For so many moms, there’s nothing like the support of other women who have been there — just ask Audrey Gelman.
The Wing co-founder and CEO, 32, welcomed her first child, son Sidney Allen, 10 weeks ago. And while traveling on Wednesday, the new mom got the most touching surprise when she ducked into the lactation room at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport.
In images posted to her Instagram account, Gelman showed off dozens of sticky notes in varying colors taped onto a mirror and wall inside the pod, bearing messages like, “You got this!”, “What you are doing is beyond amazing!”, “You are literally sustaining life with your incredible milk. Superhero-type stuff!” and more.
“Just walked into one of those airport lactation pods in laguardia and found it was covered with post-it messages from other moms. all of a sudden i felt flooded — the intensity of new motherhood, the stress of running a business i never thought would grow this fast — and the pressure i put on myself to do it all perfectly,” Gelman wrote.
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“The notes were sappy but they were the only things i needed to read in that moment. ‘you are enough’ ‘it gets better’ ‘feel proud of yourself for what you’ve created.’ those simple messages of encouragement and the recognition that so many have been through this before made me feel less alone,” she continued.
Other notes expressed gratitude to the Mamava company for supplying the rooms, with notes like, “Thank you for providing a private, quite place for breastfeeding mamas!” and “I can’t thank you enough for this pod.”
“The gratitude these women expressed for having a pod — a little, modest pod — in the sea of commerce and throngs of business travelers made me remember why i care so much about what i’ve created, and why it’s so important women have spaces to contain all this s— we do and feel in our lives that no one ever sees,” Gelman concluded her post.
Thanks to the Friendly Airports for Mothers Act (FAM) of 2017, as of October 2018, all large and medium U.S. airports must have a lactation room in each building. One of the requirements was that the lactation room be separate from the airport bathrooms.
Gelman, a P.R. consultant, recently posed in a photo shoot for Inc., as “the first visibly pregnant CEO on the cover of a business magazine,” she shared on Instagram.
She tied the knot with Genius.com co-founder Ilan Zechory in spring 2016, where her good friend Lena Dunham served as a bridesmaid. The couple said “I do” at Detroit’s Piquette Plant, a museum and former Ford factory.
Gelman announced the birth of their son on Sept. 24, sharing a photo of the newborn looking up at the camera, wearing a knit hat while lying on his hospital blanket.
“Sidney allen zechory (a.k.a ‘sid the kid,’ ‘sidney the kidney’) born at 2:18am 7lbs 11oz he is so beautiful we are over the moon,” the proud mama captioned her post.
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