A la prochaine Chef Chuck

Sigh.  I just clicked the cancel button for my dinner reservation at Le Bremner Restaurant in Montreal.  Feel free to take it – 6pm Friday May 10.  It is supposed to be “ahhhhmaaazing”.  Here at home, we love Chef Chuck Hughes.  We watch his show.  We cook from his book.  We may even have a celebrity crush on him.  And by we, I am referring to my girls.  (And myself.) 

I’m fortunate in that my girls will pretty much try anything.  R is acting a bit more like a typical kid due to the influence of her peers (why, oh, why didn’t I homeschool?!) by having an exaggerated reaction to things she doesn’t like.  But R’s version of an exaggerated reaction is probably quite subdued compared to most.  And there is very little she doesn’t like in terms of food.  In fact, all three girls are growing quite adventurous in their tastes.  Add to that, the excitement of being in Chuck’s restaurant, being in Montreal, getting all-fancy…the evening holds the promise of fabulous memory-making!

The reality is, while our recent dinner at Chef Lynn Crawford’s Ruby WatchCo was a huge success in terms of a family dining experience – my girls dressed up, they were excited, they stayed put, they loved the food, they got to meet the chef!! – it was a long night for the littlest one.  Baby C, who will continue to be referred to as such until she actually stands up and starts walking which should be any day now, loves food but is really not a fan of being constrained in a highchair with only a spoon to play with.  I completely dropped the ball by not packing anything else for her to play with.  While this did save Mark from having to play a 90 minute game of  “Uh oh I dropped that.  Will you please pick it up Daddy?”.  It also resulted in her becoming bored.  Thankfully, she allowed Mark to distract her with people watching, And with a bedtime of 7pm but a dinner reservation of 6pm we were racing the clock as it was.  Except.  It’s kinda hard to race a clock in a busy restaurant serving three courses.  Three delicious, melt in your mouth, divine courses.  Three courses that they happily served up free to my children and as soon as they came off the line.  The last course being a scrumptious butterscotch pudding they put a candle in L’s birthday. 

I’m fairly certain, a multi-course meal at Le Bremner is going to take more than an hour.  Add to that, the fact that we will have been wandering around the old city all day, I doubt very much Baby C will take kindly to being strapped into a high chair after being strapped into a stroller (again – learn to walk!). I don’t want to race through a meal at Le Bremner.  I don’t want to watch Mark stalk off with Baby C under his arm, telling me “It’s fine.” When it really isn’t, as he has to abandon his meal and go back to our hotel in Montreal.  That would not be such a fabulous memory. 

So instead, we will lower our dining standards, not to accommodate their palate or but rather the temperament of our youngest because no one wants to drop serious coin on a meal they have to rush through.  Or, one I spill all over myself as not so little Baby C breastfeeds at the table.  On the other hand, Mark thinks maybe we'd get to meet the chef once word got around that I was flashing serious boob. 

A la prochaine Chef Chuck! 

Birth from the perspective of a midwifery student (conference presentation)

A month ago I had the honour of making a presentation at the Ontario Student Midwives Conference at Ryerson University.  As a midwifery student, currently on maternity leave, it was a great opportunity to reconnect with old friends, and meet in-person virtual friends.  It was also a tough place to be given the tenuous position I have as an actual student (more on that another time), and given my topic.  I had submitted two proposals and both were accepted.  One, was an editorial piece I've been working on for a while but a presentation I didn't actually get a chance to make due to a mini family crisis when my 3 year old dislocated her elbow! The other, was this piece below, one that I cried when writing but somehow managed to get through without crying.  Though, I made many of my fellow classmates tear up. Keep in mind, this was written to be spoken, and to be listened to for about ten minutes so it is long and the tone may be a little different from my "blog" writing.

