I’m going back to work soon, so, I was originally planning to go back to work at three months, because I thought I’d be bored, and I’ve just loved being a mum. Nobody ever said to me, ‘You might just really, really enjoy it, and you might just find yourself and have a brilliant time. And that’s what’s happened. So, and there was quite a lot of pressure, when I was pregnant, as if like a single mum with a career, or trying to build some kind of career, there was quite a lot of pressure to either not have the baby or then to go back to work quickly. And so I’m quite glad that things have turned out the way they have, it went from three months to six months to nine months to a year. And now I’ve finally set a date, at about sixteen months, when Grace is sixteen months I’ll be going back to work two days a week.

I kind of hear a little bit of a reticence still about that.

There is a bit of a reticence about going back to work, I’ve got to work because, I’ve got to earn money, and one day, at the moment I live with my mum, but one day we want a house of our own, and we want nice things, and so I’ve got to, I’ve got to work, I’ve done the sums and I’ve got to work two days a week and so, Grace will have to understand that I’m trying to provide a better future for us, and theres nothing I can do about it. If I could wave a magic wand and win the lottery I would and I would never work again because I’d spend the whole time looking after Grace. But I can’t, and theres lots and lots of women in that position so I’ve found a nursery that I like, I’m never going to think, ‘Yeah this is brilliant, and it’s better for Grace to be in here than with me, but sometimes you’ve just got to get on with it and, and find the best you can for your child and then think, ‘Well they’re going to have to, at least in the short term, go to nursery’, and do everything to make them happy.

Have you made any preparations for going back to work?

I’m dreading going back to work, partly because I know hes nearly a year but I still feel like my place is to be with him, because theres so, hes learning, hes taking on everything, you can tell him ‘clap, clap, clap’ and he will for you, you can sing him songs and he knows the songs, we go swimming together, we go to mother and toddler groups together, hes a bi-lingual baby because hes being taught Welsh and English, and he will be educated through the medium of Welsh so theres so many things going on that I feel that I should be there with him, but unfortunately these days, having a mortgage and even providing the roof over [laughs] your head is a joint salary in order to do that so we both have to work and I’ve had a year off. My preparations for going back to work have been to see my manager to say I am returning, I have problems getting childcare for him because my cr’che at work is so over-subscribed. So he won’t be able to be on the same site as me till hes one and a half, so the finding other suitable childcare has been a pressure and a nightmare. The not being with him is the bit that I can’t quite emotionally come to terms with because somebody else is going to be feeding him his solids and I just can’t imagine what that will be like not being with him for all those hours in the day, because weve always been together and even through the problems of breastfeeding weve always, together, in the car together, off to the hospital together, you know, it’s like my little mates not with me any more so it’s very, it’s very upsetting but it’s something that’s got to be done. But to be quite honest with you if there was a choice I would not be returning because I really feel my place is with him, and I would dearly love to have another child and I think my place is at home, because my mother was at home for our years up until we were eleven years old and went to secondary school. And we did so many fun things, you know, we learnt to read newspapers, we learnt about cooking, we were always round the kitchen table, they’re very old traditional ideals [pause]. The things that I’m talking about can sound quite old and traditional and perhaps aren’t particularly modern but I felt always that I had an extremely happy childhood and we weren’t a very rich family, and just my father worked, and my mother stayed at home, but I know that that’s not the position that I am the major bread winner, my husband is a freelance worker which means he goes from contract to contract so there isn’t always the guaranteed income that my job and my salary provides for us as a family, so I know I have to return, but I have nightmares about it.

How old was your baby when you went back to work?

A month.

How did you handle that? What, you know, how did you arrange it? What, what did you do?

Ah, it was pretty easy and pretty difficult, and I explained the two things. It was pretty easy because I’d only work five hours a week, that is to say, one Saturday morning, and one Tuesday evening, which wasn’t much. So he was on his own for two hours at the very beginning, and, so in that sense it wasn’t that difficult because it wasn’t extensive periods of time for the two of them doing something he wasn’t maybe feeling pretty sure about. And on the other hand, because for me it was very difficult to leave them, I had two hour classes and every time I had a class I phoned three, four times to see if they were doing okay. ‘Cause it’s a very difficult thing to do, and also because my Mum was here at the time, so when I said in my classes maybe, maybe sooner than a month my Mum was here supporting [husband]. And, so, I think my Mum has played his Mum’s role as well, and, and she was a great help for him, and the four of them because they were, the four of them [includes her father] taking care of Luca while I was working giving the security of doing it on his own later when he had to do it on his own, and, and I think that’s the way I managed and it was difficult because any time you have to leave your baby, even if it is with his Dad, my God, its like you’re just tearing your heart apart, it’s not that you don’t trust your, your husband or your partner, it’s that detaching from them is a difficult job to do. And I don’t know who’s more dependent, if the baby or you, I still don’t know, because I think I’m very, let’s say baby dependent [laughs] yes, it’s very difficult to leave them but I was confident he was able to do it and it was only two hours.

