"days like this build character"

said to me by my hubby after my super frustrating, stressful day. looking back at it now, i realize i should be thankful that the stresses in my life are insignificant compared to a lot of peoples'. my family is healthy, we have a roof over our heads, food on our table, and we have each other. but i'm still going to use this blog to remember the crazyness that was today. 

first of all, the plan for today was to work from home for two hours and then meet up with my co-workers at a conference in st. paul. i pumped when i got up, like always, and then attempted to pump right before i left. (to any new readers, i pump 5 times a day for azalea because we had a lot of problems breastfeeding, but i am still determined to get her the milk). andddd that's when my two month old pump decided it didn't feel like doing it's job anymore. i hoped that it was something simple like a loose tube, but after troubleshooting for a few minutes it became apparent that the pump was not going to be easily fixed. i packed everything up, and tried not to panic. funny how the last time my (old) pump broke, it was the night before we were going on vacation. such fantastic timing!

i arrived at the conference feeling frazzled from both the pump situation and also from screwing up some conference prep stuff. after i had been there for a while, i decided to try the pump again, hoping it would magically start working. yeah right. no luck, so i was forced to do it the "old fashion way" as my co-worker said :) unfortunately that's super tedious and never very plentiful for me. ha. i made it through the afternoon, but i couldn't stop thinking about how i was going to deal with this. i had brought along the lansinoh manual and noticed there was a 1 800 number listed. so i gave them a call to see if they had any ideas. i talked to a super nice girl there who offered to overnight me a new pump (just the mechanical part, as she could tell that was what was broken) free of charge since it's still under warranty. i was thrilled, but still needed to figure out what to do in the mean time. 

i remembered that a friend of mine was finished with her pump and offered it up to me a couple weeks ago. so, i decided to see if i could get it from her tonight, to get me through until my new one comes. luckily i was able to get a hold of her. i had to trek all the way out to minnetonka to pick it up, but i was so happy it worked out. i had another minor freak out when i discovered that she only gave me the actual pump and not the part that attaches to you. i called her in a panic, but she said she thought my attachments should work just fine. for some reason i thought that since her pump was a medela and mine wasn't, that it wouldn't work. i almost decided to go all the way back to her house to get the other pieces. but i was wrong, my parts worked just fine with her pump (hallelujah!) so...12 hours later...i finally was able to pump. that was definitely a record i hope to not endure again until i wean. 

so, moral of the story is, maybe i made a mistake getting a lansinoh pump when everyone swears by medelas. but the medelas are so expensive and i had been really happy with mine until this morning. i do have to say, that have fantastic customer service there, though. i got to speak with the first person who answered and she was extremely helpful. i'm anxious to get my new pump tomorrow. i hope this one lasts more than two months. that's just unacceptable.