Being a midwifery student is hard work.  Maybe harder then we thought it would be.  Maybe not.  Those of us who are mamas have so much to re-learn, how to see things from the other side, how not to interject every five minutes with “During my births…in my pregnancy…when I was breastfeeding’  and those who aren’t mamas have to learn that they are not at a disadvantage so stop feeling like that and move on!  I do remember, in my first year, during With Woman actually, thinking, how amazing it would be to have all of this information before having a baby.  To be able to tap into all of these extra resources, and wealth of knowledge.  Um, yeah, not so much.

As I was preparing to write this presentation I spoke (aka, Facebook’d) with a few mamas from the program.  They had vastly different experiences from me and from each other.  Planned home birth.  Planned hospital birth.  Things went according to plan.  They didn’t feel like they’d had any amount of pressure or expectations as an MEPer.  Maybe it was just me then? And then I read an amazing paper by one of my classmates.  She had looked into the experience of giving birth as a birth professional.  Of the women she had surveyed, all of them a birth professional of one kind or another, many had felt that there was a certain expectation around the kind of birth they were going to have, felt that there knowledge both helped and hindered them, and that it was hard to not be in control. 

Now, I’m a planner.  To a fault.  But I had worked really hard at not having a birth plan, though every one does to a certain extent.  I felt I had learned a lot about myself, my body, the way I give birth, and my babies during my first two pregnancies and births and during this pregnancy.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, I would come to learn a lot more about myself.

My girls...and Mark like to dress up as Superheroes. And as a mama you feel like one. I obviously have an innate power, two really: the ability to incubate and nurture a human life inside my very own body and the awesomeness that is lactating boobs!

So when things went a little sideways with my planned home birth I felt like Supergirl faced with kryptonite. Actually no, I wasn't on the ground squirming in pain, I was more like WonderWwoman being harnassed by her own lasso. In case you don't know, that's her main weakness.

  

I initially though of this analogy to bring some humor to my story, keep myself from crying, but the more I thought about it the more accurate it seemed. As a mama-midwifery student aka Wonder Woman, it was my own knowledge that was tying me up and forcing me into the ambulance and to the hospital. From a midwifery student perspective, that was the ultimate villain's lair. But from a regular mama perspective, it was the extra knowledge, the extra help from fellow students, the "extra" that was tying me up and imprisoning me in my decisions.

You see, non midwifery types, still amazing mamas of three, Breastfeeding, baby wearing, loving their kids mamas, they did not understand why I was so defeated at having given birth in a hospital and having stayed there for 23.5 hours. They understood that it had not been part of the plan; but these women, whom I didn't know all that well, simply said " but you made the right decision for your baby. You didn't really have a choice. Not one where one or more of the outcomes would have been acceptable.". My friends, the students, they all had a lot of different things to say. Sympathy instead of empathy, sorrow instead of support, shock instead of agreement.

So why didn’t I have a homebirth? Poop.  I suppose the more appropriate way to say it, is that there was meconium.  A lot of it.  Thick, pea soup sludge seeping into the birthing pool. 

And the reason I had to stay at the hospital was a GBS positive screen with insufficient amount of antibiotics administered prior to delivery. And here’s what I have to say to my fellow midwifery students:  Stop.  Stop thinking about the odds ratios, the research, the facts, the myths, and the alternatives.  As your classmate, I know now, and knew then all of that information. But what I also knew, was that the institution I gave birth in had a mandatory 24-hour stay policy for mamas and newborns with a GBS positive screen or they would call CAS. 

CAS.  These three little letters.  Letters every parent – good or bad – dreads hearing.  Imagine, if you will, having just given birth to a beautiful, perfect little girl.  A beautiful birth.  An emotional high.  Conflicting emotions – the “wrong” kind of feelings are bubbling below the surface but you are pushing them down as you stare into the eyes – are they hazel?  Are they brown? – of your daughter.  Your midwives doing post partum things.  Your partner, leaning over you and your babe, kissing your head, pushing back your hair.  And all of a sudden arrangements are being made for you to stay overnight.  It doesn’t matter that the odds of your baby being affected by GBS are 1 in 300 to 1 in 1000.  It doesn't matter that you had some IV antibiotics.  You are free to go.  But if you check your beloved newborn out against medical orders, you will awake to Children’s Aid Society at your doorstep.  Now, consider again all of the informed choice, research, self-rightousness, strength, mama-bear protectiveness of not just your two older girls sleeping soundly at home, but of this new life you have never been away from.  And imagine, for a full minute, the idea of a stranger holding that baby and seriously considering that you are unfit.  

