She pumped her breastmilk in the locker room at the police station.

Shirt askew, horn-shaped pump parts - technically called breastshields - held up to the breasts while a pump hums loudly, using suction to express breastmilk into small bottles.

Pumping breastmilk is worthwhile, but it isn't particularly dignified.

Stephanie Hicks had been an officer with the Tuscaloosa Police Department since 2008. After her son Will was born in August 2012, she was back at work three months later.

Like many working mothers, she needed a couple of breaks per day to pump breastmilk for her infant son.

"Pumping in the locker room was awful," said Hicks. "Sitting there by the shower stall, where the dispatchers and the public could walk in. Somebody was always asking what I was doing."

Her supervisors would not let her pump anywhere other than the locker room, even though the Affordable Care Act (passed in 2010) requires employers to provide reasonable break times for expressing breast milk and "a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public."

Hicks said inevitably she'd go down to the locker room to pump when she'd get a call on her radio from her fellow officers, telling her to "wrap those boobs up" because it was time to execute a search warrant. She'd have to stop what she was doing and head back to work.

The morning she returned to work from maternity leave, Hicks was written up twice for perplexingly minor infractions. Eight days later, she was demoted from investigator back to patrol with a decrease in pay, loss of vehicle and the requirement to work nights and weekends.

She received low marks on a performance evaluation, which included the time period when she was on maternity leave, even though all of her evaluations before her maternity leave had been glowing.

Her requests to be placed in a temporary desk job that would make it easier to pump were denied.

Two months after returning to work, Hicks quit the force.

"I felt defeated," said Hicks. "Breastfeeding is hard enough in itself, especially your first time. You finally get the hang of it and then you face all these obstacles. And to have zero support, you feel almost embarrassed - like why am I even doing this?"

In November 2013, Hicks sued the City of Tuscaloosa, claiming the police department created a hostile work environment and was not willing to accommodate her breastfeeding needs.

Last month a federal jury agreed, awarding her $374,000 in damages.

'Friends with everybody'

Hicks is a Tuscaloosa native. She was drawn to police work because she likes to interact with people - she used to work in real estate - and wanted a way "to change people's lives." She joined the Tuscaloosa Police force in 2008 and spent time in the narcotics division, doing undercover work. She was promoted to investigator in November 2011.

A few months later, she and her husband Matt, who is also an officer with the Tuscaloosa PD, discovered they were expecting their first child.

When Hicks told her captain she was pregnant, he told her the department didn't have any policies or procedures in place for pregnant employees.

Because most narcotics agents work on call and often don't know what kinds of situations they could encounter, Hicks' captain assigned her to the less-hazardous pharmaceuticals unit, mainly working on prescription forgeries and assisting other narcotics agents.

Hicks told her captain she planned to take 12 weeks maternity leave - the full amount of leave protected under the Family and Medical Leave Act. She experienced some pushback from her sergeant, but the paperwork was signed and approved by her supervisors.

She was still making arrests and building cases up until her last day at work. Her son Will was born August 23, 2012.

"At that point, I had no indication that I was in trouble or I was doing something wrong," said Hicks. "I was friends with everybody there."

While she was on maternity leave, another agent gave her a call. He said he'd heard two supervisors discussing a plan to write her up for some infraction immediately after she returned from maternity leave.

It happened just as he said. Within minutes of arriving at work her first day back, she was written up for failing to change the oil in her patrol car. Court documents point out that nobody had ever been written up for failing to change the oil; it wasn't even the duty of a police officer. She was also written up for obtaining too many warrants, even though - according to court documents - nothing in the policy books of the city, the police department or the narcotics division prevents an agent from obtaining a certain number of warrants.

Hicks said she thought the infractions were bogus, but was willing to move forward. "I took it all like, OK I've got to be on my best behavior."

No private space

New mothers are encouraged by pediatricians, hospitals and nearly every major medical organization in the world to breastfeed their babies.

Breastfeeding has been deemed so important that federal law says nursing mothers must be given the opportunity to take pumping breaks and that employers have to provide a clean, private, non-bathroom room in which to pump.

Despite that, the Tuscaloosa Police Department told Hicks she had to pump in the locker room, which was open to all department employees and the general public.

"I remember specifically a janitor and a dispatcher that would question me all the time," said Hicks.

Here's what pumping looks like: You take your pump bag into the pump room and assemble the pump and its parts - including bottles, valves, connectors and breastshields. You'll have to bare your breasts and position the breastshields correctly, then turn on the noisy battery-powered pump, which creates suction to express the milk through the shields and into bottles attached to the shields.

It's not a quick process. Milk let-down takes a couple of minutes, and for best results you've got to pump for around 15 to 20 minutes - making sure you're holding the shields in place just-so the entire time. Then you've got to transfer the bottle of milk into a cooler bag or refrigerator to keep it from spoiling. You'll wash the pump parts afterwards, if you've got access to a clean sink, or store them in the bag to wash later.

