Making A Pledge
Blog
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Calling Forth Our Tribe
nothing separates us from love, I will sit down and nurse my little one for the next 365 days
Work life balance! Where is pleasure and freedom?
OR
Why we cannot wait….To…
I am giddy with excitement; I celebrated an incredible milestone of having a 70th birthday. While I am not nursing a little one at the moment, I have recently given birth to what some might call a new idea where I want to pivot….
I want to commit to anchoring myself.. developing within me an attachment of love … seeing this new entity grow and to keep showing up 365 days in a row. Connection, attachment, balance, love, letting go… spreading seed in the dark unknown the black sun if you can envision such a thing where I bring all aspects of myself as an elder to bring more light and love and community in the world.
My children were my best teachers. I learned so very much about love, and myself and that they trusted me and relied on me. I was both the beneficiary and the supplier. I thought I was doing it alone, by sheer will, the giant teat; sustenance for us both at a time when it was so hard to look around and see what I was doing and see if it made any sense at all. How do we encourage ourselves to do or be something? What brings us Joy! How can we be proud of ourselves and have faith in our own mind, body and spirit… just because…
We do it by just showing up, being gentle and kind with ourselves and others and making space to listen and form our tribe. Can we float and form a space where we gather around we show how we might listen to the women who have nursed their little ones for 365 days or longer to meet up with someone who feels deeply that this is a milestone for them that they would like to just see what may happen if they could … do something that they want simply for the Joy of it just because…
Could we, not I form a foundation a sanctuary, a gathering place, a listening post where folks might speak and ask not only questions but, the space where they first and foremost would be listened to… no fear, no judgment, just love….
Would it be OK and important that we take time out to set a priority that was centered around a critical moment of setting the foundation, making the transition and we have that hope and light for our little ones and for each other… but mostly for our selves as women.
So tonight we take the steps, and have our first meet up where the doors are open and we look around for our tribe, who is there with us and for us…
I saw so many roadblocks to how I could organize and sponsor a call out a gathering.
I saw all the speed bumps and was having trouble with keeping the vision and hearing the voice of wisdom and love.…
I got an email birthday card… about reminding me about legacy and birth and what might be what’s calling me to celebrate
Feeling like my senses were failing me… when in fact my grace and vision was becoming crystal clear…
Keep it simple, open your heart, loving kindness and compassion and have the humility to ask for help.
Do you know one woman who has nursed her little one for 365 days or more?
How can you find her?
Have you ever thought, wondered tried to nurse a baby and felt like you missed the mark or would have benefited from the “tribe” the community that would support you with love no questions asked.
Would you like to make a pledge to stay with your little one and nurse for 365 days in a row? Just because you want to…
What we have in common is who we are and what we want to do. So many mothers came before us… They have such stories to tell.. Your passion , your hearts desire… We honor all mothers and their journey… We celebrate the birth of new ideas with women.
All are welcome here if you need us and want us. We have been looking for each other… so come by, my brother made pie for the celebration and it is sweet and good…
See you soon…
So let us begin!
“You have touched the lives of so many. May your birthday shine like your life.”
Midwifery Legacy Project Honoring Wise Midwives
http://www.midwife.org/acnm/files/ccLibraryFiles/Filename/000000005631/MLP-ecard-2015-2016.pdf
https://www.meetup.com/365-breastfeeding-tribe-meetup-group/events/298358291/
our sons our daughters all of them 
LOOKING FOR OUR TRIBE ….MAKING THE PLEDGE -
MOOSE, MILK and Me
October 17, 2021
It has been almost two years since I last lived on the farm, Moose was my friend, a large brown Swiss cow of great beauty, she taught me so many things about love, about nursing a baby and being connected to the land, and the seasons and the power of presence and communicating without out words.
