a lingerie display and stay dry.  I also had the habit of drinking tea around 11 am, and if one particular colleague, a very nurturing, radiant warm woman, came into the break room, it was all over for me.  No one else had the same effect, nor did the hot drink alone elicit a MER.
With second child, I was a 90 minute bus trip away from him five days a week from when he was 8 months old.  First MER came at lunchtime, then one at the bus stop at my school, one as I transferred buses, and one as I got off the bus and started the three minute walk to the house.  I can still remember that pressure bordering on pain which was made bearable by knowing I would soon be in the rocking chair getting connected with my son after a long day away.
Rachel Myr  [log in to unmask]
walking down mammary lane in icy, rainy, windy Kristiansand, Norway

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