Mother Unexpected

Can you tell that I was pregnant?

Hold the phone. You heard me right. I was a pregnant bride. Wasn’t really planned that way, honestly, it was barely planned at all. I wasn’t prepared for the shit storm that it caused either. It’s funny how everyone else seems to have a say in something so personal.

There were a lot of things going on in our life. We found out we were pregnant with K-Kitten in February, we were looking for a home to buy for almost a year and being pregnant kicked that hunt up a notch. We had just found a nice little home on a half acre of land and put in an offer. After fighting back and forth offer after offer for another home we seen this one and decided it was worth a try. They were asking 65k which was outside of our budget, but we decided all they could do was tell us no. We offered 60k if they would put 3% toward our closing. They accepted.

Just after we found out they accepted our offer we got a call that my Mammy (my paternal grandmother) was on her way to the hospital. To make a long and agonizing story short, she had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke and she never got to see her great-grandbaby. The day of her funeral… we signed on our house.

The next day Father Unexpected and I were sitting in my Mammy’s house and looking through her old pictures and things with my parents when we started talking about our plans to get married. We had been together for 8 years and it never really came up in conversation, mostly because it didn’t really make much difference to me if we had a piece of paper or not. FU suggested that we get married. I was completely opposed to the idea at first. Not only did I not want to get married only “because I was pregnant”, but I didn’t want to get married pregnant. Especially 7 months pregnant, I felt ugly and not at all bride material.

The Kiss

Finally we decided that we would go ahead with it. All I wanted was pictures and a dress. My mother made my dress for me just like I always envisioned that she would (although I had to rethink the style). In total we spent two weeks and $600 on our entire wedding. We had a very small ceremony at our state park where we grew up and an open reception/pot-luck at my mom’s home after. Our wedding ceremony lasted all of 10 minutes and I think that only one of us said vows. We didn’t record it, as this was something that apart from photos we wanted to remember ourselves.

I remember when we were planning everything that I got to where I didn’t even want to tell anyone that I was getting married, because of the conclusions everyone went immediately to. I’ve never had more people ask me if “I was sure” that I was doing the right thing. Just because I was pregnant didn’t mean that I didn’t love him the last eight years of my life and that it made getting married any different. We just faced the facts that paternity paperwork doesn’t exist when you’re married, and with a dependent there was no tax problems as a married couple that we would have been faced with had we been married without a child.

Now can you tell?

Why didn’t you wait? That’s probably the biggest question I get asked. I didn’t wait, because we didn’t want to. We didn’t want the added stress of having a new baby in the house and trying to plan something so monumental. We wanted to do something just for us before the baby arrived, we wanted to have this moment after so much heartache, if only to reconfirm our already unwavering love for each other.

Would you do it again if you could do it over? Yes, in a heartbeat. K-Kitten got to be a very big part of my special day. We danced with our unborn daughter at our wedding…. how much better does it get?

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My dedication to NaBloPoMo sucked this weekend. I just don’t do responsibility well on my few days that I have so few. I’m going to try to figure out a way to write the posts and schedule them for next weekend. Sorry, I’m pushing myself to do better

… I keep stopping and coming back to blogging. It’s not that I don’t love to write, or that I don’t love to put information out there that I think is important. I just feel like I keep knocking on the door an nobody’s home. I know there’s hits out there and I know people find me, but I guess it comes down to feeling important. There are some amazing people out there with super followings, super wit, super information. I don’t want to be the copy-cat, I don’t want to make this a full-time gig. I just hope that I can help a few people along the way.

I think I know why I started blogging in the first place. I wanted somewhere to talk about the things that have changed my life so significantly that I could no longer stand along the sidelines and just wait for the game to playself out. Most importantly, I realized that women can and should be encouraged and empowered to become who they really are and stand up for that person they find. I started blogging so others could share, feel, and to become part of a group larger than just myself.

Sometimes I feel that I’ve not accomplished that goal, but moments later I remember that I’ve been touched by people that I’ve found through my research, articles I’ve read in my search for answers, and I’ve shared these people with my world (however small it may be). It makes it all worth it. My family makes it all worth it…

You, make it all worth it. I will continue on.