Today is a very special day… October 16, 2023 of gratitude, anticipatory grief and loss but also a celebration of how we heal and how we are so intimately tied to one another. Every cell, every rock, every plant, every animal every spirt as a life force. I am amazed at the charm and cycles of seasons beckons us to take another look not so much with nostalgia, but with wonder and fresh eyes that we can see things differently at different vantage points over time. The synchronicity of the calendar and what goes on this day, and the days to follow as well as revisiting what occurred in some other time and place on the same day allows us such wonder and awe; if we choose to pause for a moment of reflection and grace.
I was not breastfed, not nursed by my mother. I was intensely loved and connected to my mother and other people and spirits on the planet so that my ability to attach grew and blossomed and thrived. My ability to love and to be loved was nurtured by those who were present and did what they could. Reserving judgment holding the light, just presence.
It is quite a story of irony in that my first attachment to a particular mother’s milk: a first food; golden colostrum was from a cow named Moose. She gave it to me as a gift of sisterhood and understanding of generations of sharing, standing in the gap as if she knew what I might need to heal me: mind, body, and soul. Sometimes we want something that someone else can easily provide. No words are necessary, but indeed there is meaning and after that experience the receipt of a gift or time spent, you are changed.
Every injury, every recollection, every transition, every loss, every separation voluntary or not every leave taking is an invitation for healing. Somehow opening that doorway for remembering. We acknowledge the land, the space, but do we also acknowledge what took place there and cycles…
On October 16, 2018 I was having surgery. My gut was not working, I had an obstruction and my sacred tribe encircled me with love, standing in the gap for connection and love and nourishment and holding on. Commitment, covenant, just holding the high watch of healing possibility and light in the face of the unknown, the unexpected; just waiting and standing by. Not so much what you say or do, but who you are, just being your best self. Probably the less said the better and there are things that words cannot convey. My sister tribe. They sang they danced they waited, they did everything but worry.
There is a language, how a space and how someone makes you feel that energizes and inspires you. Looking back, you can see what worked but indeed you can’t explain why or what indeed may have motivated you intuitively that it had such a profound effect on you and everyone around you. Moose was my mother; my first encounter with the mystery of mother’s first milk. Sacred cow. Sisters on a journey!
For some reason, Moose felt she owed us and she paid me back in spades.
One day very shortly after giving birth to a new calf. It has been the practice to quickly separate mother and baby. The first milk, the golden colostrum with all the rich antibodies is crucial to life sustaining bonding, attachment. Tears and moans of udders full and taught are no match for milking machines, powders and seeing your baby across the pasture just out of reach and range to suck. As if instructed by Moose, Vernessa collected the first milk washing her udders, sterilizing the jars, and hand pumping directly into sterile jars assuring her it would get directly to her baby and assuring her that she understood the precious power of connection. So much milk was Moose asked that it be given to me a secret pact was made to share the remainder. Raw, unpasteurized un homogenized the thick custard made coffee cream, fresh cheese, fermented yoghurt without a drop wasted. Generations would be introduced to what it may have been like for me and her to try something old and new… How could she know her milk would heal me…
MOOSE’s Milk Day ONE Colostrum
Today is the day, this October 16th
Moose will be “put down”- euthanized, heart failure they say, tumors blocking her last breath well timed, it is no accident that she would want me to know a season ended our lives and connection complete but never ending and we pay it forward.
Five or six years is a long time for a prized brown Swiss Dairy cow. We enjoyed our time together in the garden.
Our conversations about daughters and grandchildren and weaning and tears shed over separation and loss and the curious JOY of staying together each day with the rhythm of the seasons. Watching our daughters and sisters grow and caring for each other, nursing each other’s babies… saying goodbye…
What joy it is to be seen and known!
Cows jumping over the moon and chasing away chickens and critters and llamas and not liking turnip greens no matter what but liking beet greens and sharing her first milk with me. Knowing it warm and from the teat sent to me would heal all wounds.