Hicks would head down to the locker room and get set up, but would hear the admonition to "wrap those boobs up" on her police radio and have to stop what she was doing. She often wondered whether her fellow agents were scheduling field work right when she took pump breaks.

'Excuse after excuse'

Before her maternity leave, Hicks said she'd always gotten positive work evaluations, with "exceeds expectations" coming up frequently.

Six days after Hicks returned to work, she was reassigned to patrol duty, which meant lower pay, and she'd be working nights and weekends instead of the 8 a.m.-4 p.m. schedule she had as an investigator. She would also lose the use of a patrol vehicle.

When Hicks met with the chief, who told her she was being reassigned to patrol, she said, "I was crying, I don't understand. I was doing a perfect job, then I went and had a child, and now tell me what I've done."

She spoke with the chief, with her narcotics supervisor and her sergeant to ask why she was being reassigned to patrol.

"Excuse after excuse," she said. "Nobody thought I would question them. I got a different response and they were each blaming each other for this or that."

In a 2014 deposition, Captain Wayne Robertson gave reasons for her reassignment which included the write-ups (for not replacing the patrol vehicle's oil and for obtaining the extra warrants), not seeming like herself, not being available when needed or being late to a meeting, and not contacting informants. All of these incidents or concerns happened within the two weeks after she returned to work.

According to the suit, on Dec. 13, 2012, Hicks overheard her sergeant talking to her captain "about trying to write her up for failing to do something she had already done, but that she would find another way to write her up. Captain Robertson said in response, 'f**k her, I'll take care of her, she's not staying here.'"

The Tuscaloosa Police Department declined to comment on any aspect of the case because it is still in litigation.

Bullet-proof

The last straw was the bullet-proof vest. Being bumped back to patrol meant Hicks would have to wear a snug-fitting bullet-proof vest on duty. Investigators - the job Hicks previously held -rarely have to wear them.

Hicks worried the tight vest would restrict her milk supply and said so to her captain. Her obstetrician said he thought the constant compression from the vest would certainly reduce her milk supply and put her at risk of mastitis, a painful infection of the breast tissue. He sent a letter to Hick's chief stating as much.

By that point, the stress of the demotion, loss of pay, the poor evaluations and the harassment from her colleagues sent Hicks to her department's counselor, who recommended she take some sick days and consider getting evaluated for post-partum depression.

The day before her patrol duty was to start, she met again with the chief who said her options were to not wear the vest - which would be "a death wish" said Hicks - or wear it an oversized vest loosely, which would be unsafe. She could also quit breastfeeding. Or she could quit.

Hicks said her supervisors would not consider a temporary reassignment to a desk job that wouldn't require a vest.

Hicks resigned in January 2013.

Going to trial

"On paper I had done nothing wrong, and the only thing that had changed was I had a baby and was breastfeeding," said Hicks. "I worked hard and I didn't want to throw that away because I have a family now."

Hicks never planned to be a stay-at-home mother. In the months following her resignation from the police force, she and her husband had to sell one of their cars, refinance their house and pull money from her pension. She took a part-time job as a fitness instructor at a gym that offered childcare.

In November 2013, she filed a lawsuit in district court against the City of Tuscaloosa. The case went to trial in February 2016.

"People can't look at breastfeeding working mothers as second-class citizens," said Hicks. "You shouldn't have to be made to choose.

"Once we got going and realized we were going to go to trial, I thought, we're going to see this through to the end," she said. "If we lose, I will appeal. Somebody's got to make a difference. That's really all I was hoping to do."

During the trial, breastfeeding advocates and supporters gathered outside the courthouse.

"So many people have reached out to me and said they were treated similarly, whether they were paramedics or teachers or bank tellers," said Hicks. "They all say the same thing: I was afraid, I couldn't afford to quit my job, I didn't want to be retaliated against.

"Fighting the system is very hard."

A federal jury agreed a hostile work environment forced Hicks to quit, violating the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and awarded her $374,000 in damages.

The city is appealing the verdict.

There is now a private room for nursing mothers to pump at the police department, and two at Tuscaloosa's City Hall.

Next chapter

Hicks' husband quit the Tuscaloosa PD just before the trial, after 10 years on the force. Hicks said his work environment had grown increasingly hostile in the months leading up to the trial.

"It's really shameful, because we both love being police officers," said Hicks. "Because I chose to breastfeed our son, we had to lose both our careers.

"We wouldn't change it for anything. We just never knew it would end like this."

The couple now has another son, Henry, who is 10 months old. They've been looking at other employment options; Hicks' husband currently works for a relative's pest control business and Hicks continues to teach fitness classes at the gym. Her husband would like to find something in his field, although Hicks doubts he will be able to find a job with a nearby police department.

The outpouring of support the family has received over the past few years has convinced Hicks the lawsuit was the right thing to do.

"It felt really good to know that other people could see what I dealt with," she said. "When you file a lawsuit, you're mad and hurt and confused, and three years is a long time to wait for somebody to tell you that you were right and you shouldn't have been treated that way.

"It wasn't easy, but I'm glad we did it."