(1/3) “My husband and I are both planners, so we got on the waitlist for my company’s daycare two years in advance, right after we got married. They said if baby is going to start in the fall that would be ideal. Fortunately, she was born in the fall, right on schedule, and I was near enough to visit during the workday. I was lucky enough to work for a company that not only supported ...
(2/2) “From the beginning of I would get anywhere from 10-15 ounces during a 5-10 minute pumping session. Within a short period of time, I had an extremely large freezer stash, more than I could ever possibly use. Given that I was exclusively breastfeeding, and could pump enough for an evening out in just 10 minutes, I knew I would need to look into donating because I was quickly
(1/2) “I'm one of those people fortunate enough to have an oversupply. I didn't breastfeed my first child for a combination of reasons: my of age, lack of knowledge, and an extremely difficult postpartum recovery. I wasn't worried about being able to breastfeeding my second child though, due to the 4 months it took for my milk dry out after my first baby was born. I know the ...
(4/4) “Before we even knew for sure that it was cancer, we had discussed doing the double mastectomy and looking for donor milk if needed. I have become such a breastmilk advocate in my journey with my son that for me, formula didn’t feel like an option I wanted to consider. The community here is awesome. I just bought a second freezer which is being delivered soon. I have ...
(3/4) “The very next week I had a ton of scans and a surgery to put a port in for chemo. It was my first surgery - I had never been through any surgery - and I was pregnant. At 15 weeks they wanted to get the ball rolling, and I started chemo. You can have a surgery once in the second trimester; they put you under and the monitor the baby. Originally, I was going to do the ...
(2/4) “I found the lump while I was breastfeeding and I just knew it wasn’t a clogged duct. I knew something was wrong. I had been breastfeeding for two and a half years; I was very aware of my body. The local doctor said it was a blocked duct, to massage it and use heat. The following week I called the doctor again, and said they had to do something for me, that this was not a clog...
(1/4) “I started breastfeeding my son because my husband was a student and we were really poor. I was afraid I couldn’t afford formula. So in the beginning, it was purely a financial decision. When my son was born, the lactation consultant at the hospital had just quit. It was a small town in the middle of nowhere and there was zero support, unless I wanted to drive 90 minutes to the next ...
(3/3) “Now that my son is almost three, I never know if I’m getting weird glances from people while breastfeeding because of how different we look, or because of how old he is. I’ve just gotten immune to all weird glances at this point. What’s nice is that Oregon has one of the best breastfeeding rates in the country, so I feel at ease publicly breastfeeding my kid here. I have ...
(2/3) “We’ve lived in majority-white neighborhoods all his life, and due to our different complexions, people often assume I’m the nanny—both white people and people of color. I’m pretty sure that I’ve missed out on various friendships with other moms because they thought I wasn’t my child’s mother, especially before he was verbal. When he was little, he nursed very ...
(1/3) “My son has blond hair and blue eyes; I’m half Asian and much darker than him. His light coloring was definitely a surprise to my family and me when he was born, and nursing was a really straightforward way to establish that even if we look pretty different on the outside, I’m still his mom and he’s still my kid. I’ve been biracial my whole life, and have made peace with that. But ...
(2/2) “You don’t know what you will be able to do when you’re first starting. You hear of all these people who had no choice, who had a hard time getting started and producing or whatever, and ended up needing to use formula. So I didn’t want to assume I would be able to breastfeed until the time came. I was taking medication for my seizures too, and I wasn’t sure if it would affect my ...
(1/2) “One person in my life has said some negative things, like “he has 5 teeth now; it’s time to stop.” But the idea of stopping makes me feel guilty; to make him stop when I know it is comforting his teething feels wrong. I feel like he has been teething since 3 or 4 months old, but they didn’t start coming through till after his first birthday. He is used to the comfort and I would ...
(3/3) “I’m not micromanaged at work, and they have set me up to be successful with breastfeeding. I have my own private office, which is nice for pumping. I have friends who have also pumped at work, so I asked for advice regarding setting up a schedule and getting a good routine. My daughter didn’t want to take a bottle at first. Luckily, the daycare was nearby, and I ...
(2/3) “Breastfeeding was not second nature at all. She was born a week early, by c-section, so I had a lot of struggles with my milk coming in. We ended up in the ER the first night she was home, because she wasn’t getting the nutrients she needed. I didn’t know enough to know that was what the problem was, and I should have probably given her a bottle of formula, in hindsight...
(1/3) “I think that intuitively, even before my daughter was born, I believed in being able to feed your child wherever and whenever you want, without having to feel uncomfortable doing it in public. That was definitely the mindset I wanted to have when it came time to feed my baby, but in practice, it was much more difficult to be comfortable in the very beginning when in public. I ...
(4/4) “I just recently found out that I’m pregnant. I am worried my supply is going to tank. I’ve been thinking about reaching out to other moms to see if I can find some help with wet nursing. We have been in Wisconsin for 15 years. I have friends that would wet nurse for me out there, but we just moved back to Portland, OR and I don’t have the connections out here yet. I would feel ...
(3/4) “When we wake up in the morning, he always wants to nurse right away. We snuggle and he smiles as he nurses. That’s one of my favorite things, waking up and nursing together. He nurses every 3-4 hours during the day. After he started walking he started losing weight, instead of just staying even, because he is more active, like all kids his age. But he just doesn’t have the calories ...
(2/4) “My son is 14 months old now and exclusively nurses. He does not eat or drink any other food. His older sister didn’t really start eating until she was 12 months, so I didn’t think much of it at first. I thought maybe he would just be a late eater like she was. She totally caught up, and she eats anything and everything now. We started him with baby led weaning, but he would gag to ...
(1/4) “We started tandem nursing in the hospital, and it was heartbreaking. My daughter had decided which breast was going to be hers and which one was going to be her brother’s before he was born. I had tried to explain to her “the baby is going to be coming soon and he will need milk too.” She said “ok, this one is mine, and this one can be the baby’s.” So when he was born ...
(2/2) “We went to a couple of lactation consultants when she was little and we were having so much trouble. It really wasn’t super helpful. She was already 9 months old when her lip and tongue tie were diagnosed. It was when her teeth were first coming in, and we were pulling up her lip to show the doctor her new teeth, and the doctor said “oh, that’s not supposed to look like that.” I’m not really sure how it had not been diagnosed before that. But even after they noticed it, we didn’t do anything about it, as we were doing fine...