So did you leave expressed breastmilk?

Yes I did.

How did you express the milk and when?

At the beginning it was very, it was pretty fresh milk, an hour before going to work I expressed.

By hand or by pump?

By pump.

Electric or hand pump?

Manual.

Hand pump?

Hand pump. The first time I did it was quite, quite difficult, you have to, get to know how to manage your pump, but afterwards it was easy and you have to wait for the moment in which your breast is kind of fullish so, you can, you can get the milk easily. But after then I started working more nights so I had to do it in advance, and I barely ever freeze the milk, I know it’s possible to do it and I know it’s ok but I preferred to do, give the fresh milk, so I leave three or four bottles, I knew they were more than what he needed, for the time he had to be on his own, well I mean without me but, but it was mainly fresh milk.

And how did he feed that to the baby when you were gone?

He was fed with the bottle.

Through a bottle?

Through a bottle yeah.

So he didn’t have any trouble taking the bottle?

No and I guess because I had to use the nipple shields, so he was used to the rubber and so, he didn’t have a problem, my Mum was actually very surprised yeah, he ha

I was trying to cut down the amount of feeds that I was giving him just now because I’m going back to work on Monday, I was trying to cut them down, trying to up the solids so that I could cut down the feeds, whereas my instinct tells me feed him, don’t worry about when it, what time it is, if, offer him a breastfeed and if he takes it he takes it, if he doesn’t he doesn’t and hell self-wean but, because I was going back to work I was trying to not do that and the advice was from my mother and other people were saying, ‘Don’t offer him it, hell, you know, because otherwise you’ll have to keep on expressing at work’ but as I was speaking it through with the health visitor, I realised I’m actually going be at home with him, more than I’m going to be at work, so I shouldn’t be tailoring my breastfeeding round my three days at work and because I can express fine I’m just not going to worry about it, I’m just going to offer him a feed at the normal times which are mid-morning and mid-afternoon, morning and night, and if he doesn’t want it he doesn’t want it, and if he does he does. And when I’m at work if I get full I’ll just express, I don’t want to be dictated to by anyone other than my baby and his needs if you know what I mean, so I feel a lot happier about that now, and I’ve got plenty in the freezer so, I also bought some ready made formula so that if ever one night I haven’t got enough for him the next day to leave with the nursery he can have some formula, so I feel a lot more relaxed about that now. I don’t like watching the clock, I like just watching him and letting him dictate whether he needs or not, because he doesn’t have an awful lot of fluids, he doesn’t, he quite likes water and he quite likes the little fruit juice that I give him but he enjoys his breastfeed as well so.

So will he be in a cr’che?

Yeah hes going to be in the same nursery my daughter goes to, for three day, three full days.

So will you be able to get to him and do that feeding like you did with your daughter?

No, no unfortunately because my husband doesn’t work for the hospital any more we can’t get a place at the hospital nursery, although I have applied and there is a chance that I might get in, but so hes going to a nursery out here now rather than.

Away from where you work?

Away yeah, so theres no way I could come back to feed him, so and he doesn’t have breastmilk at lunchtime hell just have it mid-morning and mid-afternoon so I’ll just leave a bottle and, I have contacted HR [Human Resources] at work and asked them for a room to go and express milk and somewhere to store it and they’re looking into getting a room that they I can lock, theres a problem where our offices are none of them lock from the inside so, and I’m not prepared to go and express for him in the toilets ’cause it’s, you know, it’s his lunch it’s not very.

So what sort of response have you had to that request?

Very positive, they haven’t managed to locate anywhere yet, and I’ve actually suggested a few places and asked them to look into it, I’ve got, I’ve bought myself a cool bag to, you know, the ice packs just to, to keep it in so if there isn’t a little fridge I can use to store it in I can always keep it cool myself, and then just put it in the fridge as soon as I get home it’ll be fine, but I’m sure, I’m sure they’ll be able to find me somewhere in the hospital.

