UPS and breastfeeding?

We returned from Gainesville around New Years—and since then, I’ve been camped out on the sofa in the den—most of the time with one of my breasts exposed—and sometimes both. For a while I was sitting there pumping with a baby beside me. Now—most of the time I am actually feeding the little monkey—if I’m not then I have fallen asleep—but I don’t actually “hang out” in the house topless on purpose. Now, I will get up to get something to drink, get the phone or sometimes go to the bathroom—all while BF Par—he’s heavier now, so it is a little difficult. Before I was unable to move around so freely because he was hooked up to oxygen—and so I would just sit there on the sofa for long periods of time.

Well, if you followed my Family of Riches blog you know that I developed an obsession for buying baby clothes on ebay. Because it is ebay—I never really knew when or how my items were being shipped to me. A lot of them were sent USPS and fit snuggly in my mailbox. But some were sent via UPS-and thus were brought to the door. At the same time, people were sending us baby presents—also arriving unannounced and via UPS (such delightful surprises!).
Just a tad more background and then I’ll get to the point…I run a small business out of my house and in the past I had told UPS & Fedex not to leave packages at my door—that someone needs to sign for it—no matter what. I’m sure you see where this is going.

So all these little packages start arriving via UPS and I’m camped out pumping or breastfeeding on the sofa—the only sofa that is in direct view of the front door. For the first month or so the UPS man would ring the bell—we’d make eye contact—he’d smile and wave a package not realizing my predicament. I’d try and motion to just leave it (but there isn’t a motion for “just leave it”) and so I’d get up, get dressed and hobble to the door with baby and oxygen tank in tow. We’d both apologize and he’d leave wondering why I couldn’t leave the baby on the sofa—and I wondered why he couldn’t just leave the package. I got better about getting to the door faster—until one day I answered the door with my bra-covered breast exposed in a nursing top—there is no discreet way to fix that. There have been a variety of other embarrassing moments with this particular UPS man—and I’m not sure when he ever realized what exactly is going on….but earlier this week I was expecting a package—I hadn’t seen our UPS man in a few weeks. I was sitting on the sofa fully clothed watching Par play. I saw someone at the door with there eyes covered with the box and an arm extended to the doorbell. I got up and approached the door. It was a different UPS man—obviously warned about what he might see. He never looked my way—I could have been topless—he never would have known. I thanked him for the delivery and he left—never having glanced my direction.
At first I was confused—and then I realized how sweet that was of our regular UPS guy.
How considerate that someone would take the time to warn them of a potentially awkward situation for all of us. Thanks UPS for going the extra mile!

On a side note, a well-meaning blog-reader commented to me that my new blog is nice and all but I seem to talk about breastfeeding all the time. Good point blog-reader—but this is a blog about breastfeeding.