Why The Shame Of Postpartum Depression?

Why is there a dark cloud of shame hanging over admitting we have postpartum depression? It's not bad enough that new moms are sleep deprived, we have sore nipples and overfilled breasts or a sink full of dirty bottles we need to wash and we're down to the last scoop of formula and the store is already closed - and sore breasts, or breasts that are refusing to produce milk at all. It's not bad enough we're still bleeding heavily from the traumatized vagina that just pushed a watermelon out of a pea hole (I'm being generous ladies!) or got it yanked out from some device the doctor used or that our bellies got ripped open, insides tossed aside like clothes on the floor to birth a perfect angel. Or maybe our angel wasn't so perfect yet and needed to spend time in the "chicken warmer" as my husband calls it. Referring to his own time spent as a jaundiced newborn still "needing to bake." Or maybe the baby we carried inside us for all those months was handed over to someone else the minute it left our body because it's meant to be with a different mother. Or handed over to God because that life wasn't meant to be.

It's not bad enough we have a mother or mother-in-law (or husband) who doesn't approve of our birthing methods and OB's and nurses who disregard our birth plan or a judgmental sister or co-worker who doesn't approve of our wanting an elective c-section or a husband who does not support our wanting to breastfeed, or a husband who insists on us breastfeeding when we can't or don't want to, or an entire community or culture who doesn't support our decision to breastfeed, or family members or mom's group friends who disapprove of our wanting to formula feed.

And a baby who's crying because they are hungry.

It's not bad enough when we have our own self doubt, or our own fear of pain and fear of childbirth,  and fear of, "are we going to be good enough?" Or our own stubbornness of wanting to give birth at home but it leads to a hospital transfer after hours and hours and hours of not progressing where you then face the judgment of the L&D nurses who have that, "I told ya so" look on their faces when you breakdown in desperation to say, "yes, I will take the epidural after 27 hours of hard labor" - already crafting our birth story to tell others to justify, to defend, to protect ourselves from more judgment and shame.

It's not bad enough that we finally get the strength to go out of the house with our newborn, a million baby items in tow and the baby cries that hunger desperation cry they do regardless of just eating an hour before, so you start to breastfeed on a park bench not wanting to disturb the peace of your toddler finally entertaining themselves after weeks of being cooped up in baby village only wanting you, and you get harassed for breastfeeding in public, or a picture gets taken of you and it's blasted on social media about you being a slut wanting to show off your breasts to everyone. Little do they know the extreme pain you are in because breastfeeding can hurt in the beginning, the tears burning your eyes, dripping down your nose onto your baby's tiny face, your toes curling, baby not wanting to latch properly, can't get the cover to stay on right, because it keeps covering the baby's face, can't unhook your nursing bra properly, fiddling with the breast pad, then comes the menstrual-like cramping of your uterus contracting back to normal size once your milk lets down and the extreme pain that is causing you as you sit on this uncomfortable park bench wishing you were at home in your rocker with your breast pillow and your cup of tea watching Wild Krats with your toddler - and trying to look sexy to score another woman's man at the playground is about as close to being on the top of your list right now as sky rocketing to the moon in a cardboard spaceship - yet that is what you get accused of doing. Did I mention the still-bleeding-for-weeks vagina and a huge freaking pad or two inside huge freaking postpartum granny panties?

All I'm thinking about is trying to score a nap and a shower.  A man?  Not so much.

Don't even get me started on the extreme stress and war zone-esq conditions of having an extremely colicky baby. I'm still not quite over my PTSD to start talking about that, but all I can say is survival mode. Having a colicky baby will put a person into survival mode as quick as a car crash. Add in a disgruntled toddler who is seriously pissed at you for bringing this little yelling machine into their perfect little mommy snuggle fest and you have a recipe for tear stained pillows for months.

Your toddler watching you as you play with the baby thinking: How dare you? The look of disgust towards the bassinet while they sit and eat cheerios one by one. How dare you smile at that little noise maker?  How dare you coo?  How dare you pick the baby up in the middle of reading me Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site? 

It's not bad enough ladies... all of these outside pressures we have and don't get me started on the feelings of isolation!

Why are we so hard on ourselves about postpartum depression?

