The Lactation Room, Part 2

So I’ve made it for about 7 months without actually using the Lactation Room on campus, in part because I never got around to filing the paperwork, in part because I still don’t know where the damn thing is, and in part because when you’re carrying three bags already as it is, it’s easier to just pump in a closet before your classes begin (and then again in the car after they’re done).

Trust me.

But at the end of the semester I had to stay late on campus to attend a student concert, and I had to pump, and I couldn’t pump in my usual closet, so went to HR a full three days ahead of time and asked for the paperwork for the pump room.

Except no one knew what I meant by “pump room” (even though I had seen a room with that very designation printed on the door just outside the library) and I couldn’t remember any of the more workplace appropriate euphemisms for “my boobs are leaking” (i.e. “lactation”) so I stood there just suggesting related terminology— nursing? breastfeeding? BABY???— until someone figured out what I was talking about and hurried me into an office down the hall.

I received a form to fill out and a lukewarm assurance that my swipe card would now give me access to the official Lactation Room, and that said suite was located somewhere nearby in an adjoining wing.

To be continued…