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I’ve been a little down and out and had pretty much decided to stop blogging before yesterday. However, I’ve realized that every little thing that gets out has it’s place in the world and even if I only reach one person, then the reason I started this whole venture has been fulfilled.

It’s not clothes, or pumps, special little slings, or pillows. Aside from the hungry baby (that’s a pretty obvious pre-requisite right?), mothers need little more than support! Support from family, friends, hospital staff, and anyone else a person could think of. Without support, breastfeeding can become a minefield of self-doubt, problems, questions, and frustration that some mothers can traverse alone, but many others fall prey to the situation. Often, a mother feels that it’s her fault if a breastfeeding relationship does not take off or go well.

Let’s define support when we’re talking about breastfeeding. Supporting a breastfeeding mother goes a little farther than just supporting the mother. Breastfeeding support has to look a little beyond what the mother sees and help encourage and guide her to the information she needs. Sometimes, support will entail supporting a mother’s decision to stop breastfeeding after a long and arduous journey. More commonly however, it’s the job of our support system to encourage us, remind us that we’re amazing, help us find information and answers to questions that we need, and a heaping of understanding.

For some of us support comes from family and friends, for others it comes from classes and lactation consultants, and for fewer still sheer self-determination and the information required to accomplish the task is all that is required.

In our part of the world, breastfeeding has became one of those things that everyone talks about being so great, but when it comes to action there aren’t quite as many positive remarks to be found. For some people, they know breastfeeding is great, but only if you do it at home, or in bathrooms, or if you stop by a certain age. Go beyond those boundaries and suddenly you find yourself at odds with the world (in you own mind at least and maybe part of the world anyway), making it more important to seek out individuals that will continue to support your goals and wishes. Until the societal views on breastfeeding and it’s appropriateness changes, support will continue to be a thing that needs to be found, instead of something that is assumed.

It does not matter if your goal is to breastfeed for one month, six, a year, or more. It does not matter if you want to exclusively pump, never pump, or part-time formula feed. Support is the single greatest thing to have in your arsenal to help you meet or even exceed those goals.

The decision of breastfeeding is enough to be a life-changing experience. It comes during a time when a whole slew of other life changing experiences are about to occur. Especially for first time mothers, the unknown of motherhood and life with baby can be enough to make anyone’s head spin. It’s really nice to have someone there to hold you up while you’re still dizzy.

If you find yourself in the role of the supporter, thank you.

It’s been one year ago today since I went into labor with K-Kitten. I woke up at 6 am having contractions, went to the hospital at midnight, and gave birth to my darling daughter at 3:24am on the 15th.

I can still remember everything about this day. It makes it so hard to believe it has really been a year. The day I waited impatiently for, then wished I had just a little more time. The day Father Unexpected was gone to work for a 24 hour shift.

I remember going to work. Not able to drive, someone had to come get me. I remember downloading music to pass the time, I remember listening to that music in my hospital bed.

Has it really been a year? The calendar says it has. My beautiful baby has grown into a walking, babbling, all around wonderful toddler. And I couldn’t be more proud. It’s funny, mo matter how hard you try to hold on to those newborn/infant moments, you always want more time.

Since K-Kitten’s birthday is actually tomorrow, we will all celebrate then. Today I celebrate something different. I celebrate my pregnancy, my anticipation, and all those things that only another mother could understand.

Happy birthday baby… You’re not a baby anymore. And it’s bittersweet.

K-kitten is almost 11 months old now and I’m still breastfeeding. I’ve been back to work now full-time outside of the home since she was the tender age of six weeks. I’ve pumped at work and been able to provide her with enough breastmilk to avoid having to supplement with any formula while I’m away from her. I wanted to share some of the things I have discovered and learned from this journey to hopefully help other pumping/working moms stay encouraged and hopeful.

1)She ate more than I pumped. It terrified me, I was 100% positive that I needed to pump at least as much or more than she was eating at every feeding to keep up. Some days she was eating 18 or 19 ounces of milk when at best I was only bringing home about 16. At that rate, our small freezer supply would die out and I would have to bring in outside nutrition (in the form of formula).

