My Breast Pump Talks to Me! Newborn Sleep Deprivation At Its Finest



I had a complicated relationship with my breast pump.

I used an electric breast pump with my daughter (the Medela Pump in Style Advanced), and I swear to you that the damn thing would talk to me while I was pumping!

My breast pump talked to me while I was pumping.

Let me explain:  I was victim to the common side-effect that goes along with mothering a newborn: sleep-deprivation (see You Know You Have a Newborn When...Grocery Shopping and Your Robe and You Know You Have a Newborn If...Toilet Flushing Phobia for more on the topic of sleep deprivation with a newborn).  I also spent several accumulated hours sitting on my couch, hooked up to my electric breast pump...pumping away....while simultaneously hearing the exact same stupid, rhythmic pattern of my breast-pump's motor noises - over and over and over again (i.e., the motor noises that my breast pump's working motor made while I was in the actual process of pumping milk).  Over time, I swear to you that these motor noises formed into words - and these words were simply whatever words that my deliriously exhausted sub-conscience brain decided to pick out.  

My Breast Pump Talks to Me!

Words Spoken To Me By My Breast Pump:

The "words spoken by my breast pump," courtesy of the sub-conscience portion of my brain, somehow always managed to be the most random, utterly stupid, and pointless phrases imaginable.  The words that my breast pump would speak to me depended on the suction speed that I decided to set the motor to during any particular pumping session.  

Examples of Utterly Stupid Phrases that My Breast Pump Spoke To Me:
  • "Have-some-get-some" (Translated: "Have some, get some")
  • "Not-da-ma-ma," (Translated: "Not the mama.")
  • "Ma-chu-Picc-hu" (Translated: "Machu Picchu")
My breast-pump only speaks in four-syllable words or phrases when it spoke.  I don't make the rules!  

I have considered therapy.  

Instead of therapy, I just tell myself that this was totally normal and that this would totally happen to anyone who hadn't slept for any duration longer than 2-hours for several days/weeks/months on end.  

(Don't answer that.)

Breast pumps deserve names too.

My breast pump's name is Ursula (I will explain why later in this post).  

And yes, I named my breast pump.  She deserves a name!  When I needed to manage my breast milk supply at 3:00 AM, it was Ursula (i.e., my breast pump) that would wake up with me.  It was my pump, Ursula, who kept me company at 3:00 AM while everyone else in my world was peacefully sleeping in their beds.  Ursula and I hung-out every 2-hours around the clock during my daughter's newborn phase.  She became my bestie.


Ursula the Breast Pump that Talks to Me - Funny
Ursula, the Breast Pump


My relationship with my breast pump went south when my breast pump turned into an evil sea witch.

My breast pump wasn't always named Ursula. She went weeks just being my nameless companion until one night, when she became an evil sea witch.  

Let me explain...

Do you remember the evil sea witch, Ursula, from the movie, "A Little Mermaid"?  

Well, one night, my breast pump started channeling the voice of Ursula, the evil sea witch.

It was about 4:30 AM one night and I was pumping away, and then, suddenly, for whatever reason, the subconscious part of my crazy brain somehow decided to pick out one of the four-syllabus movie lines said by the evil sea witch, Ursula, in the Disney cartoon movie, "The Little Mermaid."   For those of you who have seen the movie, "The Little Mermaid," you might remember the evil sea witch, Ursula, who had her two stupid sea-eel sidekicks who were named Flotsam and Jetsam.  In one of the scenes from the movie, Ursula, right before she sets out to attack the poor mermaid and Prince Erick, yells for her two eel sidekicks for backup; and then Ursula yells, "Flotsam! Jetsam!" in her evil sea witch voice.  Well, "Flotsam! Jetsam!" (syllables: flot-sam-jet-sam) is exactly what my brain decided that my breast pump was trying to tell me.  

(Yes, you read the above paragraph correctly.)

(I'm surprised you are actually still reading this.)

My breast pump turned into Ursula, the evil sea witch, every time I turned it on.  

It's like the damn thing was taunting me.  And the way that my breast pump said the names "Flotsam! Jetsam!" to me was in the exact same way that Ursula does in the actual movie (though my breast pump's channeling of Ursula's voice was slightly distorted and, obviously, way more robotic-sounding).  

See video below for the an example of the words of Ursula, the evil breast pump witch.

Turn to 0:45 in the video to hear the exact words/names that my breast-pump says:




This is all incredibly strange because I have not seen the movie, "The Little Mermaid," in over two decades. (Yes, I consider that to be the strange part).

(As I write this, I'm seriously second-guessing posting this at all, but I'll keep going anyway...)

In conclusion, there is apparently absolutely nothing serious that goes on in my brain.  

My sub-conscience's choices of words to attribute to a rhythmic pattern of noises seems to shed light on the fact that there really isn't anything of a noble or serious-nature going on in my brain.  This is somewhat humbling, as I would have preferred to go on believing that, at the root of my sub-conscience, stirs some deep and noble idea, or some sort of life-changing, four-syllable life revelation.

Instead, at one of the deepest roots of my sub-conscience, lies three Disney characters from under the sea. 


What has your breast pump said to you?


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