amyames

Merry Christmas everyone!!!! I hope you all are surrounded by love and peace.

xox

It's Not Really About The Milk
(c) 2001 Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC

You won't "get it" at first. At first it's all about technique, and position, and time, and swallowing, and soreness, and feeling as if your whole world has narrowed to Feeding The Baby. Those of us who have enjoyed nursing our children are on the other side of a great emotional gulf from you. We can't explain it, we can only try to help you across the bridge, to where you can see for yourself. If you stay caught up in this as a feeding method, you may never get all the way across the bridge. But oh, the view from the other side! At the least, you need to know it's there.

Those of us who "got it" wouldn't feel guilty if we were prevented from nursing our next child. We'd feel anguished. "Guilt" means you didn't do something for someone else that you "should" have done whether or not you enjoyed it yourself. "Anguish" means great pain and grief, as if you've had a piece of yourself torn away.

Imagine having to move by shifting your weight left, then moving your right leg forward, knee slightly bent at first but gradually straightening, right heel landing as you rise on the ball of your left foot, swinging your left arm forward in reverse synchrony with your right as it moves back, then performing a mirror image of the whole process for the next step. Not fun, not easy, not graceful, not something you want to keep working at. But imagine the ease and pleasure of simply... walking. Now imagine someone telling you that you have to give it up. Guilt? Or anguish?

I wish I could convey to you the simple, thought-less, vast, delicious pleasure of nursing my children. Once I "got it," I didn't "feed" them, didn't worry about intervals, didn't hold back. We nursed when they wanted and when I wanted - even just to keep them quiet while I was on the phone. At night, nursing was a quiet mending of the day's disorders. Oh, not always, but as someone said, "Of course there's an inconvenience to nursing. But there's an inconvenience to being a mother." Breastfeeding was a fundamental, essential connection for us, and made everything else - from newborn diapers to two-year-old tantrums - far, far simpler. Then there's the ego-building experience of being the perfect center of another person's universe.

Can you achieve the same bond through bottle-feeding? No. Remember that a breastfeeding mother is in a specific hormonal state. Her whole body responds to her baby in a way that a bottle-feeding mother's or a baby-sitter's or a father's cannot. Her infant receives all his calories in a full-bodied, full-mouthed, skin-on-skin embrace, always from his beloved mother. Her older child comes to her to have growing pains of all kinds soothed simply in a way unique to breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding is a newborn's first relationship, designed to continue throughout a child's early years. As a culture, we tell ourselves - without evidence - that the absence of this fundamental human relationship has no longterm implications for mother or child or family or society.

I have enjoyed our children at every stage so far - and they are now young adults. Their father and I felt as if we did no real parenting after the first ten years or so; we sat back and enjoyed them. This is unusual in America today. Is it partly related to our start in a long, luxurious breastfeeding relationship? I think so. And like every woman who has reached the other side of the bridge, I hope I can extend a hand back to help you across. The view is irreplaceable!

Thanks for the concern and advice yesterday :)

I headed down to the maternity ward yesterday afternoon and got monitored for awhile. I was having pretty intense braxton hicks and have been ordered to stop stressing, drink more water and relax when I can.

Today I have a doctors appointment at 2pm. I haven't seen her in 5 weeks and I'm anxious to see how much I've grown. From here on out it's every 2 weeks.

I'll update when I get home with the stats.


Oh and today I'm 29 weeks. Wow, really in the homestretch now.

http://www.i-am-pregnant.com/Pregnancy/calendar/week/29

Guess I was named the wrong name cause this sounds nothing like me!

What Amy Means

You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality. You are confident, self assured, and capable. You are not easily intimidated. You master any and all skills easily. You don't have to work hard for what you want. You make your life out to be exactly how you want it. And you'll knock down anyone who gets in your way! You are a free spirit, and you resent anyone who tries to fence you in. You are unpredictable, adventurous, and always a little surprising. You may miss out by not settling down, but you're too busy having fun to care.

This weekend has been a busy one. I worked yesterday afternoon, then came home and did some tidying up and watched part of "The Hoax". Scott got tired about half way through and then I just chatted online to ashale for awhile.
This morning we were all up early. Got up and got showered and dressed and made some breakfast. Abby has entered the terrible two's with avengence. She is in to everything all the time. She has such a sense of humour too.
We are going to head up to Truro in about an hour to have thanksgiving dinner with my family. After we are going to go to Victoria park and walk around and take some pictures. Bet the leaves are gorgeous there.
Scott and I are doing ok. I had a bit of a meltdown on Friday night. Things are better now. More on that later.

Happy Turkey Day to my fellow Canadians!!!!!!!

I'm remembering today. I hope the souls of all the lives lost 6 years ago are at rest and I hope the loved ones they left behind are finding peace in their memories.

I randomly took this morning and I really like it! Haven't really liked a picture of myself in a very long time.

Happy Mother's Day Everyone!!!

Our Mother's Day pictures :)
May 2007

the night before last must of been a fluke cause she was back at the waking up every hour on the hour thing last night. or maybe last night was the fluke and better nights are ahead. i don't know but last night sucked..i had high expectations like ya know, 5 hours of sleep!

on a happy note, abigail is 14 months old today!!

This is very sad but if you have kids, please watch and pass it along....It's important!



redcanuck this is a diff one then you posted :) Jeez, I am bawling my face off. Poor family :( *Goes to hug my baby!*

I just made a small friends cut. I'm sorry if I cut you. I really didn't want to but I can't keep up with my fl anymore. If I cut you it was simply just because we didn't know eachother or click or something.
Take care.