I'm determined to do my part to break the cycle. To do what I can to erase the stigma of postpartum depression and admitting it to myself and others.

I am saying it loud and proud, "I have postpartum depression." 

It does not mean I don't love my kids. It does not mean I regret getting pregnant or regret having this baby. It does not mean I regret being a stay-at-home-mom. It does not mean I regret making the decision to homeschool after a difficult kindergarten year in public school. It does not mean I regret breastfeeding my baby, all of my babies. I have postpartum depression. It's not something I choose to have. It's not who I am as a mother. It does not define me as a person but it is a part of my life - right now. It is a part of my motherhood journey - right now. It is a part of the path I am taking as a mother to tiny babies and young children. I can't imagine it will be a part of my journey when I have teenagers. Unless we have an oops baby when my kids are teens! Which we won't. Oh my God how we won't!

I have postpartum depression. It does not mean I don't love my husband or that I want to kill myself, or kill my children, or harm my children or abandon my children, or leave my husband.

However, I have wanted to kill myself.

I have thought about dying and I have postpartum depression, but that does not mean I don't love my kids. It does not mean I don't love my kids. It DOES NOT MEAN I DON'T LOVE MY KIDS.

It does not mean I don't love my kids.

Why do people insist in linking the two together?!

It simply means I have postpartum depression and I need help getting to the point where I no longer have postpartum depression. That may take medication, it may take therapy, it may take drastic changes to my diet and environment, it may take a ton of work on my part, but my life is worth fighting for. I'm worth fighting for.

I have good days and lonely days and critically unproductive days and every-minute-packed-to-the-gills-days and fun days and horrible days and yelling-like-a-tyrannical-bitch days and sitting on the floor playing cars days and watching Disney Junior from breakfast til dinner in our PJ's days, and feeling like a zombie days and spending all day at the aquarium days and fighting days and sleeping days and laughing days and crying days and sobbing days and days where I'm too broken to cry. All of these days have comprised my journey of postpartum depression.  My baby is 10 months old and yes, I still have postpartum depression. It's not as raw as it once was where it burned my eyes and was sticky in my mouth. The grit in my teeth and the cracking of my neck and stiffness in my back. But it does creep in like a bitter wind under the doorway from time to time when the house is a mess, when the kids are fighting me to get out the door because we need to be somewhere at a certain time - another person's time frame or schedule. When the clean laundry is piled high on the couch waiting to be folded yet I don't have a clean pair of damn underwear anywhere. When there's nothing in the fridge to eat because taking 3 kids to the store wasn't in my vocabulary that day so it's cereal for dinner - again. And then comes the look of disappointment in my 7 & a 1/2 year old daughter's eyes because I did not cook a gourmet, organic, home cooked meal from scratch. Because she's used to that, and she loves my cooking and prefers it to any restaurant you could ever take her to, and she even tells random people about my cooking from time to time and tells me how I should enter whatever meal I just made into a contest. (Melts my heart!)

"Cereal again?" and I avoid her gaze as I go into the bathroom to cry into my hands - again - as I pretend to poop.

Postpartum depression, my friend, does not mean I am a bad mom. It does not mean I am a bad person. It does not mean I don't deserve to have my kids or have my amazing husband.

It does not mean I am a bad mom who doesn't love her kids. I love them with everything I have in my body. I love them more than I love myself most of the time. Especially since I have postpartum depression.

I need to be kinder to myself - because I am worth it.
I need to love myself more - because I deserve it.
I need to take care of myself more - because I'm worth saving.

I need to treat myself as if I were one of my children because they are protected, cherished and loved dearly. 

to be continued...

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When Mama Isn't Ready For The Naps To Stop...Are We Ever?

It's ironic how kids never want to nap, and most of the parents I know would pay big money to be able to take a nap in the middle of the day.  Everyday!

Here is the method I used for getting my older toddler to continue taking daily naps because mama wasn't ready to give them up yet. My method is for children who will sleep "on the move" either in a car or in a stroller.

SIDE NOTE: My Big Girl is what my husband and I consider to be a Spirited Child and this is what worked for us to get her to wind-down. I say this not to label my child or make excuses for her or for me, but to offer hope in case you have a Spirited Child as well and are wondering if they will ever sleep in your lifetime. Gotta find what soothes them and run with it!

