Ole Faithful

I woke up this morning and stumbled into the kitchen to pump just like I do every morning. I sleepily began pumping, waited for Matt to grab the newspaper, and trolled the Internet to pass the time away as I extracted milk for Johnny's breakfast. We sat and talked about our day and wondered if we had time for a big breakfast or not with the distinct "whir-whir" of the pump rhythmically sounding off in the background. As my pumping session came near to the end, instead of a "whir-whir" I hear a "whiiirp", noting, another, fainter "whiiirp", followed by silence. Confused, I looked down at my tubing to see if something was disconnected, then to the plug to see if it had somehow come loose from the wall or the pump itself. I turned the pump on and off and unplugged the power adapter to see if there was just a little hiccup in the system. I turned the pump back on and was met with a barely audible ticking sound. My pump died. I will say that this isn't a huge surprise. I have used my pump and used it hard for a total of about two and a half years. Even in the less used time periods of those two and a half years it was being used twice a day and as Johnny is given pumped milk only, it has been used a lot more over the past six months. It was a little unexpected that it went out with little warning though. While it had been showing some signs of weakness lately, I wouldn't have thought it would completely give up in the middle of my most crucial pump of the day. Typical luck.

Surprisingly, I was a little sad. That pump made it possible for me to provide the food of my choice for all three of my kids so far. I knew in an instinctual way which setting to put it on and could pretty much operate it in my sleep. Friends and I joke about each pump "sounding" different and for some reason I always thought mine said "White girl. White girl" as I pumped away (friends who have "heard" me pump can confirm this). I even pumped better with my pump than with the hospital grade pumps when Johnny was in the NICU. A lot of it probably has to do with association and responses and what not, but still, I liked Old Pumpy.

Needless to say, we had to go purchase a new pump today. It smells new, it has perfectly clear tubing, a clean set of bottles, and all of the accessories to go with it. They have made a couple of design changes to it, I like the additional room and the mesh pocket they added. Some of the changes will take getting used to, the actual pump is now on the right side of the bag which means I need new muscle memory. Also, the manufacturer wanted to make things a little smoother which is great because it is less noisy, but it is not what my body is used to which may be a bit of an adjustment. I haven't had any problems with it yet so it may just be mental, but I like my old pump! O well. We have to move on.

On my to do list for tomorrow is to call the insurance company. I should have already called them to acquire one for free through them as it is part of our new plan. Now I will see if they will reimburse me for this one, if not I am still ordering one for backup. No more emergency trips to the store for this pumping mama!