Being a midwifery student can really screw with your head and your heart sometimes and this was one of those times.  I knew my baby was fine, and safe.  I knew what to look for.  I knew the odds.  I knew my rights.  And I knew that my girls were going to wake up and be surprised at best, heartbroken at worst, that I wasn't there with the new baby.  But none of that compares to the even the most remote possibility of having to deal with CAS bureaucracy within the first 24 hours of my newborn’s existence.  I mean, honestly, I wasn't planning on letting the grandparents in the door!

As I prepared for this presentation I was searching for images and I came across the cover for a children's book about homebirth. And I came across gorgeous waterbirth photographs including ones of mamas with all of their children clambering to look at the newest sibling. And looking at these images, breaks my heart.  Every. Single. Time.  And there is no excuse for it.  When I speak to my partner, when I go over my story, when I speak to other mamas who aren't in the midwifery circle, it’s not really a big deal.  I had a beautiful labour.  I had a beautiful birth.  But most importantly, I had a beautiful baby girl.  But the fact that I read that damn book every single night for months, watched homebirth videos, and practiced birthing sounds and positions with my girls – all for nothing, that breaks my heart.  And, you can argue that they are young so they are fine.  To which I say, my middle monkey, she had to be reminded that we got to keep our baby.  And my oldest monkey who saw the middle one born, was also heartbroken and angry and we had a good long cry about it together. It’s hard to hear about other people’s wonderful water births with their children present because I didn't get that.  But that’s the midwifery student in me.  The mama in me, is grateful for having three healthy daughters.

 Sometimes I think that I’m not going to ever fully get over disappointing my girls by not having a homebirth for them.  And then, Mark reminds me that my girls are six and under and that sometime much sooner than I would like I will disappoint them in what appears to be a frivolous way to me – like, saying no to an Abercrombit Fitch sweatshirt, or to party they want to go to – and that will be the moment that sticks with them not that they missed Baby C’s birth. So, while many mamas probably dread the conflict of the teen years, I say, bring it on, it will totally  help me heal!  

So what does it mean to give birth while an MEP student? And what doesn’t it mean?

• Maybe because I wasn’t in Clinical Skills with my peeps, it didn’t result in numerous belly palpations, pulse takings, fundal measurements or fetascope listenings.
• It did mean that during Bruce’s lecture when he put up the graph of oral contraception – the one explaining why you have to take your pill at the same time every morning – even if you just hosted the end of the year party and your children aren't home to wake you up - that 50% of the class will turn around to shoot you a knowing look, and laugh.
• It does mean that at least twice you will be told you are huge and you will wonder how a future midwife feels like that’s an okay thing to a pregnant woman
• It does mean that you have a plethora of information –far more than even a well educated mama
• It means that you have expectations of being with a midwife, most likely a doula, that you will not freak out, that you will not request pain relief,
• It does mean when you go for your ultrasound and the technician makes assumptions about your sexual orientation, your desire to have the baby, the man in the suit being your husband, you hear Nadya’s voice in your head gently reminding you how you should never ever make those assumptions.
• It may or may not mean that you will cook and serve a delightful vegan meal for a dozen or so of your closest friends and family who all invade your house immediately.  Personally I came home and crammed my belly full of braised pork shoulder curry and rice.  And a Strongbow. And didn’t let anyone in the door for 48 hours.
• It means that when you are stuck in the hospital bed checking your facebook, one of your school friends will notice that you are at the same hospital she is making rounds in and will be the first to visit you.
• It means you can argue with the pediatrician and convince her to let you leave the hospital early.
• But it also means the L&D nurse will call you “one of them” for not letting her bathe your baby.
• It means that when you are forced to make a quick decision, it’s no longer impulse nor even informed choice that is guiding you, but information overload, and graphic visuals, anecdotes,  facts and figures clouding your brain.  And that no matter which way you lean, someone you go to school with, will offer their unsolicited opinion telling you that it was a misinformed decision.  And they do so because of the information in their head, not as a judgment, but it comes out very much as a judgment and a sentence “Guilty of not fulfilling the MEP student edict of perfect home birth!”  "Guilty of allowing the institution to dictate what you could do!"  "Guilty of submitting to the will of non-midwives!” 
• It doesn't mean that any of your decisions would have been different. Because you are a mama first.
• It doesn't mean that you are at a disadvantage.
• It doesn't mean that you are being judged.
• It doesn't mean that you failed in some way.  Unless you know, you actually failed.  But despite my hormone addled brain, I managed to pull off decent to hey-not-bad grades in my courses!
• It does mean that you will receive lots of love from wonderful women who will make the trek all the way to Mississauga just to visit you and your girls.