Then I made a fantastic discovery! I asked her caregivers to note what time she ate and how much for a couple of days. I also asked them to kind of notate what she was doing and why they decided to give her a bottle (these were family members, so I really wasn’t being too mean I hope). I discovered that she was eating a lot more with them than she would have nursed if I were home all that day. I also discovered that sometimes she wouldn’t finish the bottles entirely.

I had been putting milk in 3 ounces at a time in bags, so my first step was to reduce that. I made 2 ounce and 1 ounce bags in addition to always making 3 ounce bags. It made for a little more work, but it was a lot less disheartening to throw out less “liquid gold” and warm up a little more if she wanted it.

The kicker was: I asked my caregivers to try to distract before assuming hunger. I didn’t say don’t give her the bottle, but if it had only been an hour since she had a good 3 or 4 ounce bottle and she stops crying when you pick her up and go outside. Chances are she was just bored.

Doing these things, and encouraging her to nurse more at night (reverse cycle), she went from an 18 ounce during workday barracuda to a 10 ounce or less perfectly happy and healthy infant. She passed all of her well-baby checks with flying colors!

2)Finding the time (or the place) to pump at work. I work in a predominately male field/office. Talking to the boss-men about pumping breastmilk was the second hardest thing I’ve ever talked to them about (being pregnant being numero uno). I felt like it was going to be terribly hard for them to understand how important this was to me and my family. I was surprised.

Just the simple act of talking to them before I officially came back to work allowed them to mention it to a few of my co-workers who would later be the offices I “occupied” when I needed the space and privacy. No one questioned it, and no one still questions it.

I had to get brave. Working in the field a lot I’ve had to walk up to complete strangers everywhere from hospitals to small offices and ask to borrow a room with and outlet and explain why I needed it. While not all of them had a quick answer for me, they all helped me out in any way they could. A male manager even stood outside an break room door for me while I pumped since it had no lock and they had no other room to offer me.

3)I’ll never be able to pump more for when she’s bigger. I was sure watching all my friends children grow up and go to increasingly larger bottles of formula that I would never be able to keep up milk production for bottles like that.

Funny thing is, she’s never needed a bottle like that. She’s still using the little four ounce nursers she’s had since she was a tiny one and at most she’ll take about 6 ounces. She’s 11 months old, eats limited solids, and still only eats anywhere from 8 to 15 ounces of breastmilk a day while I’m at work. She nurses the most at night.

4)I’ll never be able to function at work if she nurses all night. I thought if I had to keep feeding her at night I would be a zombie or worse during the day. When she was really small and she slept in her crib most of the night, I can say that was partially true, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had imagined. Then one day I took her to bed with me in the guest room. We have been there ever since.

She eats when she wants and I sleep to my heart’s content. I was so scared of her falling out of bed that I still sleep in the guest room where it’s a daybed with a trundle bed underneath (a second pull out bed). I pull the second bed out partially at night so if she does decide to go adventuring she just scoots off like a cushy staircase (by the way it does work, she can climb up and down it on purpose now).

Sometimes we still start out in her crib and end up in bed, I could probably return her to her crib anytime she was done nursing, but to be honest, I’m just too lazy for that. I enjoy staying right where I am and not having to fully wake up.

5)Getting over the stigma, criticism, dirty looks, etc. I hate it when people don’t understand what you’re doing and don’t care to try. On my last point in this post, it has to be the hardest to try to explain and give advice on.

People are mean, ignorant, and sometimes all-around self-righteous. I’m not saying everyone is, and I’m not saying anyone is stupid or doing it just because. I’m saying that there are people in this world that do not care if you feel you are doing what is best for yourself and/or your child and have no bad feelings about telling you exactly how they feel about it.

But in that paragraph, I have also given the answer. How they feel about it does not mean you have to feel the same way. You have no obligation to anyone but yourself for your own personal feelings. The best way to deal with those other things, is to simply educate with a small tidbit of factual information, politely accept criticism, reinforce that you do not have to accept their point of view, and carry on about your business.

You do not have to have a debate in the supermarket check-out line, you do not have to explain yourself, and you most certainly do not have to stop.

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Have you encountered problems with breastfeeding/pumping at work that I haven’t mentioned here? Did you do things differently? What worked for you.