Moose got a message to me of gratitude, parting at the fork in the road. She was urging me to move forward and do and be what only I could do and be when there was no one else. Just do your part. Separating mothers and babies, be it fences, heart ache controlling what we can…
the details escape me but the wound and the space is also the place where the light can come in. We met there once, and now it was time. Moose taught me so many things
I shall miss her…
Knowing your tribe…
Moose with her daughter and granddaughter
Weaning when you get good and ready… handling separations and loss and gathering those who would be willing to walk with you…
It’s never ever too late to heal old wounds.
Love knows no distance. circling back.
Gathering and Healing Our Tribe
Moose October 15, 2023. The day before the last day
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GENDER REVEAL
Learning, and Listening and Mystery
Creating a brand and becoming an influencer are all parts of what I’ve been told I need to do to gather and support the tribe of women who want to commit to nursing their little ones. Celebrity endorsements, book reviews, web sites, blogs, funnels, vlogs, TIK TOK, Tweeting, YOU TUBE production are all the skills and strategies I must use to reach my target audience. Whether it’s online, or meeting up locally… I must create a plan, make a budget and define my nice so tightly.
Someone somewhere is looking for me as if I was the one that had the answer. Where are the mentors, the ELDERS, the healers, the storytellers in the room. Who has crossed over to the otherside and lived to tell the tale. Went away, came back, Prodigal DAUGHTERS returning willingly, because this was indeed the next leg of the journey.
I and the message have the solution to the perceived problem. Fear of loss, missed opportunity would drive the engine, create fear and lack and loss, purveyor / provider of the solution. Something a “product” worth paying for. Subscribing to… Membership and belonging has its advantages. Loneliness, solitude and the fear of loss and abandonment, no one will like me if I don’t confirm, not good enough, not worthy, living up to the standard of perfection I may not meet. Can we honor the process, the progress we made. I have been here before in this place and this feels different. I can and I will try a different approach, something I want… my heart’s desire.
I will be better at listening to the STORIES. I will watch the rituals, old and new and ask fewer questions and just listen. I want to earn respect by being a good and patient and feeling no need to advise, cajole, convince, might I want to collaborate and co-conspire and co create with women that already know what it is they wish to be and do. Create more content for a demographic I had deluding myself into thinking that I knew all about, and what it is they needed and what might be best for them.
My first grand daughter is newly 21, certainly of childbearing age, told me a story of her dear friend certainly on the bestie category, the tales of age mates, and identity, and ritual. She went to a gender reveal party where the sex and gender was to be revealed to the community. Her mother, and I and most of the ancestors I knew about certainly had had a child by then. Women’s role in society and identity was defined by their childbearing status and of course directly or indirectly by default by their progeny or by their male non childbearing spouse.
Anthropologically, the rituals ascribed were designed and perfected and marketing to provide education, and to secure a clear identity and membership and support for the group they would be joining.
In the act of holy listening… she told the tale of her experience of being on TEAM GIRL and an alternate if not an opposing TEAM BOY. The instructions were clear based on the text invitation.
Team GIRL were to bring the gift baby wipes. Team BOY were to bring diapers!
Holy Listening...
the gender was announced with mini confetti cannons and surprise. with both parents revealing the gender of the child to the world. blue smoke for the boys, pink smoke for girls and the attachment and aspirations and welcome begins. Their new announcement to their shared parenting. How could I create content for mothers if I had no space or patience for listening.
Imagine how will you announce the anticipation of the birth of your little one. Who will be there? What help you would you require? How will I find the women that want to join the tribe to support to allow and encourage you to continue a close relationship honored your decision to continue the connection and your heart’s desire. I f we are willing to listen, you can tell us what you may need. Who will be happy for you if you are not able to share what allows you to stay with your little one. Discovery of the pregnancy and the gender of the baby and how you wish to parent your child are relatively new experiences in the lives of women. Creating new rituals and points of transitions are important components of the medical care you may receive as a part of your prenatal care, the delivery and how you care for yourself and your developing family. I had never heard of a gender reveal party. My grand daughter reminded me that what most people want is to be listened to and to share what’s important to them especially when they have a chance to choose parenting. Who will be there to listen and to celebrate you? They will watch you as you listen to your heart’s desire,
How might we find one another?