Baby C is my baby Hulk.  That is to say, she’s a happy baby, until she's not.  (And you don't want to make her angry.) Which is to say she is perfectly healthy.  Ultimately, there is no guarantee that she would have been had I stood my ground and not gone to the hospital.  But just looking at her, while she nurses, or laughs, or yells at the floor for not letting her defy gravity, I can’t say that I would make any decision differently except for – and this is the most contentious issue – maybe, just maybe, planning on a hospital birth.  If I’d planned a hospital birth with my girls present then they would have been there for the birth.  But, that wasn't really the images and experience I wanted for them, for me, for us.  R has one homebirth under her belt already, and while L will never get to see a sibling being born at home, neither will Baby C just by being the baby.  But, I figure most of my friends and classmates are younger then me and a few of them will probably have babies of their own one day – so hopefully, they can witness that.  You don’t mind do you ladies? 

At the drive-in at least someone got to second base.

Last night Mark and I decided to go see a movie. An actual new-ish release on the big screen. Exciting times for parents of a breastfeeding baby who thinks pumped milk in a bottle is only to be used for blowing raspberries! At the suggestion of a friend, we went to the drive in so we could take Baby C with us.

Brilliant right? We raved about the sheer genius of it! What could be easier then leaving our big girls with their awesome aunt, bringing along Baby C and everything she needed in a diaper bag and my boobs?! Mark even remembered a flashlight and a lighter for the bug repelling diffuser (diluted tea tree oil nothing toxic).

As we drove, we were in that happy parent place of astonishment we'd never thought of going to the drive in before and euphoria of two Friday night dates in a row. Baby C wasn't even yelling during the drive. This was so going to be a good night!

We parked; nixed the idea of sitting in the back with the hatch open as we didn't have pillows or blankets; re-parked; grabbed popcorn and drinks; almost dropped said confections; and set ourselves up for almost three hours of Dark Knight Rises. We were even so bold as to make plans for future return trips.

I loved the nostalgic feel from the neon signed snack bar serving the standards but also deep fried pickles and onion rings to the national anthem starting the show and the Looney Tunes cartoon lead-in with no trailers. I loved seeing people in pajamas and questionably shaped bottles hidden in paper bags tucked under camping chairs. Baby C was happy to hang out with us as we waited.

And then it got dark.
And then it got loud.
And then Baby C decided to kick the dials on the console repeatedly switching the station so we'd lose the sound among other things. Make note of this last bit, it is key.

In our delerium, we'd forgotten that Baby C isn't a newborn nor is she a toddler. Newborns are easy. All they need is a boob. Seven month olds? Not so much Toddlers are chatty and get tired but can be distracted with food, games, and snuggles. Seven month olds? Not so much.