I was able to keep my older child napping daily for at least an hour+ til the middle/end of 3 years old.  She is going to be 5 years old very soon (GASP!!) and she will still fall asleep on occasion if we find ourselves in the car during "nap time," especially if she is going through a growth spurt like lately. Like most toddlers, she was extremely high energy and didn't sit still for too long and enjoyed bouncing from one thing to another. I had a new baby at the time too so mama was desperate to keep baby #1 aka Big Girl napping for as long as humanly possible. However, she wasn't goin' down without a fight. Here is my method for doing all I could to prolong the napping process.

The Sleepy Drive.
At nap time pretty much everyday during the week when I was partakin' in some solo parenting, I packed Big Girl and Baby Brother into the car for our daily "sleepy drive" and we all enjoyed the daily wind-down. I put on some very soothing music, gave them each their lovie and a blanket (if it was chilly) and we drove around til they fell asleep. It usually took no more than 15 minutes, but honestly, there were many, many days where I wouldn't even get down the block and at least one of them were already asleep. We have some great "sleepy drive music." It's like Pavlov's Dog.

You did a sleepy drive every single day?
Yep. I was OK with doing this every day at that time because, like everything else with children (good and bad), I knew it wouldn't last forever...and it worked!  Having an overtired toddler who is fussing and crying and fighting a nap for 45+ minutes every single day and then only sleeps for 30 minutes doesn't work when you have a nursing baby who also needs to wind-down and nurse and catch his 15th cat nap of the day - always at the same time of course.

The Early Years:
There was a time where both of them would wake up if I dared move their slumbering body out of the car seat to their bed so during that point in time I prepped everything to kick it in the car for the duration of the nap. I got some things for me to read or write and eat/drink (or I'd get drive-thru coffee!!) and then find a nice, quiet, shady spot by the park (away from any and all leaf blowers!) and we'd chill-out for a good hour to 2 hours or however long they needed to nap that day. Being a SAHM I was able to have this luxury of time during the day, and I'm so thankful for it.

"Is It Time For A Sleepy Drive Yet, Mommy?"
This was a very welcomed break for all three of us during our hectic, ever changing day. The kids were comfortable in their seats, and I was able to chill-out and have a bit of much needed "mama time" where I didn't feel like I had to fold laundry or do dishes (because how could I?? We weren't home. heehee.) I'd spend that time either staring blankly out the window thinking about nothing in particular except for how to get more sleep, I'd make a bunch of To-Do lists and shopping lists, I'd do my bills, I'd run through the drive up ATM (A mother must have designed those), I'd write blogs or I'd read parenting books/magazines. One time I dosed off still wearing my sunglasses,  holding my coffee cup in one hand and a parenting book in the other hand. The parenting book was no doubt a "How-To-Get-More-Sleep" book. Baby Brother was just a few weeks old...life was a wee fuzzy back then. These daily car "kick it" naps became a really nice way to break up the day and a good excuse for mama to relax and meditate.

A 2-in-1 Nap:
Sometimes, depending on what we had going on that afternoon, I'd wake them up or they would wake on their own and we'd get out and play at the park for a bit since we were already there. I made sure to bring along a blanket and some snacks to munch on picnic style, as well as have sand digging toys at the ready. It helped that Baby Brother was still breastfeeding only at that time, so I only had to bring snacks for one kiddo. So I'd sit on the park bench and nurse Baby Brother and chat with other moms while Big Girl got to play with a bunch of new kids since she was always stuck with boring 'ol mama and baby.

That's great an all, but my kids won't sleep in the car.
When Big Girl was toying with the idea of wanting to give up naps around 2-ish when I was pregnant and exhausted with Baby Brother, ("Uhhh, No!") I would pack her in her stroller at nap time and we'd go for a long walk to the park and she'd usually fall asleep. She protested being in any sort of carrier at a very early age. She wanted to be down to boogie around. Thank goodness she was baby #1 because baby #2 lived in a wrap attached to my body. That is the only way I ever got anything done during daylight hours. As a toddler, if she didn't fall asleep in the stroller on our "sleepy walk," then I figured we still got out of the house and had a nice walk together in the sunshine. My pregnant cankles thanked me. If she did nap (bonus for mama!), I'd stop and sit in the shade and read and have a snack and watch butterflies and hummingbirds. Sometimes I'd walk up to the store to walk the isles in peace or grab some lunch or coffee while she napped in the stroller covered with a light blanket for shade and quiet. One of my favorite things to do back then when she fell asleep on our walk was go to the grocery store and get a coffee and maybe something to munch on and sit at their little cafe and read all of the trashy celebrity magazines (for free of course) and get my fill on mindless brain chatter like who was dating whom and who was pregnant, who broke up, who got married...you know, all of the really important things in life.  That's all my preggo mom brain could muster back then.