Today is Thursday, you’re going back to work on Monday?

Yeah.

Just talk me through all the feelings

I breastfed my daughter until she was, I think she was about fifteen weeks old and it, we didn’t have many problems, to start with once the first few days were over we got established into quite a good routine and then when I had to start thinking about going back to work and, just other people looking after her I felt I think that I needed to, you know, start giving her, giving her bottles and, that was just, it was a natural progression at the time, but it is something that I regret now I wish I’d carried on feeding it, now I know that in fact life would have been far easier if I had carried on feeding her. The first, we didn’t have that many problems, and once we got, once we got the first, first few days, the first week sort of established there weren’t that many problems we just, you know, we, we plodded along and then as, you know, this starting to, needing to go back to work thing and then, you know, starting the baby on solid foods and just various things happened and, once you got to that, that stage we, we stopped, we stopped breastfeeding and in some ways that was a good thing for us, I had to go back to work, she started sleeping through the night, you know, in some ways that was, you know, it was right for us at the time, but it is something that I regret and, something that’s made me even more determined to, to feed my subsequent children for longer because I then, I started to get, I got jealous when I saw people breastfeeding their babies, I got, I felt like, not that there are any signs of this, but I felt like, you know, the baby wasn’t getting the best and, you know, but this was all after I’d stopped breastfeeding, if I’d thought about it more, I would have, I would have carried on, but, you know, you don’t have, you know, you don’t have the support that, I didn’t have anybody to say to me, ‘Well why don’t you try this, why don’t you try expressing milk’ that wasn’t something that I ever tried. Whereas I now know that, I now know that I can express milk it’s not, because I’m breastfeeding I don’t have to be at home all the time, it doesn’t mean that nobody else can ever feed the baby, I now know that if I want to go out on a girls night out without the baby I can, and I can leave milk and it’s not a problem, at the time, at that time I didn’t know that, so if I felt I was, I was going out, I had a hand breast pump that I tried to express milk with and it didn’t ever work, I found it painful, I found it uncomfortable and I never got, I never got any milk. so once you’ve tried that a couple of times and it doesn’t work and it hurts you, you don’t try it again. So when I started needing to leave the baby I was starting to leave a bottle of formula with her, with whoever was looking after her and, it moved on from there and, then the baby started having solid food and so we stopped and that was that, at the time it wasn’t a problem and I probably didn’t even regret it as much until I had my subsequent son and it was only then that I realised what I’d missed out on the first time round. And I think it was that, you know, the reason that, giving baby formula milk didn’t even cross my mind until he was far older than my daughter was anyway.

I can hear the regret obviously it’s very, very strong.

Yeah.

How do you deal with that? How do you come to terms with it?

My way of coming to terms was it, with it was by not doing it again. that was my, the only thing I could do, I wasn’t going to beat myself up about it and I can’t, you know, at the end of the day I had a happy healthy baby and I can’t, I can’t complain about that, and everybody, if ever I did feel down, if ever I’d said, ‘Oh I wish I hadn’t stopped’ that’s exactly what everybody would point out to me is, you know, it’s you that’s feeling this not the baby,

Oh it was really hard, it was really hard. Because it wasn’t planned as well, I just got pregnant, I didn’t even know. So the first time when they told me I’d got pregnant I was a bit sad but I just realised that was what we thought but prayed to Allah to make it easy for me and it really helped he wasn’t like crying all the time he was a good boy and he knows my friends as well so it just they’re always together so he just stay with her, she feeds him and my mum also helped me. So that was yes.

Okay and what time sort of did you feed him in the morning or?

I feed him before I go to Uni.

Breastfeeding?

Breastfeeding and when I come back immediately before I even take off my coat I feed him the milk

And what motivated you to keep breastfeeding at the same time as sort of giving them the bottle?

Because really they told me is good for the children as well, yes and that’s what motivated me. And it’s easy, it’s easy and it’s cheaper you don’t have to buy, yes so it’s easier so that’s why.

Easier because when you bottle-feed it’s more time consuming?

Yes and more time consuming you have to clean, you have to wash and sterilise the bottles and all this, so that’s why.

Okay so it’s not a, to be taken lightly. How did your friend sort of, you had friends that were also doing the same mix feeding?

