rip playtex pump

my pump died yesterday. you know, the one that i use 5 times a day. the one that has made it possible for azalea to get any breast milk for the last 4 months. some people are emotionally attached to their phones...i'm emotionally attached to a breast pump. how glamorous. i used it in the morning at work and it was just fine. i plugged it in later in the day and it didn't do anything, no lights, nothing. then i noticed that the wire on the power cord was all frayed and exposed. how did that happen? within a couple minutes, the plug started getting really hot and and it smelled like it was burning. not wanting to start the conference room on fire, i unplugged it. i've had a fear of this happening. the pump was 5 years old and was given to me by another mom, so luckily i wasn't out the money. but really...who wants an unexpected expense like that? and one that is time-sensitive, in my case.

i called my dad and he thought maybe he could repair the cord. but after looking at it when i stopped there after work, he said i definitely needed to get a new one. so off i went to radio shack (my parents hung out with azalea). the guy took one look at the cord and said "wow, that thing's ancient." he also asked what it was for. when i told him, he looked slightly embarrassed and said "hmmmm, interesting." ha! the only similar one they had only had half the power, but he said to try it and then return it if it didn't work. so i did...and it didn't work. great. 

by this time, it had been 8 hours since i pumped. granted i do go 8 hours without pumping over night, but still...it was a long time. i started getting really stressed out about everything. i was supposed to be spending my evening doing laundry, making dinner, taking care of azalea, packing for a mini road trip this weekend, and we had an oil change appt at 8:15pm, but now this whole pump drama was overshadowing everything. i started crying at my parents' (can i still blame that on postpartum hormones? no?). :) i just felt so overwhelmed. it was becoming apparent that i would not be able to just replace the cord, but i would need to invest in a whole new pump. so, my mom offered to come over and watch azalea, so i could go to target and thatcher could make dinner. (thanks mom!) 

i figured if i was going to get a new pump, i should get a good one, like a medela. wellll the medela one at target did not have a battery power option, which i really wanted for this weekend. so i ended up getting a lansinoh:

it was $130 less than the medela and seemed to be decent quality. i got home and used it right away. i ended up dumping the milk because you are supposed to sanitize the pump in boiling water before the first use. i did that later in the night. so, i think the new pump and i are going to be good friends. it has some cool features that the other one didn't have (a timer!). i managed to get all of my other stuff done too last night and was in bed by 10:15. i'm so thankful my mom could drop everything and come over and help out on a stressful night. i think i'm going to slash my parents' tires when they try to go to florida in the fall :) ok, not really...