Father Unexpected mentioned to me Sunday night that he was “glad I let them put the fetal monitors on”. We were talking about K-Kittens birth (what I remember of it) since his brother and his wife are expecting a little one now. It broke my heart to hear that. I asked him why, because I was only in the hospital 3 hours before I gave birth and I know that they weren’t getting very good readings, because my nurses were scolding me every ten minutes saying that they couldn’t get a baseline.

FU just said that he could read it just fine, and I feel like he’s full of shit. Yeah, he’s in emergency medicine, but sorry sweetheart, you don’t read fetal monitors for a living. An EKG maybe (he’s not even really read those he’s only EMT-B) but not a fetal heart rate monitor. Then we got to talking about my dose of Staydol. He said well “I figured you were ready, you told me to go get your nurse. I asked if you were ready?”

I wasn’t ready for pain meds! So I don’t remember my baby crying and talked about boob on the videos of my baby’s first hours in this world, because my husband decided that a woman in transition needed pain meds. And my nurse didn’t ask me, she just gave them to me. I’m not sure how to get over this one. It’s been going on 11 months since my daughter’s birth and I’m sitting here crying over it again. Here I am thinking all over again I don’t ever want to have another baby. I. Do. Not. Want. That. Again.

Why do I have to live in a state that has no such thing as homebirth midwives? That has no such thing as women-centered… anythings? Why do I have to have a husband that thinks that me not wanting to have a fetal monitor is irresponsible and that I should do anything and everything any doctor and nurse says because our baby is more important than anything that has to do with me. Disclaimer: That’s very blown out of proportion, but that’s exactly how I’m feeling right now.

Why do I have to compromise my feelings because of this?

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I’m hurt today. I’m sad, and I’m hurt. Really considering never having another child & I was just starting to warm up to the idea of another. There are going to be long talks in this household before another baby is on the way. When do the feelings of regret and anger go away!? I’m dying here.

I’ve been getting a little off-topic lately. I try to keep everything to pregnancy and being a mother, but there’s just been a lot going on recently. In honor of the totally-hot-n-awesome Gina, of TheFeministBreeder, getting her BFP I wanted to share my positive result story from when I found out about K-Kitten being on her way. I found myself so incredibly happy for her, and hoping someday I get to be as excited (at least not crying) when I find out as her, instead of a trainwreck — keep chuggin’ along and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

The day we found out -- 6 weeks 1 day

I was told a LOOOOOONG time ago, by various doctors and such, that I would probably never have children. It was suspected that I had endometrial damage that would not allow implant. Now of course, I know that no one knew for sure, they were just spouting off guesses. I had been on Depo-Provera and was told that being on it so long (4 1/2 years) could lead to difficulties, including the new thing they had discovered which was permanent bone density loss.

I had severe cramping and theatrical bleeding when I was not on birth control, but everything I went on after the shot seemed to make it worse. Father Unexpected and I had been dating for four years, living together and what-not, so I decided to stop all birth control methods. In the first year (end of 2005) I was pretty open to the idea of having a baby. I figured if I could get pregnant I would and tah-dah in your face Mr. Dr. Man. Unfortunately, the year passed and no sign of baby.

My period straightened out that year, you could set a clock by me. I don’t know if it was the years of not having a period, or just finally getting it’s head on straight, but everything seemed ok. Shame, Shame on me, I hadn’t been visiting a doctor for anything since I turned 17 because I lost my medical insurance and made too much money as a full-time student to qualify for any assistance.

No baby in 06-07-08 — I never so much as went back on the pill. By the time 2009 rolled around, we were looking to buy a home, I had finished college in 07, and we had a pretty decent (albeit poor) life. We had a couple of “coming to Jeebus”es over our relationship, and we were stronger than ever in our relationship (although we’ve always had our issues to constantly work through). In January, I really began thinking about going back on the pill or something, I could not fathom having a child now, even though it seemed highly unlikely that I would ever get pregnant.

Now that I had insurance, I decided I would do it as soon as I went for my annual in March.

I was working on a phone system for a company that was moving to a new building in February. I was due to start my period on the 10th, it was the 13th and I still hadn’t started. I felt some cramping — period-like pain and I just shrugged it off as a little late. By the 16th I looked in the mirror and realized holy hell, my boobs are huge and they tingle! I was working at this little place that they didn’t even have the heat turned on yet, and I still had to run out to the car, IMMEDIATELY go to Walmart and pick up a pack of pregnancy tests.