Let me cut to the chase in case you haven't already guessed: Baby C hated -with all of her 28" and 24lbs-the drive in! Try fighting that in a small space. She wanted to be in her bed, on her sheepskin, with a soft light glowing and relative quiet. She did not want to be cradled, carried, or rocked. She did not want to lie down in the bucket seat beside me and nurse. What was I, new? Why did I think my child who despises the car would want to spend three hours in it just because she was in my arms? The punching, biting, scratching, kicking, and screaming was giving the surround sound a run for its money. And every time she settled for 30 seconds the action in the movie would rise and the soundtrack would boom! Or, Mark would just have to have a man-ful of popcorn or fumble for a drink. Finally about two hours into the movie-no I'm not exaggerating but yes she only started to act up 45minutes in-she fell asleep. And the truck warning lights all flared, beeped, and died.

Yep. That's right. I was now sitting in a full theatre parking lot/field with a cranky baby finally sleep on top of my exposed chest, my cell phone battery at 20% and my engine light is on. It seems, our beloved baby in her wild thrashing as we passed her back and forth, hit the a/c dial. And we didn't notice because it was on low, already cool from the sunroof being open and loud from her and the movie.

Now, I don't know much about cars but I'm not a mechanic's daughter for nothing. I am also the "wife" of a worst-scenario get silently infuriated guy. So I kept my mouth shut for twenty minutes. Then I called my Dad. Then I called a tow truck. And with two safety nets in place, ample time having passed, I suggested to Mark that this being a drive-in theatre, dead car batteries and/or over heated cars are probably an extremely common occurrence and they probably have a battery and jumper cables. Mark didn't believe me: not about it just being the battery, not about the boost being easy.

It was. And it was.

Obviously, we didn't stay for the second movie.

But the funny thing is, as we were driving home chatting quietly as Baby C had fallen back asleep in her car seat, Mark and I agreed that it had still been a good night. It may not have been very "date-like" between the angry baby and car trouble but at least someone got to second base...it just happened to be the baby. There's breast milk all over the windshield to prove it.

When was the last time you went to the drive-in? And who were you with?

My Breastfeeding Story aka My Battle With My Boobs

Off the top (ha!), I will say, that I’m not here to judge.  Every mama does what is best for her and her baby when it comes to filling that baby’s belly so he or she can grow strong and healthy.  And I empathize with that paralyzing feeling of guilt that you are possibly making the wrong decision, regardless of what that is.  And it’s a pretty awful way to start out mamahood, second guessing your choice of milk and worrying about it.  But I’m not writing about that (today).  Instead, I’m going to tell you about my battle with my boobs.

Stories about breastfeeding are much like birth stories.  You generally only hear the horrible ones along the lines of “my baby wouldn’t latch properly and screamed at me and I nursed until my nipples were cracked and bleeding”.  And when I was pregnant for the first time, I heard a lot of those stories, often accompanied by some small piece of ridiculous advice or presumption such as: you should vigorously rub your nipples with a washcloth to get them ready; you have darker pigmentation so it won’t bother you.  Well, the first is a bad idea simply because vigorous nipple stimulation releases oxytocin which can start labour.  And the second bit, is based on science but I am here to tell you did not ring true.

Throughout my pregnancy with R, I kept waiting for the giant pregnancy boobs.  I bought a soft bra in a bigger size to grow into; I wore tight t-shirts and asked my partner if my boobs looked bigger.  I did not.  They did not.  This was a true physiological sign that something was going to go amiss with breastfeeding.  No one caught it.

The fact that I was ripped off the gigantic pregnancy boobs was actually not the first sign that breastfeeding, or rather milk supply, was going to be a problem.  The first sign would have been that I have PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome).  But neither my GP, who is awesome, nor my midwife, who is awesome, nor my naturopath recognized this potential barrier.  None of them caught the lack of big boobs as a sign, and certainly none of them mentioned that my bottoming out iron was going to be a problem for milk supply.  (Low iron had other concerns that were addressed).

