Today was my first day back at work (I have a 12 week old baby) and it was terrible. I serve in a great congregation (I'm half time, and I have a boss) but it's an hour away. The assumption has been that I'll bring the baby with me to work (I'm a bf mom) and the assumption, as in most churches is that we'll all attend on Sunday. So, Sunday.
Get the baby up and out for the hour drive at 8:30am (when we get to the fall we will have to leave at 7:30). I pump and pack 5 ounces of milk with the assumption that baby will nurse at 9:30 when we get there and again at 11:30 when my DW will feed him. So, we get there (baby takes a 40 minute nap in carseat, and cries the other 20 minutes) and baby nurses, barely, in a side room. 1 male parishioner sees us and says he needs to see the baby. Baby gets distracted, nursing session ends.
DW has baby in wrap and is trying to get him to sleep while I go help with set-up (mostly chatting with parishioners). At 10:30am the service starts. Baby needs to eat, DW feeds him (I can't see him) and he eats 4 ounces and won't settle (I can hear him crying).
At this time my boss decides to have the congregation sing happy birthday to the baby (I joke about how we'll be whispering it since DW is trying to get the baby to sleep--my boss responds by saying "no, we need to be loud to check out the sound system" and glares at me--this is the same boss who took a picture of me and baby from my FB page without permission and put it into the church newsletter and left a message when I had the baby that she was on her way to see him at the hospital without checking to see if it was an okay time or if we were up to company).
I'm sweating bullets throughout the service b/c I know he is fussy and I know that he is hungry and would go right to sleep if I could only nurse him (we're packing more breast milk next time--he ate all 5 ounces!). This is all compounded by the boss who has woken him up by squealing when she saw baby come in with DW and who interupts her own sermon when DW walks past to get fussy baby out of the service to squeeze his leg and comment about how cute he is (yes he's cute but she's not walking past you b/c she wants to show him off...he's FUSSY!).
So, get through the service, the baby is finally asleep. A parishioner comments to me that DW is "territorial" about the baby! AGGHHH (the parishioner, not DW)!!!! So, go to coffee hour...DW waits upstairs with sleeping baby in wrap. He wakes up, I nurse him (he doesn't eat well at all...he was just needing to check in) and he is TIRED (he usually gets 2 one hour naps in the morning). I can't leave until everyone else does and it's 12:30pm when we get out of there and I know my boss is peeved that she has to lock up on her own. But, then b/c of the time we NEED to eat so we don't actually leave the city I work in until 1:30pm and then home at 2:30pm. He sleeps about 25 minutes on the way home and then cries the rest of the time. I am engorged, we are all in tears.
You mean I have to do this again next week?!
And, I have to drag this poor kid an hour away 3 times a week...and deal with folk who have TERRIBLE boundaries and then get mad at us when we are mama lions...
And, my schedule is totally erratic and changes every week so child care is not an option right now (nor could we justify it for the amount I make or hours I work).
Get the baby up and out for the hour drive at 8:30am (when we get to the fall we will have to leave at 7:30). I pump and pack 5 ounces of milk with the assumption that baby will nurse at 9:30 when we get there and again at 11:30 when my DW will feed him. So, we get there (baby takes a 40 minute nap in carseat, and cries the other 20 minutes) and baby nurses, barely, in a side room. 1 male parishioner sees us and says he needs to see the baby. Baby gets distracted, nursing session ends.
DW has baby in wrap and is trying to get him to sleep while I go help with set-up (mostly chatting with parishioners). At 10:30am the service starts. Baby needs to eat, DW feeds him (I can't see him) and he eats 4 ounces and won't settle (I can hear him crying).
At this time my boss decides to have the congregation sing happy birthday to the baby (I joke about how we'll be whispering it since DW is trying to get the baby to sleep--my boss responds by saying "no, we need to be loud to check out the sound system" and glares at me--this is the same boss who took a picture of me and baby from my FB page without permission and put it into the church newsletter and left a message when I had the baby that she was on her way to see him at the hospital without checking to see if it was an okay time or if we were up to company).
I'm sweating bullets throughout the service b/c I know he is fussy and I know that he is hungry and would go right to sleep if I could only nurse him (we're packing more breast milk next time--he ate all 5 ounces!). This is all compounded by the boss who has woken him up by squealing when she saw baby come in with DW and who interupts her own sermon when DW walks past to get fussy baby out of the service to squeeze his leg and comment about how cute he is (yes he's cute but she's not walking past you b/c she wants to show him off...he's FUSSY!).
So, get through the service, the baby is finally asleep. A parishioner comments to me that DW is "territorial" about the baby! AGGHHH (the parishioner, not DW)!!!! So, go to coffee hour...DW waits upstairs with sleeping baby in wrap. He wakes up, I nurse him (he doesn't eat well at all...he was just needing to check in) and he is TIRED (he usually gets 2 one hour naps in the morning). I can't leave until everyone else does and it's 12:30pm when we get out of there and I know my boss is peeved that she has to lock up on her own. But, then b/c of the time we NEED to eat so we don't actually leave the city I work in until 1:30pm and then home at 2:30pm. He sleeps about 25 minutes on the way home and then cries the rest of the time. I am engorged, we are all in tears.
You mean I have to do this again next week?!
And, I have to drag this poor kid an hour away 3 times a week...and deal with folk who have TERRIBLE boundaries and then get mad at us when we are mama lions... And, my schedule is totally erratic and changes every week so child care is not an option right now (nor could we justify it for the amount I make or hours I work).