I rip that thing open in the Walmart bathroom. Then I nearly faint as the DARKEST EVER extra line pops up on the thing to make the little + sign. There was no, maybe it’s a fluke. Suddenly, I’m completely terrified! I’m a grown woman, sobbing in the bathroom stall at Walmart. I shoulda known better than to take the thing while I was still working. I had to finish the day of work in that cold ass building and couldn’t even bring myself to smoke. I had to throw them away when I found out it was positive — in hindsight, I should have waited to take any test with Father Unexpected, so I wouldn’t have had all this worrying and stressing to deal with.

I was SURE Father Unexpected would shit bricks. He was always the “I don’t want kids”, “I’m never getting married” type. Which was fine with me, although in recent years he had been mentioning “If I ever have a kid” so I think some of that was just show.. I had NO IDEA how I was going to tell him. I couldn’t tell him on the phone. I couldn’t just walk right up in the living room while he watched Battlestar and tell him.

The morning of the 20th after having a little time to myself to deal with things (and taking a few more tests… just to be sure) I tell FU that I’m “late”. He just says “OK, just get a test and see.” I was dumbfounded, it was as if there were no impending doom soundtracks playing in his head. I was astounded. I couldn’t tell him I had already taken one. So, instead, I go to work, come back with a test. Take it… then interrupt Battlestar to tell him he has to go look, I can’t. Which translated to… I already know, but I can’t tell you without a complete panic attack so I’ll let the stick tell you.

I was that terrified of what he would say/do. I don’t know why, chalk it up to one of those weird things your brain can convince you of when you’re high on pregnancy hormones. He looked, checked the paper, he looked again, and I start BAWLING. I’m 10 different levels of tore up! He holds me while I cry in the dining room, then after a few minutes he walks away. I’m even more confused when he walks back out of the bathroom and says, “I’m sorry, I had to go wipe the shit-eating grin off my face”. I guess I figured he would walk out, or get angry, or some other crazy scenario I had built in my warped mind.

I went to sleep that night crying, by the next day we were talking about baby names and I started to get a little excited. I was so worried about what we would do, what he would say, that I didn’t let myself really think about what it meant to me. I can have children, I am having one! I was elated. Then that evening I was sick… I complained and bitched and moaned the rest of my pregnancy.

In hindsight, it was the best day of my life. With the most crying and stress I have ever had. I’m super glad I didn’t make it another month, because I may have made it on birth control and my love would not have graced this earth. Now that I know I can have children… I’ve got Mirena. We’ll talk about #2 when she’s 2. Right now, I’m enjoying motherhood of a singleton and could not be more proud.

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Do you have a BFP story to tell? Were you happy, scared, upset, or a little bit of everything like me? Was it expected or completely out of the blue?

I push through every day of my motherhood with a confidence even a lion would be proud of. At least that’s what I let everyone see, even I find myself second-guessing my decisions almost on a daily basis. Especially when I see all the differences between myself and some of my other mother kin in my area. As far as I know, I’m the only breastfeeding, baby-wearer in the bunch (so I’m pretty much the odd-ball out). I worry that I’m going to get scolded again by my pediatrician or even other mothers. I keep telling myself that I make the best decisions with the information and research I have, and that I’m open to changing my course, but it still makes me worry.

K-Kitten and myself! Easter 2010 -- My little doll!

I tell myself that it doesn’t matter what everyone else thinks. That’s a lie. I do care very much if people think I’m a bad mom, not because I care about their thoughts, but because I want to be a good mom and I need a little reassurance. Reassuring yourself all the time is frustrating and makes me feel like I’m trying to put myself above everyone else.

Some of the decisions I’ve made, don’t really seem like a big deal, but the more I over-analyze, the more I worry. Like my choice to not feed my daughter baby cereal, instead I chose to feed iron rich natural foods and cream of wheat (that my husband and I eat). I also don’t follow a strict eating schedule with her, and I’m terrified that she’s going to be iron deficient or low and that my pediatrician will proceed to tell me what a horrible mother I am. I’ve done all the math and I’m pretty sure that we’re in the green as far as iron intakes, but it still scares me.