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Who is your daddy?
Who is your daddy?
Where is your daddy? Did you leave him? Did he leave you? What happened?
Today is my dad’s birthday.
The first man in my life, the Leo Lion impressing and forming and shaping me providing the seed for my mother’s womb. I am indeed the Prodigal Daughter and I think of him often and how lucky I was to have him in my life.
Given the options and possibilities of what it meant to be a black man, a father and a husband and a son, our lives together was remarkable and affected me and shaped the mother I am today. My journey with him and without him deeply influenced the development of my family. who I looked for as a husband and a father.
I am also still getting to know him. He died in 1982. He was born the same year, my grandmother’s father disappeared from her life in 1916. He shows more of himself to me as I get older and indeed especially on his birthday. Not coming to me as often as my mother to visit, but coming nevertheless and asking me to search and take a closer look and to honor him. He watches over us. Our sons and our daughters… He asks me to wonder what makes us leave, what makes us stay and what might have happened when we could not be together.
This is the first season that I recognize this date on the calendar in cycles redolent of the moon and the sun. As I circle back to the season of his birth, the brilliant summer sun, moon, and stars occur during the opening portal of the Lions gate.
I get to look at my father the Leo Lion and my mother the Taurus Bull and see what sparked the connection:seeds sown and planted. I also get to look at the lines and lineage of being HIS daughter and HIS line and things about his father and his father and see the touchpoints of the patriarchy and seek balance and understanding and compassion for things that I don’t fully understand and could never know because I wasn’t there, and he didn’t tell me.
I can tell you though that this celebration of his birth asks me to consider different questions and to ask of other women, the daughters of their fathers and the mothers of sons to be willing to take a look at what our part is, what we have created.
If I share this post on my space for honoring the maternal experience of breastfeeding, I may tend to focus more on the maternal relationship that is in right relationship for the restoration of healing for the mother with her own father.
If I place it elsewhere, may I allow myself a wider berth to play with connections and just acknowledge the list of what comes up for me and how might I understand both him and me /myself better and not worry so much about the audience.
I continue to be disturbed about the violence and intense control directed at women, directed at children, directed at men. Managing hard emotions, without addressing conflict within families prevents healing. This pain and loss is always an invitation to the open heart. Faith can replace Fear. Loving with an open heart is our solution. Searching for our fathers is part of our journey.
In search of our mothers’ gardens… do we settle for God the father, a heavenly father LORD of the manor to substitute for the man we do not know or worst for the man we think we know and who hurt us and who we have not forgiven. Nor can we forgive ourselves for wanting more.
This morning I felt my father move in closer, or it was perhaps I that listened in and looked for him more closely and found him everywhere. It felt like his birth signaled me to see things that I hadn’t noticed before in my immediate surroundings simply because it was his birthday.
This morning I picked up an old journal/scrapbook that I thought was full and hadn’t looked at or for in a long while. I opened the page to jot something down and the last entry was curiously dated April 11, 2015 the date I had left California driving East with my dog Snow.
I had a new fast car The Fiat 500C 2014 and the heading was the Prodigal Daughter returns. Citing scripture and the issues that called me home… my return to the East Coast and to my Daughter, and grandchildren. I also was challenged by the thought I was returning home and felt my parents calling I had no idea what I might uncover on my return and what I might be willing to expose myself to….
I also was forewarned that my grandchildren were calling and that I was stepping in to being an Elder and that I would indeed think I was traveling alone but I would not at any point be alone. I would be surrounded by angels, and ancestors and I would be part of an ancient migration.
