Sept. 03--Leah Sauvage is the mother of two daughters, ages 5 and 5 months.
Her story is about breast-feeding, but it's more than that. It's about a particular moment, one we all know, when someone presents you with an obstacle and you have to do the mental gymnastics wondering whether -- with all the things going on in your life -- it's worth standing up for yourself.
Sauvage decided it was.
"I just don't want young mothers who might not have the same support system I have to feel discouraged and give up breast-feeding because they have been told their choice is inconvenient," said Sauvage, 34. "I'm not against giving formula as long as it doesn't affect my production. But I don't want to give up nursing for anybody other than my child."
And that's where her story begins.
Sauvage is a freshman English and humanities teacher at Homewood-Flossmoor High School in suburban Flossmoor. She's also working on a master's degree in education at Concordia University Chicago in River Forest. She has three more courses to take, including the one she's enrolled in now, before she graduates in December.
Her class meets once a week for four hours during the evening. Before the class started a couple of weeks ago, she sent an email to her professor asking if she could extend the 10-minute break that the class gets so that she can express her breast milk. The break is the only one during the entire class.
"I said, 'Just so you're aware, I'm an exclusively breast-feeding mother and, just like I do during the school day, I will need to excuse myself to express my milk. This will take about 20 to 25 minutes from start to finish,' " she told me.
Sauvage copied her academic adviser on the email, hoping someone would direct her to a nearby empty classroom so that she could pump in private and wouldn't take much time away from class.
"That's when I got an email from the department chair," Sauvage said. "The email never used the words breast-feeding. It said, 'I respect that you're making plans for your current situation.' My current situation? Then (the department chair) totaled up the time I'd be going for pumping and said I would be missing 200 minutes over the eight weeks, and that I wouldn't be successful (in class). So she encouraged me to take the class online. She said her job was to advocate for me, but also for the educational process."
Eric Matanyi, Concordia's assistant vice president for communications, told me that the suggestion was meant simply to offer up another option.
"It was to inform her of the other alternatives available to her," said Matanyi.
Sauvage said it didn't seem that way at the time. She said she was stunned and wondered why the initial response would be for her to leave the classroom environment.
The other problem, she said, was that Homewood-Flossmoor High School District 233 doesn't accept online classes.
"That would have rendered my degree useless," Sauvage said.
She did her own math and figured that the 200 minutes was less than one four-hour class. The syllabus had said that students could be given an F grade if they missed two or more classes.
"I would be missing less than one class stretched out over eight weeks," she said.
She then considered her options: Her husband was willing to drive the 45 minutes from their home in Homewood to River Forest with their daughter to nurse.
"I even jokingly told my adviser that I would be happy to bring my baby monitor with me and leave it in the class and I could listen in as I pumped," she said.
Sauvage said she was determined not to drop the class, take it online or pump in the bathroom -- which the department chair told her she had done years before.
So Sauvage waited.
"I told my adviser that if I had a room, I could pump before class started and extend my break by five or 10 minutes," she said. "I was determined to make this work."
It wasn't an epic battle. Altogether, Sauvage said it took three days, three phone calls and two emails before things were settled. More importantly, it took resolve, finding the energy in a busy life to fight the little battles that count.
Matanyi said that in learning that Homewood-Flossmoor didn't accept online courses, Concordia decided to make accommodations for Sauvage.
"We provided her with access to a private locked room that is in a pre-existing facility used for that purpose," he said. "That room is most often used by mothers who have students in our early childhood education center."
He said that Sauvage's professor and department chair are allowing her to take longer mid-class breaks to accommodate her needs.
Sauvage said she's pleased with the outcome, and that her professor has been extremely accommodating. But she wonders what would have happened if she'd simply acquiesced.
"My biggest purpose in my life is to make sure my children are alive and well, and I need a career, and my education helps me do that," she said. "You always ask yourself if you need one more thing to worry about, one more fight. Sometimes you do."
dmturner@tribpub.com
