I am so blessed to be a part of the amazing movement of mothers, the Holistic Moms Network. This is an empowering, supportive community of women who are interested in many facets of holistic living and have passions that may differ from that of mine, but who all believe in the importance of education on the issues that affect our families and our communities and our planet.
I am honored to have played the role of video editor this past week as the Holistic Moms Network came together to show the world that Holistic Moms breastfeed in public for our babies, ourselves, our future and our Earth.
A press release went out this morning from the Executive Director Nancy Massotto -- http://www.holisticmoms.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/2010-nursing-our-future.pdf
and the video can be seen on the Holistic Moms website http://www.holisticmoms.org/category/news-events/nursing-our-future/ and also on the Holistic Moms YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/HMNNational
As for me and my breastfeeding journey, I was one who never really thought long about it past "of course I'll breastfeed." and then my son was tiny and had a REALLY hard time latching on. I can remember being so scared and afraid that we'd never get it "right". I thank God that my mom was with us so soon after Andrew's birth and I am so blessed that she is such a believer in the power of mothering and the importance of breastmilk. I knew I didn't want my son to have formula or sugar water, but I was also scared that he'd die if he didn't eat (I was a new mom... I didn't *know* that it was natural for my milk to not come in for a few days...) What was the BEST is that my mother created a funny lactation device out of a piece of the tubing from my hand pump I got from the hospital and a syringe. I pumped what I could and then we filled the syringe and put Andrew to the breast and squirted breast milk along my nipple to encourage him to latch and suckle. It worked... sort of. Not well enough though and I found a lactation center when he was 7 days old that gave me a nipple shield. That changed everything! He could latch on and though I feared we'd never wean from the shield, somewhere between 3 and 4 months we were nipple shield free and on our way!
Never in a MILLION years would I have thought I'd breastfeed a toddler... let alone a preschooler... and as Andrew approached his 5th birthday, I was surprised that he was still nursing but I truly understood what it meant to him. Somewhere within days of his 5th birthday he tried to nurse and couldn't. He had forgotten how. He had weaned. and we both cried.
I am passionate about the importance of human milk for human babies and am so proud to be nursing my three year old daughter and plan to allow her to nurse until she no longer needs to do so. Could be next week, or next year -- but what I do know is that our relationship will last as long as it is mutually agreed upon.
Having been part of this Nursing Our Future video project has brought me closer to my feelings about nursing and it has helped me with my night nursing frustrations. Knowing that our time is closer to the end than the beginning makes me appreciate it all the more and I am thankful that I am able to do this for her.
Thank you HMN for bringing out the video editing passion in me -- and for renewing my passion for breastfeeding my daughter!
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