I was curious, frightened, in awe of what I might find, but there was no turning back. For the drive, I would not allow myself much of a glance in the rear view mirror. Now did my dad show me that revelation early this morning. Talking in deep conversation to dead people is not something I would admit to, but he offered me an openness today for whatever reason.
I listened to a meditation offered by an indigenous person from Hawaii; how our path may have crossed is another story for another time, but I had never been to Hawaii and have had no desire to go but I recalled that my father had and my brother when I was newly married with a nursing baby. I was not invited for the family trip, and I remember feeling excluded because I now had a husband and a baby boy and was no longer my father’s child. I belonged to another man. My brother initially said he had never gone to Hawaii; then changed his story.
My father, JoAnne, my sister, and my dad’s girlfriend Suzanne all went together. My brother said he did not remember, and it had been a long time ago. He said he remembered little about the trip being unimportant to him. They stayed in a big hotel and that it was an Omega trip (my dad’s fraternity) and I remember them saying they didn’t like the poi, the food was disappointing, but the islands were incredibly beautiful. The conversation was quickly over, I was curious and had more questions, but we were done. I pushed further did he want to be a Q after the trip had they extended an invitation, maybe that was the purpose of the trip. He laughed and said he was queer and not a Q and that was the end of it. No more questions. I was probing and pressuring and received all he had.
I realized the story for me was not my brother’s story, it was mine and it was for me and my dad and revisiting the Prodigal Daughter’s return.
I went back to the last April 11, 2015 entry and re-read the scripture today August 5th 2023 as a part of the celebration ofmy father’s birth. Hawaii and the meditation of balance between feminine and masculine and my father and my mother and what it meant to me to be the Elder in the room. I was no longer included. It was not my trip, another way I could cut the cord and forgive and let go of what I no longer needed and pass the baton.
Luke 15. 30. 24
I am going where I have never been before!
How do I prepare for the journey home?
Your baby is not your daddy, neither is your baby’s father.
What might your daddy think about you nursing your little one for 365 days?
How do you feel about that?
Things To Do
Things To Pack
People To See
Waiting ON
What did the son do that made him leave?
What makes you return home? Home free to your heart!
Running Away vs. GOING TO something you desire.
My father was born on August 5, 1916 in Harlem in New York, New York; the second son of Julia and Jonathan. Born at home on 113th street likely with midwives who I came to know and likely came to be my teachers. I know my father well because he spent time with me and because I was the second daughter of the second wife and because I was the first daughter and I think he saw in me something that was growing in himself at the same time and because of his relationship with me as his daughter.
Who is your daddy?
Where is your daddy?
What did your daddy do?
As you ask those questions for yourself.
The door widens on where to go next… and who you are. Not everyone wants to know who their father is and whether they have a “right” to know or whether they might benefit from knowing is another story.
If not knowing the “answers” to those questions or if even having those questions may be in fact an issue for you is quite intriguing.
YOUR daddy may not be your biological father?
There were several things that came for me to do for my father’s birthday
Collect the photos of my dad.
What lessons had he taught me about gender, about love, about being a father; about relationships; about himself?
How did he parent me differently than his other two children my siblings
Were there other children, other siblings that I didn’t know about.
Who stood in the gap when my father was not there?
When did I first miss him?
How did he treat my mother, mistreat her, value her love her did he love me in ways that made me choose him over my mother?
Did I betray my mother by loving him…
I am reading a wonderful book of reflections about daughters and their fathers.
Happiest of Birthdays …. and Thank you for coming home!
