A Tale of Two Pumps

It was the best of times it was the worst of times.  Well, not the worst, but perhaps, the "busiest" of times at least.  Yesterday in work I was booked solid with meetings from 9:30am through 3:30pm.  My typical routine now that I am down to pumping 3x per day, is to pump just once while in work, at around 2 pm.  Yesterday's schedule was looking like it would make that quite difficult.  Much to my delight, My 1pm meeting ended half an hour early, so at 1:30 I took advantage and went off to seek pump time in the room I have been using since I came back to work.
I was so happy that this worked out. You see,  earlier in the week for the first time, I totally forgot to pump at all during the day.  When I realized this via significant discomfort as I was stuck in a 5-6pm meeting, there was really nothing I could do about it until after, and I certainly didn't want a repeat of that day as I am still suffering some uncomfortable consequences of that.
So I pumped, and finished up just in time to go to my 2pm meeting without even stopping back at my desk-- since I am the only one who uses that room to pump right now, and it locks, I leave all of my stuff in there until the end of the day when I routinely retrieve it.

Well 5:15pm comes and I'm ready to pack up.  I open my desk drawer to get my key to the pump room and...no key.  Cue heart sinking and panic setting in.  I review the day in my head...I went straight from pumping to my next meeting, didn't drop the key off in my office.  OMG.  Pump+milk+KEY is locked in the room.  I then proceeded to stalk the building in search of anyone else who I knew/I hoped might have the key.  HR, already gone.  Building Services (who I KNOW has spares) already gone.  Receptionist, no key.  Cleaning people, no key.

Defeat.

My options at this point were:
- Wait until tomorrow morning to pump when I could get back here and find someone to give me the spare key.  Ok, not really an option since if I didnt pump for 19 hours I'd probably explode.
-Pump with my manual pump, one side at a time.  Oooof, I dont even know if it would work anymore, I only used to use it for a little 'help' before nursing AJ in the first few months.  Maybe it wouldnt be strong enough now.
-Buy a new pump.  Well at $300 a pop for the one I have, also not a great option.

In the end, I went to Buy Buy Baby and bought a single electric pump so at least I could plug it in, for a considerably cheaper price.  Further rationalized by the notion that I can take it to Vegas with me instead of lugging my big one.  But when I got home I decided to give the manual one a whirl anyway, and what do you know, while it was slower for sure, it got the job done.  Lots of panic and being near tears for the night (I had a dinner to go to after work of course) but it all worked out.

This morning though, I did have to venture back to building services  to ask for the spare key.  Having to ask men for a key to the nursing room makes me automatically think they are looking at my boobs, or will look at my boobs every time I see them from now on.  And I'm pretty sure it  true.  But I got the key, am reunited with my own key, and my pump, and yesterdays milk stash.  Phew.