The Roche Report

I've been thinking about doing this post for a while as this was one of the things that gave me the most anxiety about going back to work. As with my other post about breastfeeding, I felt a bit awkward posting this; but since it was something I worried a lot about, I figured posting about my experiences might be helpful for others. As I shared in another post, I was never someone who had particular goals around breastfeeding; actually, I thought I would basically hate it ( more here ). However, I gave it a try, and found that it was something that worked well for me - especially during my maternity leave. In preparing to come back to work -- especially as someone who travels a lot for work or often works at client sites, I was very worried what it would be like breastfeeding and having to pump while traveling or at a client site. Would it be awful? Would I be able to do it? Would it be awkward? Where would I pump? How would I get out of meetings? To be honest, I basically thou...

I read a lot when I was pregnant. I read parenting books, parenting blogs, signed up for parenting email blasts. I read really good and really important things - like how to get my baby to  sleep through the night  (and this book works wonders - she was sleeping through the night at 9 weeks) and  how to calm my baby  - that have significantly improved my parenting experience.  One thing that I didn’t read much about (though I think it is out there and perhaps it just didn’t quite resonate with me until I was actually doing it) was pumping. Before I begin my thoughts on this: a little background. I was unsure about the whole breastfeeding thing and adopted an attitude of “we’ll see how it goes.” It actually probably ranked at the top of my parenting fears. I kind of wanted it to work; but frankly, I also kind of thought the whole thing was gross.  However, I gave it a go, and have actually had a pretty great experience with it, helped by the fact that IBM h...

With one week to go in my maternity leave, I have a trip that I have both anticipated and dreaded for the past 5 months. Anticipated for the fun of what it will be: wine tasting in Napa and Sonoma, celebrating the upcoming wedding of one of my dearest friends; dreading leaving my sweet, smiley baby at home. When she was born, I remember feeling like I would never be able to -- never would WANT -- to leave her side. And yet, life continued and I slowly ventured out into the world, but nothing so dramatic as leaving Charlie for 4 hours, let alone 4 days. Before leaving, I raced around the house trying to prepare and make my husband's life easier while he was home with her. I cried as I put Charlie to bed, explaining to her that Mom would wake her up on Monday morning. I read and read and read blogs about pumping while traveling; I fretted and planned and fretted and planned about what I would do and where I would pump and what it would be like. My worries about the travel kept me...