Work Trip

This week I had my first work trip on the new project. I had to go to Hartford, CT for two days worth of meetings. It meant flying in on Sunday and flying home on Tuesday. It wasn't supposed to be a big deal.

Well, apparently the East coast had their coldest temperatures since 1911 and the 'polar vortex' really messed with my travel plans. Instead of arriving in Hartford Sunday night at 10:30pm, I was diverted to JFK airport and landed at 1am. The airline didn't know what the next steps were going to be. There weren't regularly scheduled flights from JFK to Hartford even when the weather was good, so it was unlikely they were going to be able to get a flight out in the storm, especially with Hartford closed down. They started to talk about taxis, or buses, but didn't know when those would head out either. Essentially, they recommended that we stick around the terminal and just wait to see what they came up with. I wasn't fond of that idea. So instead, I tried to get my luggage and head out to stay with Spencer who recently moved to Brooklyn. They didn't release the luggage though, and so I left the airport empty handed and grabbed a taxi. By the time I arrived at Spencer's place it was 3am and I was in desperate need of using my breastpump. I had a hard time falling asleep since my brain was all wound up and after about 3 hours of sleep I was back up and getting ready to head back to JFK.

I rented a car and decided to drive to Hartford, I trusted myself more than any random taxi driver the airline was going to hire. It was actually a very nice drive and fun to see the NY city skyline as I drove over the bridge. I arrived in Hartford around 2pm and grabbed some lunch while I waited for my bag to arrive that was coming in on another flight. Turns out my bag never left Minneapolis (my layover) and so it was never in NY. I checked into my hotel around 3pm and was at the office by 4pm just in time to attend about an hour and a half of meetings before the day was done. I joined the team for dinner and then grabbed a drink after with some folks who wanted to go out. I was exhausted and in no mood for some wine but felt like I really should make an effort to spend time with the folks who I had traveled for 25 hours to see.

Before bed I was able to Skype with Foster and Ryan. It sounds like he had a fine time while I was gone so that was comforting. It would have been so much harder to deal with the travel snafus if I also knew that Foster was having a hard time. He even gave me a show of how he's dealing with his constipation while we were on the phone together...such funny faces.

The next morning I headed into the office for 4 hours of meetings before I had to leave for my flight to go back home. I spent much of the meetings with an ear bud in while I was on hold with the airline because my flight back appeared to be cancelled. Luckily my flights back worked out just fine and I was able to be home just an hour or two past when I was supposed to land.

Traveling for work is definitely a bigger commitment while breastfeeding. Finding places to pump and store milk is a big hassle I hadn't had to deal with before this trip. Being away from Foster was hard, but much easier than I was expecting since I was able to see him over Skype and know that he was doing well with Ryan and my parents. I'll likely have more trips with this project, but working from home the rest of the time makes it all worth it.