The Milk Memos: How Real Moms Learned to Mix Business with Babies-and How You Can, Too

Title: The Milk Memos
Author: Cate Colburn-Smith, Andrea Serrette
Genre: Nonfiction
Pages: 384
Edition: Paperback

Motherhood is a demanding, completely exhausting yet the most rewarding experience on the face of earth. There's a plethora of books about motherhood and child-care offering tons of parental wisdom to new parents. "Milk Memos" is one-of-a-kind book I recommend to any nursing mom. Though it primarily focuses on breastfeeding and how to balance motherhood and career, it offers insightful advice on subjects that matters to working moms such as finding the right day-care for your baby, getting a decent night's sleep and how to negotiate with your employer for part-time, flextime work. The story of how this book came into existence is quite interesting. "It all began when IBM manager Cate Colburn-Smith sat down in the company’s employee lactation room, shed a few silent tears, and wrote this on a paper towel: I’m a new mom and today is my first day back at work. Is anyone else using this room?" Fellow nursing moms at IBM responded and hence began to communicate with each other through notebooks offering support and sharing advice while pumping away in the former janitor's closet (turned into a lactation room). Being a nursing mom, I could relate to most of the stories and they often made me cry one minute and laugh hysterically the next. At times, it makes you feel empathetic. A sample journal entry: "You're not going to believe what happened to me this morning! I was in a team meeting because I'm the official note-taker. The meeting went on and on, and I kept hoping for a break, knowing I needed to pump. My boss whispered to me, "I think you're leaking." I was mortified. There were nine people in the room, and there were two wet circles on my shirt. One woman handed me some tissues. At first I thought that she wanted me to dab my shirt - as if that would help. Then she motioned to me that I should stuff them into my bra. Like I'm going to reach inside my shirt right there at the conference table! But I couldn't just get up and leave (God forbid - not with my boss)...All I wanted to do was pump, which totally made the leaking worse! By the time the meeting ended the small circles were big bull's eyes! Hope your day is going better than mine!". I am skeptical if any book on breastfeeding could be as entertaining and delightful as this one. Juggling between work and newborn is often challenging but can be done. And "Milk Memos" shows you how. A Wonderful book!
My Rating: 4.8/5