The Win-Win Scenairo - Getting 2 To Nap:
After Baby Brother was born I'd squeeze him in the Moby Wrap and pack Big Girl in the stroller and we'd all walk. Baby Brother viewed his car seat like a torture chamber and screamed his tiny head off for the duration of our trip regardless of how long it was. So you can imagine my shock and horror super panic when I realized very early on that our tried and true method of the nap time sleepy drives for Big Girl #1 was no longer going to work since Baby Brother was being attacked by aliens back there. Regroup and adapt. He'd sleep in the wrap (and I could nurse him while walking and pushing a stroller if I had to in order to get him back to sleep while we were out - that was my mama superpower), and I already knew that she'd sleep in the stroller. Check.

It sounds silly, but you kinda feel like a rockstar when you get both kids napping at once.  You wish the paparazzi would follow you around and snap up some pics.
Headlines: "Rockstar Super Mom of Teething Baby and Wild Child Toddler gets them BOTH napping at the SAME TIME! What is her secret?!"OK sure, I'll sign autographs. 

Find what works for your children and run with it. If it works for them, then by golly it will work for you! Especially when it comes to sleep-precious-sleep!
I am always changing and adapting to their specific needs be it a walk, a snuggle in the carrier, a rock in the rocker or a car ride because frankly, I needed to have some peace and quiet during the day where they BOTH were asleep (a rare thing with more than 1 child) so I could recharge my mama batteries - so I just tried different things all the time until I found what worked for everyone to get them to sleep each day, peacefully. Some days it was really hit or miss. On the days where it was a "miss," I cried.

Loose-Loose.
Sometimes a "new thing" would only last a week or so and there were PLENTY of times where only one would fall asleep and the other one was W-I-D-E awake, so it's never going to be a home run. That was tough if we were parked somewhere and the awake child was fussy because they wanted to get out and it would eventually wake the other one up...which made mama fussy.  So then we'd just play and play and run wild at the park and *hope* that everyone went down early for bed that night.

Yeaaaaaaa riiiiiiiiiiiight!

The More Things Change The More They Stayed The Same.
As everyone got older and daily naps were still in order - at least for my lil guy, we'd continue with our sleepy drives and Baby Brother would fall asleep and Big Girl would wind-down. She loves to go for drives and enjoys all types of music, likes cuddling with her favorite stuffed guys and finds it a very calming experience overall. Thank goodness. After about 3 months of solid screaming whenever we got near the car let alone got in the car and got buckled, Baby Brother finally made peace with his car seat. Fast forward to 2 years later, he now finds it a calming experience as well, so we can now do sleepy drives for him if we need to. That was a long road. However, he doesn't fight naps everyday like it's his job like his big sister did when she was his age. There are days where I can see that he's getting tired and I'll scoop him up and we'll go into his dark room and snuggle with a blankie for a few minutes in his rocking chair (there are usually a few tears and a minimal bit of fussing and protesting - he is 2 after all) and he'll fall right asleep for a good 2-3 hours.

I know. I'd hate me too if I read this when Big Girl was the same age - being a Spirited Child and all. I also would never have believed it because the only time she ever did anything like that was when she was sick.