Yes I had but really most of them they were doing the mixed feeding because of school or because when they go outside they can’t breastfeed their children in the bus that’s what made them to bottle feed their child.

So weve got to gradually introduce the bottle in some shape or form.

Why?

Because I’m concerned that when I go back to work it’ll be harder for her, so I’d rather she got used to the bottle now, I’m quite happy if she wants more breastmilk in the form of expressed, I’ll do that for her, if she doesn’t take to formula but, she has to get used to me not being here, some, someone else is going to have to feed her, you know, whether it’s a member of my family or my partner, someones going to have to feed her and it, it might not necessarily be me. And if shes still attached to the breast when I’m at work it’s not going to work, and it’s to be more stressful for her, more traumatic.

How old will she be when you go back to work?

Shell be just about to hit twelve months.

And how do you feel about that?

I don’t want to go back to work I’d like to stay at home, I wish I could stay at home, I’ve been lucky though cause I’ve had, I would have had nearly twelve months with her so I’ve been very fortunate.

So how do you feel about going back to work?

I feel, that I don’t want to go back to work, I’d like to stay at home with her, I feel fortunate that I’ve had the time I’ve had with her, I’m aware that, things couldve been different I might have to have gone, I might have had to have gone back within three to six months, but we were able to stretch it, because after six months it’s unpaid, so it’s pretty tough, but it was well worth it, because, this isn’t time I can get back, these are memories that are going to be, you know, priceless basically, so it’s pretty special for me, so I’ve, I just try and hold on to that really when I go back because bills have to be paid, but at least I’ve had this time with her, so.

Yes I went off to work full-time.

How did you manage that?

With difficulty, in fact when I first went out, back to work after having him I went back on shift, an early shift started at half past five in the morning, a late shift finished at ten past ten to midnight, in the evening, and that was hard work, that was really hard work.

Did you set up a routine of any sort?

To a certain extent I pumped, because I work in a factory, every two hours is a forced break if you like, the bell rings and we all go out to break and so every break I was pumping. And, I was pumping at home as well, there are several things that I wish I’d known when I started and I found doing the same when I went back to work with my daughter much easier because I knew these things, I knew to express in that first morning feed so you feed on one side, you express on the other at once.

Because?

Because each one stimulates the milk production in the other and he had much, much more and I wish I’d done that with my son but I didn’t, and I think I would’ve struggled a lot less. I wish I’d have bought my expensive breast pump earlier, I bought it about half way through my son’s feeding during the day when I was back at work.

What advantage does your expensive breast pump have over an inexpensive one?

It’s a double.

So?

So again you’re stimulating both, each side is stimulating the other, my cheap electric one, is great, it works, but it’s one, and it’s just one side.

So it’s more time-consuming?

It’s more time-consuming and I was finding it very hard to stimulate let-down, very, very hard to get let-down, in fact I almost always wasn’t and I was just getting dribbles all the time and not adding up to what he needed, and as soon as I phoned La Leche League and they said, ‚ÄúI think you need an expensive double breast pump and I got it, and bingo, let-down.

How did you know?

Because the quantity of milk tripled [laughs] quite simply.

Could you feel the let-down happening?

No I couldn’t.

Could you visually see the increase in milk flow?

Yes, yes I could definitely see that. But I didn’t feel it, I did the second time around as I say with my daughter then it was, in, in some ways I think I was more aware with her so I was looking out for can I feel let down coming, and so I could.

And what did it feel like?

Tingly, like that tingling down the back of your spine when you, someone you love is giving you a massage.

A frisson?

Yeah, yeah rather nice [laughs].

And a tightening in the chest?

No, no, just a tingling that, I knew what was going on.

So, so I just want to get this, this going back to work routine straight, you fed in the morning on one side, pumped on the other, every two hours at work during the day…

Can you tell me why that was happening, why the bottles were coming in at this stage?

Just kind of I wanted to have just a little bit more, have, you know, have a night out and someone be able to baby-sit, and just have a bottle just for that odd occasion, and also, I think because I was going to be going back to work so kind of feeling that it was the right thing to do start to gradually introduce bottles and not just be one hundred percent, it was kind of like I’d cracked the breastfeeding thing, it was working really, really well and now it was to gradually to take steps to sort of, like the transitional progress over into bottle feeding, because it was kind of imminent me going back to work that that would have to happen, in no way, shape or form did I think that I could possibly return to work and continue with full breastfeeding.