K-Kitten’s 9-month check-up is coming up the 16th of this month. I guess it’s got my nerves all in a bunch since they’ll be doing blood work and specifically checking for anemia this visit. I’m more nervous about this visit than visits where she has to get vaccinations. It’s like this is the visit where the results of those tests will be my PASS/FAIL in the motherhood department.

I’m miserable. I keep telling myself that if she is anemic, we can adjust, we can fix it. Then though, wouldn’t my decision really have been bad? Should I just stuff her full of the artificially iron enhanced baby cereal that she doesn’t like (she had it once) and constipates her? Is the iron from the cereal and my breast milk and her food too much? Really, all I hear about is how iron poisoning is one of the most common poisonings in young children.

What’s a mom to do? I’ve thought long an hard about it… and I’ve done everything right and second guessing myself is a good thing! If I second guess myself I seek more information. I re-learn everything I know and sometimes get new information on new research that I need to take into account. So I will take my PASS/FAIL badge from my pediatrician and adjust accordingly. She doesn’t get to tell me I’m a bad mom, and she can’t tell me how to raise my child, she can only tell me about the things that need to change and suggest ways of doing so.

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So tell me, do you second guess yourself as a mom? What have been some of the situations where you have second-guessed yourself the most? Do you feel like you are judged by your peers? Or do you ignore them?

I looked for a doula when I was pregnant with K-Kitten. It was one of the first things I did actually. After a short search with no results, I just skipped it, assuming that it didn’t matter much anyway. Oh, how green was I?

Through K-Kitten’s birth, I did OK, with the exception of a few things. It was a quick birth, I didn’t curse too many people, and I had a wiggly love in my arms. It wasn’t until after we got home from the hospital and started getting bills that I really started to question how everything went.

There were things on the bill that just didn’t add up. After requesting an itemized statement for 6 months I finally got one in the mail (I was already in collections by then). Just some of the things on there that didn’t make sense:

• Oxygen tubing — I was never on oxygen. But they billed me for having it on-hand.
• MMR Booster — that I don’t remember getting. But it was “routine” for all mothers.
• Pain Pills — that I actively refused. But they were prescribed to me.

Unfortunately, apart from pulling my medical records, I talked with my insurance company and worked through the list — I’m still working on some of it, but we’re getting it taken care of.

Back on track, the bill made me realize how much of my hospital stay was not right. How I was being billed for things I’m 100% sure hadn’t happened. Then I realized I had no other family with me to back me up except my husband, and I can say that I’m sure he doesn’t remember how many times I got stuck with needles or what was in them.

I had no one with me to help explain what was happening, why they were doing something or needed to do something, or to advocate for me. Father Unexpected did his best to remember what I wanted and tell them that, but in the heat of the moment he reverted to his “medical experts know best” mentality and was basically just a hand to hold from that point forward.

I needed a doula. I wanted a doula. Next time, I’ll have a doula.

So, I started my search again. I found very few doulas in my area and only one relatively close by. I started asking around, a lot of women here have not even heard of a doula. So I start looking around on the requirements to become a certified doula. If anyone has information, I would love to have it, I keep getting more and more interested.

Then I read this:

It’s not news that the U.S. ends each calendar year with a new all-time high cesarean rate, but it may be news that Kentucky’s rate is even higher than the national average–7th in the nation for surgical birth.

7th in the NATION! I knew that my state stopped licensing midwives a long time ago, and that the only current credential they consider licensed is a Certified Nurse Midwife, I did not realize that these CNM’s are the only one’s that are capable of legally attending a home birth, but CNM’s are usually so closely employed by the medical community they only work within hospitals. Everyone else could potentially face a lawsuit for practicing without a license. There are only 24 states in the U.S. that license (or recognize licensed) midwives for home births and care. The law doesn’t care here where you give birth, but anyone attending in a professional capacity (apart from OBs and CNMs) would be there illegally.

I had not really considered home birth, but with the exception of giving birth without assistance, I will have to be ushered to a hospital to give birth there. Why would any hospital care about their policy if they know you pretty much have to go there? Especially in rural areas like the one I live, where each hospital could be hours apart and your choices are limited.