Stick With What Works.
If Baby Bother is extra wild that day and can't be calmed for a nap using our rocking chair techniques I pull the plug on it quickly so I don't miss "my window" and we'll all head to the car. They know the drill. "Get your lovies, grab your water, put on your sunglasses and let's move out!"  Mama needs a holy-crap-I-can't-keep-my-eyes-open-any-longer-cuz-it's-the-middle-of-the-day frappuccino! Good thing with them being a bit older now too is that we can head right home after they fall asleep and they will actually stay asleep as I get them out of their car seat and put them into their beds. My Big Girl will usually wake up now if she has fallen asleep, but that's ok. She doesn't really need a nap anymore like she did between 0-3 1/2 years and she'll actually sit and have some "quiet time" when Baby Brother is napping - something she would never ever EVER do before. Hence mama's need for her to nap til she was 3+ years old!! Now that she is getting older she actually will go to bed a bit earlier if she's been running around playing like a wild child during the day as opposed to it revving her up like it did when she was a toddler.

You're probably wondering if we need to do sleepy drives for bedtime. 
We've gotten into a pretty locked in night time routine which consists of a warm bubble bath, naked babies running around refusing to put on jammies, lots and lots of books and lots and lots of cuddling. We're at the point now with our Big Girl where we say, "this is the last book" and we close it, give hugs and kisses and daddy will sing a song he's made up freestyle based on whatever she wants him to sing about ("Horsey Horsey" is a long standing favorite) and we say "night night" and close her door. It has become a rare occasion that she comes out after we say goodnight since she is usually asleep within minutes later.

It was a looooooong road. #SpiritedChild.

Baby Brother still gets rocked to sleep in mama's arms every night like baby #1 at that age because he's my sweet lil cuddle bug and I throughly enjoy our quiet time together at bedtime. And again, he's only 2.  Then daddy comes in to put him into his big boy toddler bed.  He's pretty heavy. Sometimes he wants to sleep with us if he's been fussy so we put him in our bed, and sometimes when I turn his light out after we read books (and before we cuddle and rock in the rocking chair) he hops outta my arms and crawls into his bed on his own bed and says, "I go night night."  
Me: "But...but, don't you want mama to rock you and snuggle you and sing to you til you fall asleep?"  Sniff*Sniff*
Baby Brother: "I sleepy. Bay go night night."
Me: "Night Night My Sweet Love" (Kisses Big Boy, wipes single tear that has escaped my eye and closes his door.)

Night Time Sleepy Drives.
We certainly are no stranger to night time sleepy drives that is for sure. If we've had a particularly hectic day and it's hard to calm the savage beasts or if company has just left after a fun evening and our kids are wild beyond measure or if it was a special dinner and dessert was served we just cut to the chase and take a sleepy drive. I enjoy the quiet time with my husband listening to our sleepy music and having a very quiet conversation while the kids calm down. It was especially enjoyable during Christmas time and we got to see everyone's lights. And I'll admit, when Big Girl was a baby/toddler, we put more miles on our car at night then we ever did during the day. #SpiritedChild. But that was ok. It didn't last forever and it gave my husband and I some really nice, quiet bonding time with each other each evening while we drove around the neighborhood waiting for our little fighter to finally cave in and close her sweet lil lids.

Ever changing, always adapting. Life as a mom.

What is Facebook So Afraid Of?

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Not everyone in corporate America is afraid of breastfeeding...

I was very pleased when I opened my new Babies R Us coupon mailer to find not only a coupon for 20% off any item (score!) but much to my surprise and joy there is a very sweet picture of a beautiful mother breastfeeding her precious baby. What is so unusual about a picture capturing a tender moment between mother and child in a Babies R Us ad, you ask?  Well, this mother is lovingly breastfeeding her sweet little baby outside at the park without a cover.  

Let me repeat that in case the significance of photo like this making it's way onto a print ad for a huge company might have been lost on someone.  Boppy and Babies R Us have chosen to champion and promote the normalization of breastfeeding by placing a photo of a mother discretely BREASTFEEDING her baby OUTSIDE in PUBLIC WITHOUT A COVER!  Kudos to Boppy and Kudos to Babies R Us!  As a breastfeeding mother, I thank you for supporting the normalization of breastfeeding and for choosing this photo for your ad. 