What made you think that?

I don’t know I just, to me it wasn’t, it wasn’t something that I could even consider I don’t, to me it just wouldn’t, the two didn’t work, to me the whole breastfeeding experience was being relaxed, being at home with my child and being there for my child, and I kind of think if I couldn’t have done it that way then it wasn’t the right way for me, you know, and it was kind of the weaning stage and introducing, you know, the beginnings of weaning so it all seemed to be the right time to gradually, not give up completely but to, to gradually start changing the pattern of things, and the fact that I was able to express milk so easily it was still my milk, but she wouldn’t take a bottle, she would not take the bottle, it was horrendous we tried for weeks and weeks and weeks, we tried every single different teat, every different kind of bottle, we couldn’t get a bottle into her, it took weeks and weeks and weeks, and in fact I think it was finally when I actually had to go back to work that it was a case of her having to take a bottle that eventually we just persevered and I think it was my husband’s grandma that got her in the end, to take the bottle so, that was, that was. I have a friend who actually did breast and bottle right from the start and that kind of looking at her and the way she coped that, that was a good thing and that worked for her and obviously it was quite an emotional time for me because I enjoyed breastfeeding and my baby was telling me that it loved breastfeeding, yet it was other issues and other factors telling me that you had to have a plastic teat put in your mouth and learn to suck on that [laughs], I mean it was, you know, it was a difficult time but ah, not nearly as difficult as getting her to breastfeed in the first place so [laughs], I, yeah it, it kind of all happened eventually, it all coincided with weaning and me finding out I was pregnant again and probably I think I gave her a last breastfeed about six months, and that was when eventually I was, I was doing it so little that my milk just naturally dried up anyway, so she would just have a little suckle and then shed have to have milk, formula milk afterwards anyway so it kind of just then I realised that that was it and you know, it sort of stopped then.

I did express milk with my little boy, my first child.

How?

With a hand pump, yes I did because I went back to work when he was six months old, and I was still partially breastfeeding at that point and so I need to, to be continuing on with, with stimulating my supply of milk, and I remember [laughs] several incidents, sort of at work, trying to express milk and transport it on the train and.

Such as?

Oh, I remember going to have a meeting with, with my boss before I actually returned from maternity leave in the preamble to going back and, it was a meeting with some quite senior people in a hospital, it was with a couple of chief executives from the NHS, and I was absolutely full of milk and I, you know, I had to go off into the Ladies and try and decant some of this milk off, while they were sorting out the tea and coffee. And as these things happen of course, you know, I spilt it and started leaking and, it was not an ideal situation but it was just the stage my body was at really, I wasn’t quite at the point where the supply was reducing down. So yes I have, I have some memories of, of that and then with my little boy he did have milk from a bottle, expressed milk, I think probably from about four months, but only very occasionally when I wasn’t literally physically there. I think I had one night at the theatre once and I left my mum with a bottle of expressed milk, that sort thing, but it didn’t happen very often and I actually found expressing a real phaff [laughs], I didn’t get into a very good routine with it at all.

And how did he take to the bottle?

My little boy took to it okay I think because we introduced it relatively early, we didn’t have any problems with him on that score.

Right. So you went back to work at about six months?

Yes just part time.

How did you organise that?

We, in terms of breastfeeding I basically weaned him off breastmilk, pretty soon after I went back to work, because my work is not local, it’s around the country and it means me being away from the house for twelve or so hours a day, on the days that I did work, and so it just wasn’t practical to be trying to keep my supply going with such a sporadic sort of working pattern, and I figured I’d given him the first six months of breastfeeding which for me was, was the most important thing really and that any advantages beyond that were, were sort of diminishing in terms of the benefits he would get, so my decision was to just stop. I went back to work when my little girl was six months old, again’

Again.

‘the same.

And how did you manage that?

By that time I was actually working a period of notice out, so I was only, I was only working sort of two days a week to finish my contract, because I then went self-employed which was more flexible for hours. And so it wasn’t as if I was going back to a very, very sort of busy time at work it was actually going back to serve three months notice, and whilst I was busy it, it was a different sort of pace really.

Right. So did you give your notice and decide to go self-employed because it was more flexible for the family, because it was easier to work that way?

It was a variety of reasons, it was mainly to allow myself to determine when I worked and to give myself the freedom to work le