‘How Will I Pump?’: When Your First Work Trip After Maternity Leave Is to Ukraine With President Biden
By Sabrina Siddiqui
March 8, 2023
The Wall Street Journal
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-ukraine-trip-russia-sabrina-siddiqui-868556ea
I had just dropped my 9-month-old daughter off at daycare on a Friday morning when I received a call to report to the White House for a private meeting. It was three days before I was set to travel with President Biden to Poland for a two-day visit tied to the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sitting inside White House communications director Kate Bedingfield’s office on Feb. 17, I was informed I would be one of two journalists to instead accompany Mr. Biden on a clandestine journey to Kyiv with a large segment of the journey occurring by train.
My first and primary question was how would I be able to pump breast milk. I had just returned to The Wall Street Journal’s Washington bureau from maternity leave the month prior and was still coping with leaving my baby, Sofia, for the first time. I had never spent a night away from her and was already anxious at the thought of going to Poland. Now I was being told that I would be traveling to a war zone via train and that we would depart from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland the following night. As the only two reporters on the trip, Evan Vucci of the Associated Press and I would be sworn to secrecy and allowed to inform only our spouses and one editor at our news organizations of the plans. Our cellphones would be confiscated for almost the entire trip. While previous presidents had made wartime visits to Iraq and Afghanistan, this was unprecedented. The U.S. military doesn’t control the situation on the ground in Ukraine, and the journey wasn’t without its risks.
Tamara Keith, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, was at the meeting and asked if I was up for the assignment given that I had a baby at home. The association coordinates the rotation of print outlets to do “pool” duty on foreign travel (writing dispatches to share with other news organizations), and the Journal was up next.
“I can do it, but I really just need to be able to pump,” I said. “That’s nonnegotiable.” The conversation shifted from the logistics of Mr. Biden’s trip to the logistics of my ability to pump. There would be electrical outlets on the train, but there was no guarantee they would work, and the pump I used could only be operated if plugged into a power supply. Barring our laptops, all Bluetooth-enabled devices would be taken from us because of security considerations so even several rechargeable wireless pumps were off limits. Ms. Bedingfield said to follow up with her on the exact model so that she could raise it during trip planning. I was amused that my pump would be among the many details to be sorted out in the president’s highly confidential trip to Ukraine. But I was also grateful that Ms. Bedingfield and Ms. Keith, both working moms themselves, understood.
While preparing for the trip, I realized I wouldn’t be able to look at photos and videos of Sofia on my phone while pumping—a common way to express more milk—and dispatched my husband, Ali, to a CVS to print some of my favorite photos of her. I packed the brown bear lovey that helped get her through her four-month nap regression and her favorite rubber ducky to keep her close. Sofia was asleep when I left late Saturday night so at bedtime I lingered by her crib a little longer. Nearly two days without a single update on how she was doing seemed unbearable, but I reminded myself she would be in good hands with Ali.
At Andrews, an aide asked for our devices but said they were aware of my pump. A skeleton White House staff and heavy security presence filled the plane. We didn’t see Mr. Biden and took off at 4:15 a.m., the dead of night. I pumped during the flight and fretted about the impact of the many time-zone changes and overall stress level on my milk supply. While rummaging through my purse, I found a handwritten letter from Ali telling me how proud Sofia would be one day. After a brief refueling stop at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, we landed in Rzeszów in Poland. I asked the flight attendants to store my breast milk in the fridge. How lucky was I to have the option.
The nerves crept in as we officially embarked for Ukraine. I reminded myself that there was arguably no safer mode of travel than with the president of the United States. Every contingency has been planned for. Still, a part of me wondered if something might go wrong. I grabbed Sofia’s lovey and rubber ducky and Ali’s letter and stuffed them into my jacket pockets. I wanted them on my person so that, should something highly unusual happen, people would know what mattered to me the most.
An hour long motorcade brought us from Rzeszów to the Przemyśl Główny train station, not far from the Polish-Ukrainian border. It was quiet, and only a handful of oblivious passengers stood on the opposite platform awaiting another train. Our train crossed the border within an hour. I had a sleeper cabin to myself, and there was little to see from the window in the dark. I pumped every three hours while working, too full of adrenaline to close my eyes. We were looked after by a kind Polish attendant who spoke little English. Thankfully, she had her phone, and I arranged through Google Translate for her to store my breast milk in the fridge.
As we approached Kyiv, the sun had risen and the air was crisp. We got our first glimpse of Mr. Biden as he stepped off the train and declared, “It’s good to be back in Kyiv.” Ukrainian troops lined the perimeter of our first stop, Mariinsky Palace, the ceremonial residence of President Volodymyr Zelensky. As he and Mr. Biden shook hands outside, I asked Mr. Biden about the significance of visiting the capital one year after Russia’s invasion, and he reflected on how it was his eighth visit to Kyiv. “Each time more significant” than the last, he said. The two leaders delivered joint remarks from an ornate reception room and later walked the streets of Kyiv as air-raid sirens blared in what a local reporter told me was a common occurrence.
By the time we made our final stop at the U.S. Embassy, photos and videos of Mr. Biden in Kyiv had surfaced on social media. The embargo had been broken, and I was handed a U.S. government MiFi to dispatch my pool reports. When we boarded the train once more, it felt as though a weight had been lifted. Although we still had 10 hours to go and a flight to Warsaw, the journey back felt a lot less fraught. We left Rzeszów nearly 40 hours after departing from Andrews.
When all was said and done, I thought about what Sofia might make of this trip one day. There was much to unpack and a lot yet to know about the historic impact of Mr. Biden’s visit. But all I could think of was what it meant to experience it all as a working mom and the many roles and responsibilities we are tasked with on any given day. I am no longer just a journalist, I am also Sofia’s mom. She occupies permanent real estate in my mind. And so just as my thoughts were filled with the sights and sounds of Kyiv, as with most parents they were also consumed with whether Sofia had eaten and slept well and if she could sense my absence. From Warsaw, I tweeted a photo of my breast milk with a quip about how it was the only souvenir I had for Sofia from Kyiv. I didn’t anticipate the overwhelming response. Another journalist responded that my photo was a testament to how much had changed since she and other working moms had to hide in bathrooms and closets to pump or risk losing out on assignments.
In some ways, my ability to pull off this trip in this particular phase of life could be seen as a testament to how far we’ve come. But I was also aware that I had been given the resources, however grueling and bizarre the journey, that enabled me to pump and store my milk without issue. What a difference it makes when working moms are inside the room to make decisions. And as a new mom, it was a good reminder that motherhood doesn’t come at the expense of our jobs but makes us stronger to do them. Although Sofia is far too young to realize any of it, when she is someday old enough, I hope if she has one takeaway from her mother’s trip to Kyiv with the president, it is what working moms are capable of.
Write to Sabrina Siddiqui at sabrina.siddiqui@wsj.com