Shortly after her birth, R latched with no problems.  She pretty much stayed there for the better part of six months.  I kid you not.  The first 48 hours, she nursed in my arms contentedly sucking up all the immune system building colostrum I could give her.  We nursed sitting up and lying down.  But her third night, she got hungry.  And then she got angry.  And Mark and I felt hopeless.  R latched and wouldn’t let go, she sucked away for about twelve hours straight until our midwife came for a home visit and squeezed my breast and re-positioned her and counted wet diapers.  I was reassured that my milk would come in soon and that my baby was getting what she needed.  I found that very hard to believe given the yells that would come forth when the milk did not.  I cried.  Mark held me.  He couldn’t hold R because she would just get angrier and then be harder to settle down.  My parents wanted to visit again and when they did my mother got angry with me for something and my father made me feel guilty about it.  So, yeah, not helpful.  Mark’s older kids were with us that night and feeling displaced so he had to spend time with them and all I could do was lie on our bed, tears streaming down my face as I desperately massaged my breasts and murmured to my baby girl. This would become an all too familiar routine.  That night, the fourth night, my milk came in.  I knew it came in, because I woke up to R gulping away.  I was flooded with relief and spent the night staring at my beautiful baby girl who drank with wide eyes looking up at me. 

But R and I would have a tougher than expected breastfeeding road.  She was a lazy nurser.  I say that with love, affection, and humour (now.  Not so funny then).  She would nurse for less than ten minutes and fall asleep. When she woke up, she’d do the same thing on the other side.  I tried rubbing her head and her feet.  At some point, more desperate measures were recommended in order to ensure she was taking in enough milk, and I had to rub her with a cool, wet washcloth.  She didn’t like that.  My nipples cracked.  My nipples bled.  My nipples healed.  I called La Leche League for advice, grateful that I had had the foresight to attend a meeting while pregnant so I at least knew the lovely woman I was speaking to.  I called my midwife who came to visit.  R was gaining weight slowly but steadily and she was a long baby so she looked like a scrawny monkey.  Gradually her cheeks got fuller and her body a little plumper. 

But at just over three months old, she hit the expected growth spurt and became angry baby again.  She was attached to my nipple all the time.  All.The.Time.  Mark and I were already used to the fact that she was in my arms all the time and that wasn’t really a problem for me.  I was on maternity leave and she was my only baby.  But at three months it was different, and when I went to pump milk to give Mark a chance to feed our baby, I ended up with plugged ducts and full blown mastitis. 

Mastitis is a breast infection.  It is horrifyingly painful to nurse through it and worse to not nurse through it.  Your skin burns and swells on your breasts.  Touch is excruciating.  Cold shivers and hot flashes set in as does a fever, the shakes, and fatigue.  This is not the medical textbook definition I’m providing you with, it is what I experienced.  All while my baby would struggle against my breasts, flailing in my arms, and not settle no matter what I did, forcing me to change position, walk around, and cry – a lot.  I spent several days completely topless with her in the baby wrap trying to nurse upright from a rocking chair.  I sought the attention of a very sensitive massage therapist  who managed to  help ease some of the pressure and start the fluids moving and draining. 

When I recovered from that I realized that I had very little milk coming in at one time.  After months of only nursing for five to ten minutes at a time, my body was only producing enough milk for five to ten minute spurts.  Except now R was starving and wanted to nurse much longer.  This was compounded by the low iron, the hormone imbalances from my PCOS;and the three month postpartum hormone (mal)adjustments and so I ended up on a prescription for Domperidone that I took for over a year because every time I tried to wean myself off of it, my milk supply would go down.  Now, I have no scientific proof, but I am pretty sure that my horrifying weight gain once I went on the ‘scrip can be mostly attributed to it.

Before I started the prescription, which was offered various suggestions on how to increase my supply.  Primarily, to lie down skin-to-skin with my little girl, increase my fluid intake, and decrease my non-mama duties.  I took this advice happily.  I tried breast massage before every nursing session and hand pumping as my daughter nursed. I was advised to drink fenugreek tea.  It started leaking out of my pores and I reeked.  I mean, I sincerely stunk.  I couldn’t cope with it.  It was bad enough to be going through massive hormone upheaval, to feel desperate to feed my child, but to smell awful too – and my partner could not disagree – was horrifying to me.  At the time, midwives in Ontario could not write a prescription for Domperidone, and the Jack Newman clinic was too far away for me to reasonably get there, so I consulted my GP who provided me with a prescription but not a ton of advice on consequences and how to build up and wean off the pills.