You may not realize this but an innocent photo of you breastfeeding your child in your Facebook photo album would be deleted soon after it was uploaded in order to sanitize your profile because it falls outside the boundaries of the Facebook photo guidelines. A photo of a mother breastfeeding her child is deemed too prurient for facebook. However, a photo of a woman wearing next to nothing in a very compromising pose eliciting sex is appropriate...(according to Facebook.) In addition to this double-standard a fake profile that was put up on Facebook to harass a young girl by her peers at school took over a year to take down AFTER this poor girl committed suicide due to the extreme amount of bullying she received due to this fake profile.  Yet breastfeeding photos are taken down in record time and reported and flagged as "sexually explicit" and profiles are quickly suspended or shut down for having breastfeeding photos as was the case for Emma Kwasnica back in January 2012. In an interview by the Huffington Post she said, "It's such a double-standard: if you type in 'breasts' on Facebook, you can see pages with thousands of members where there are naked breasts... How is that happening when at least 30 women I know have had accounts shut down for a single breastfeeding image?" She went on to say, "Someone sent me a friend request today, and the profile photo is just an erect penis." 

Sex sells advertisements.  

It makes you wonder where people's priorities are when a mother breastfeeding a child is seen as something sexual or inappropriate because some skin might be exposed or because of the child's age or because a person can't think that a breast is meant for anything other than a sexual fantasy.  Are we that far removed from the most basic and natural way mothers have been feeding their babies since the beginning of our existence?  

Breastfeeding has been quite the hot topic lately as we've seen on TV, all over the internet on various mom's forums and blogs. Celebrities like Mayim Bialik (from the 1990's show Blossom - who holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience by the way) are writing books "Beyond the Sling: A Real-Life Guide to Raising Confident, Loving Children the Attachment Parenting Way" and speaking out in support of breastfeeding, Attachment Parenting, extended breastfeeding - which is breastfeeding beyond the first year, etc. 

There were many impassioned reactions to the latest cover of the now famous Time magazine article of mother Jamie Lynn Grumet breastfeeding her 3 1/2 year old son. The article was about Dr. Sears and the Attachment Parenting community who believe in the many benefits of extended breastfeeding, however, the cover upset many breastfeeding moms as well because the title "Are You Mom Enough?" sounds like it is trying to turn motherhood into some sort of competition pitting mothers against each other for the decisions they have made for their family.  

We are even seeing mothers getting harassed by employees and patrons in public places like we saw recently with Katie Jane Hamilton who was discreetly breastfeeding her overtired toddler in a quiet corner at LACMA and received a complaint via a museum security guard by a couple who was uncomfortable with her breastfeeding in public.  Never mind the fact that she was sitting in an area surrounded by naked sculptures of women that were seen as works of art by the very patrons who complained about a mother nursing her child.  Katie Jane and her daughter were then approached by a female security guard who walked up and said, "You need to cover up."  

I wonder how "uncomfortable" the couple would have been as well as everyone else within ear shot if Hamilton had not tended to her child's needs of being fussy and overtired and had not chosen to comfort her to sleep in peace and quiet and just let her toddler run the museum halls wild with a raging temper tantrum because her mother was too ashamed, uncomfortable or embarrassed to nurse her in public?

I'm also having a serious issue with the lack of decorum and manners that seemed to be displayed by an employee of an establishment to a paying patron and supporter of the very place where she is employed.  As well as the fact that a woman is demanding another woman to stop doing something she was biologically designed to do...but that is for another post.  

Every good mother knows her child well enough to know their limits and when we are in public most of us try to do everything within our power to keep the peace when it comes to the earth shattering tantrums a very small child can unleash when they are cranky, overtired, overstimulated, hungry, hurt, bored, special needs or even when having too much fun. Many of us know that there are many factors that can come into play when a child is throwing a tantrum and often times it has nothing to do with them being an "unruly brat who just needs to be spanked" as is the common blanket statement made from onlookers regarding such behavior. 

We all know what those glances from strangers feel like when our child is past their breaking point.  We've all been somewhere where a child is going crazy and disrupting everyone with their cries and screams despite a parent's very best efforts and tantrum diffusing parenting techniques. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone had a "secret weapon" like nursing mothers do with being able to quietly breastfeed a child back to sleep or happiness that doesn't involve yelling back at them, spanking them which only exacerbates the tantrum, or giving them candy, ice cream or some expensive version of an electronic ibabysitter?  

