Working Mothers Don't Laugh" style="border:0px solid black;padding:5px;">

"Breastfeeding Firedrill"
Working Mothers Don't Laugh

I had a six month old daughter at the time. I was fortunate enough to have an adjacent office to my office at work that my company gave to me to use as a nursery.

I know, luckiest new mom ever.

It was wonderful but ultimately difficult to get any work done with my baby right next door. I was going to be away in a meeting for a few hours and needed to pump before hand so my nanny would have a bottle for the baby when she awoke from her nap.

Half way through the pumping with a big noisy electric breast pump the fire alarm goes off in the building and we are all told we must evacuate immediately. The baby wakes up screaming.

The nanny wasn't due to the office for another 20 minutes. I am half dressed and attached to this thing. I am trying to unhook myself, grab the baby, and pull myself together and get out of the door all at once.

My secretary wants to help but just stands there gaping at me- taking it all in in shocked silence. I am also leaking all over the place. I get myself unhooked and rather than try to compose myself I desperately try to get my daughter to latch on while I am running down the hall covering myself up. I had grabbed my blazer on the way out and draped it over the baby.

It works and calms her down in the process. We all evacuate the building and stand around outside in a hot parking lot for 30 minutes. The firetrucks arrive and then the firefighters inspect the building.

Of course there is no sign of anything being wrong. Luckily my daughter remained calm and fell back to sleep. I managed to straighten myself up a bit but still had breast milk all over the front of my blouse. Eventually we all went back to work.

When I got back to my office there was the breast pump, happily buzzing away on my desk. Luckily I always have an extra blouse in my office .