The end of maternity

My return to work is drawing nigh.  I was quite worried about this but now I feel differently.  I am looking forward to a little less stress and the odd opportunity for downtime.  It will also make a nice change to wee alone.  I will of course miss my gorgeous children a lot, but I am fortunate to have a busy job that makes it unlikely I will think about them.

I took a year off on maternity with my son.  This time I am returning after 8 months (largely to make my life easier at work).  This means it is a rather different matter leaving my baby.  My son was only feeding once a day when I left him.  My daughter is mostly breastfed and just has little bits of food.  So, it seems I am entering the world of expressing.  

I have expressed before on occasion, but not regularly like I will now.  However, the new realm for me is expressing in public.  It's one thing getting my boobs out, which will inevitably be hidden by a baby's head.  It's another to be milking myself.  The truth is that I will have a secret room to go and lock myself away in, so nobody will see me.  This is very important as I am a teacher and I would most likely get fired for that level of exposure. 

I am a bit concerned about the noise of expressing.  The click of the handle.  When I know that just the other side of the door are hoards of screaming teenagers.  I am also concerned about transporting my breast pump to and from my expressing room (in a closed cool bag I am thinking) without anybody knowing what I have been up to.  And hiding the accoutrement's from my colleagues.  It will also be interesting to see how much of a drain on my time it is, given that in the past I have chosen to work through all these breaks. 

I am sure it will be fine.  But I hadn't really thought about this side of the world of breastfeeding.  Watch this space!