For the record, candy, ice cream and ipads can be a beautiful thing and all have their time and place and are used by both breastfeeding and bottle feeding mothers alike, but when you really think about it when a child is at their most frazzled state all they really want in most cases is the comforting and loving touch of a parent, and nursing a child can be just what they need to feel safe, secure and loved.  Yet so many nursing mothers do not feel comfortable nursing in public even though deep down they know it would be the best thing for their child at that time.  Despite the assumptions, not everyone has an issue with mothers breastfeeding in public. Do we really want to be making crucial parenting decisions that impact our children based on a possible stranger's judgments and their personal issues or do would we rather go with our gut and our natural mothering instinct and do what we feel is best for our child?

The LACMA story spread quickly inciting many blog posts and comments as well as a few Facebook pages started by Hamilton in an effort to spread the word about breastfeeding and educate the public about a mother's right to breastfeed in public. The story was even covered by local Los Angeles television news stations. Many were pleased to see the swift apology from LACMA regarding the incident and the promise to educate their employees about the law in California protecting a women's right to breastfeed her child in public since 1997. 

California Civil Code § 43-53. 

1997 Section 43.3 of the Civil Code

43.3.  Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a mother may breastfeed her child in any location, public or private, except the private home or residence of another, where the mother and the child are otherwise authorized to be present.

Speaking as a member of the breastfeeding community, we feel happy with the outcome of their heartfelt apology and do have every confidence that this will never happen again at their museum. We also have high hopes that other establishments will now be informed of the law and follow suit. Education is a powerful thing! Despite the opinions of some bloggers who are basing assumptions off wrong information, there are no plans for a mass nurse-in at LACMA since they have issued an apology and are making attempts to educate their employees.  However, the breastfeeding support page Hamilton created Hey LA! Breastfeeding Isn't Shameful! is planning a peaceful mass nurse-in soon in Los Angeles, Ca to promote breastfeeding, educate the public regarding the breastfeeding law and to show support for breastfeeding in public. Follow the page for more details regarding time, date and location. 

The more we normalize breastfeeding and stop the sexualization of breastfeeding mothers the more we will see the tides turn in favor of supporting a mother's decision to breastfeed her baby whenever and where ever a child needs to be fed. The next time you see a child happily nursing quietly in a public place you should smile and thank the mother for her courage and for tending to her child's most basic needs rather than let them cry and scream and disrupt everyone around them on the off chance of making a stranger passing by feel uncomfortable for whatever issue they might have regarding breastfeeding. Mothers should tend to their child's basic needs of nourishment, comfort, security, safety and love wherever they are regardless of how it makes other people feel. These are first and foremost our most important jobs as mothers and strangers passing by should not even be a factor in the equation.

If you want to be outraged by a choice a parent is making in regards to their child, fight the battles against the parents who are abandoning, neglecting and/or purposely harming their children and who are choosing to not take care of their basic needs. Don't pick on the ones who are doing their best to raise their child with love. A child can be loved and comforted and feel safe regardless if they are being fed by breast or by bottle, therefore, ALL mothers who are doing their best raising their children need to feel supported by family and community for the decisions they have made for their family. 

Breastfeeding a baby isn't an option for every mother despite the fact that we are biologically designed to produce milk for our offspring.  In many cultures before us and way before you could buy a can of formula at the grocery store down the street it was commonplace to have wet nurses to take over in the event of a mother who could not produce her own milk, or enough milk to feed her babies. A wet nurse was crucial in the survival of her babies.  Deciding whether or not to breastfeed or to give formula is often times a very painful choice to make for a new mother if she is torn in either direction and does not receive the proper support by those around her to execute her decision. We don't take these decisions lightly and they are rarely made rash with no thought. Many, many factors come into play in the decisions we make that work best for our family.  As a mother who has often times felt judged in the decisions I have lovingly and carefully made for the benefit of my children, I ask you to please save the judgments of other mothers and the "wars" for the issues that truly matter. 

I'm encouraged by the number of women who are feeling confident enough to come out of the bathroom stalls and out from under a hot, sweaty and often times cumbersome breastfeeding cover to nurse their babies whenever and where ever the occasion arrises.  Be proud of your decisions and stand by them, whatever they may be!  

Are the tides finally turning?  Have you seen a large corporation or company or group of people support breastfeeding? Have you felt supported while breastfeeding in a public place? Please share!

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