If you’re in Northern Kentucky, you’ve got a little more luck than I do. Louisville has The BirthCare Network, with valuable resources on doulas, midwives, and facilities.

I know there are women in Kentucky that have had homebirths, and have had doulas. I would love for you all to speak up. We need to know you’re out there. I want to find a doula, I want professional, educated, birth support for my next birth (whenever that may be)! But I have to be able to find you first! And maybe someone else is out there looking for you, just like me.

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Did you use a doula or a midwife? Have you had a homebirth? What are your state’s laws? Did you have any trouble finding a practicing doula or home birth midwife? Did they enrich or take away from your birth experience? Know something I don’t? Please tell me about it.

When I was still pregnant, Father Unexpected used to half-joke that if I wasn’t going to breastfeed he would have to tie me up to the bed and milk me like a cow. It was that important to him. I doubt he would have joked anything like that if I was not on board with breastfeeding. But since I was, it didn’t hurt to make some snide comments now and again, and the mental picture is quite hilarious to me.

I knew I wanted to breastfeed, I was always told it was best for babies. I figured I would breastfeed until she started solid foods around 4 months and we’d start weaning. I figured I would have my boobs back in a year or so, I didn’t know then that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended not only exclusive breastfeeding for six months, but the continuance of breastfeeding for at least a year and beyond if mutually desired. I had never even heard of the World Health Organization or the fact that they recommend 2 years instead of just one like the AAP. I had no idea that everything I had ever seen being done wasn’t even recommended by either of these organizations. I figured I would be done with breastfeeding long before a year was up.

Originally, my decision to breastfeed had little to do with all the health benefits and great things that come from it… quite frankly, I was just cheap. I did not want to spend all that money on formula. Breastfeeding continues to be free. The most I have spent, has been on things that I didn’t have to have, but they just made things easier or made me feel better.

I didn’t take any breastfeeding classes, I did read everything I could come up with on the internet though, I guess I’m a pretty private person. The idea of having to sit in a class with a group of x number of couples/women (that I probably wouldn’t like much) did not sit right with me. I learned everything I know about latching and common problems from things I read on the internet. And let me tell you, I’m 100% positive that I was MORE informed than the nurses at the hospital I birthed at.

Kellymom.com I would have to say was my #1 resource the entire time I’ve been on this breastfeeding journey. The information I’ve found there (and the resources compiled there) have empowered me to stick to my guns about my decisions for my daughter and breastfeeding.

I didn’t think I would catch as much crap as I have for breastfeeding. I had always assumed that it was much more accepted than it really is. People are mean. People are ill-educated. My own mother-in-law has said some of the most mean and hurtful things to me. Something turned on inside of me, suddenly it wasn’t just about the money or giving it a try, it was about me, about my daughter, and about what was best for BOTH of us.

After seeing how hard it was, not the actual act of breastfeeding, but overcoming this outdated system we live with. I changed my whole perspective on life. Doctors are not to be taken without a grain of salt, we as patients have to remember we’re paying them for advice about how to take care of our own health. They do not have all the answers and as a matter of fact, try going to one or two about the same thing and I bet you’ll get a couple different answers.

I’ve switched pediatricians three times since K-Kitten was born. The first was convinced that I was going to do something to hurt my daughter because I was so adamant about no supplements and not giving cereal at 4 months (he’d freak if he knew that now 8 months into life she’s never had cereal). The next decided that because she was breastfed that she had to have iron supplements or she “would have developmental problems”. Finally, I’ve found a pediatrician, that may not agree with me, but doesn’t force her opinion she backs everything she has to say up and expects a fight from me. She is truly a “health advocate” and I expect nothing less.

Breastfeeding changed who I am, and how I look at myself.

I no longer go with the flow, accepting everything at face value. I stopped making decisions based on general opinion instead of fact. I stopped being a doormat.

And I am not alone.

I am a stronger, happier, more educated, and much more passionate woman.

Because of breastfeeding. Oh yeah, and breastfeeding keeps me sane. Seriously.

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How did breastfeeding impact your life? Did you have any particularly hard situations? Why did you want to breastfeed? Did you change your mind later? How long did you breastfeed? Did you take any classes? Was breastfeeding what you thought it would be?