The time that passed between getting the Domperidone and my milk supply increasing seemed like months.  I couldn’t go anywhere or be near anyone. I felt like I was failing my child.  I felt that somehow because I wasn’t producing enough milk for her; I wasn’t being a good enough mama.  I missed my cousin’s wedding because I just couldn’t bear to be around people while my child cried and wanted to nurse.  People like my parents who would have wanted to hold her and “comfort” her resulting in a more irate and now frightened baby as evidenced by every single visit when they would take her out of my arms and walk away and she would scream.

R and I went on to have a very successful breastfeeding relationship.  One might venture to say, an overly successful one as when I wanted to wean her, I couldn’t.  And when we did, at 2.5years old it was because I was crying with pain from sensitive nipples as I was pregnant with L.  R wasn’t getting any milk anymore at that point, it was just comfort.  And I wanted to at least preserve some of the good memories of breastfeeding.  We did.  I have a lot of good memories and I have a strong, beautiful, smart six year old girl who still sleeps with the soft pillow I used to tuck under my head when lying down to nurse her.  It was a long trip, both ways, but well worth it.

Must we talk about that magazine cover again?

Last week I decided that I was NOT going to write about the Times Magazine cover.  You know the one, with the 4 year old kid in camo pants standing on a chair to breastfeed.  The reason I wasn’t going to write about it was because neither did the magazine.  The Time article is about Dr.Sears and attachment parenting of which extended breastfeeding can be a part of.  So why give more virtual ink to a cover (im)purely created to expose a breast and sell magazines, stir up controversy and sell magazines, use misdirection and sell magazines?   After all,  I thought that the Huff post did an excellent job critiquing the cover:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-belkin/no-i-am-not-mom-enough_b_1507550.html  But I wouldn’t have started a blog if I was content to let other people do all the talking and writing, albeit more eloquently that I.

I’ll say upfront that my initial reaction was that it was pretty awesome to have a breastfeeding mama on the cover of any non-parenting magazine.  And I have no personal objections to the appearance of the mama on the cover.  Though I know some pretty stunning mama’s and I’m sure any one of us are just as cover worthy!

My issue with the cover wasn’t of the photograph but the blaring, hugely inaccurate and downright rude headlining question “Are you mom enough?” 

To which my response is: “Are you new?!?!”  Seriously, how “new” do you have to be to dare to ask that question of any mama? 

Simply  getting out of bed every morning to provide your child with everything – that’s EVERYTHING-he or she needs to thrive physically, emotionally, and socially in this world  is being “Mom enough”  All of this, ALL OF THIS while braving the intrusions of those who do not have you and your child’s best interests, when they voice their opinion on breastfeeding is being “Mom enough”.  Especially if you manage to hold back and not punch that stranger in the face for feeling like you needed yet another unsolicited opinion.  

Did I breastfeed my girls until past the age of two?  Absolutely.  Was it completely my choice or did my toddlers bully me into it?  Absolutely.  Do I think that makes me more of a mama than my mama friends who didn’t breastfeed at all?  Not on your life.  Do I think that makes me less of a mom than my mama friends who breastfed their babies longer?  Not on your life.

Whether you adhere to attachment parenting or not.  Whether you believe it takes a village to raise a child or not.  Whether you have an ever supporting partner like I do or not.  Breastfeeding is a very personal choice because its a personal commitment that is made easier by "public" support regardless or where you land on the decision. But the bigger personal commitment is the one to do everything you can to make sure your baby knows how much you love them from the time they are born and beyond.  Being “mom enough” doesn’t mean letting your child climb up on a chair to breastfeed.  It means being able to crouch down and give them a hug whenever they – or you- need it.