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THIS MOTHERS DAY…. poems are prayers
OF all the ways I anticipated spending
and celebrating MOTHERS
I could not have imagined or made my MOTHERS Day up
Knowing full well there would be no ceremony with my bio TWO
Loving and grateful
Our schedules would not collide
So many warm greetings
Geographic land acknowledgments
from those occupying SPACE in my heart
Who have I mothered and yes nurtured me
Knowing full well
It was I
blessed more than they
tearing open my heart to unconditional love
I lift in prayer and thoughts
healing energy made whole again
My gratefulness
My chance at Holy Witness
When the Wise Women Gathered
Ordering Divine Feminine
opine about grief and loss
what we might therefore be about the business now
It is said as written and felt if not seen
Assigned at birth
no worser pain than to live long with the loss of your child
Mother is to go First
That is the Rule
Irony
It is I on this day
as if moved to the unspeakable
Poetry rescues
redeems
chimes in
As if there were a signature mark
competition of choice of worse and worser
Some of us might win Best Love…
Calling to holy witness
My all
Mothers of Dead Children
Mothers of Murdered Children
Mothers of Murderers
Mothers To and of Other Mother’s Children
We hear your Prayers
We grant you Peace
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It’s my Birthday!
Celebrating ME
….. O mothers everywhere everyday at any age but especially today at 69
It is the practice of mothers to measure success in the accomplishments, lack there of or behavior of their children. as if when we nurture them, we nurture ourselves vicariously.
It is rare that we want to allow for our success in that we might honor giving space and time to what it is we want to do. Who do we wish and long to be? To give ourselves fully to a moment…. be it creative, play, pleasure, if we are in a place where we truly have choice and so we exercise life, symmetry, and oh yes beauty.
What a dear guide calls the “generative story of our time” . What are the wise and gentle voices we allow in our heads and hearts? Are they kind?
While I am happy and grateful for the lives of my progeny and ancestors, today I celebrate me, Weird Elder holding space and light and JOY for the gratitude I feel at this moment. Forgiveness and and compassion for all the choices and places I found and continue to find my self with both regrets and misunderstandings and angst and the habit of self-flagellations forgot having done it not anything right.
Today I feel accountable and responsible for me. The part that is mine, especially the part that is shared. My good intentions.
If my child, that aspect and part of the relation and connection that is me; the coupling that is hurt and harmed and whole. I hold us both well and healed in this moment. I grieve and groan the pain of loss, despair and disappointment. I embrace the painful part that is birth and starting all new ventures and showing up without good intentions without knowing or having full control of the outcome.
Today, as I close out the sixth decade.. I leave and look forward to LOVE.
If for any moment you want and desire for this moment: when you are grateful, more than enough and you surrender to the peace of what it is ..
We surround you with love and peace and the place to sit a moment and just wander and wonder and rest.
As if a special veil was lifted, with new moons, mercy, and grace and lots of snow. I can see many things that were not always visible to me today. Pretty snow, pretty light coming from dark spaces, winter and dawn of possibilities. Is that birth day, reflection and grace, circling back and remembering my own mom, and hers and hers and hers.. as I do my own Daughter and hers and hers.
In lieu of a purse, or earrings or a meal out and about. I got a gift of the happy birthday song sang at the bedside from my son as he woke me.. and yet and still another song of poetry brilliant from my daughter. great and unexpected gifts and treasures.
Happy within me…joyous and free… stories of what we leave behind and remembered for and more than that it is a mighty mighty mighty good day, the day you were born and the womb space you rode in on… the breath and blood of life circulating.. we thank her for the ride..
Do you post your birthday cards on the fridge? Do you look in the mirror and wonder if you see yourself as others see you? I remind you to tell your story. put it somewhere, you or someone is watching and listening right now.
BIRTHDAY BLESSINGS for the MOTHER from the DAUGHTER
…
Sunday’s around three,
When the breeze hits the trees,
And the leaves pass by…
Your energy is felt
Your hands, the miracles they’ve dealt
Your aura…Free and unapologetically.
A humble servant.
A midwife of many.
A lover of life.
A giver of plenty.
A dynamic beauty who stands her place.
A light to such darkness.
Such power.
Such grace.
The bearer of joy and rivers.
A method for so many.
I wear her on the outside, but I also have her in me.
Happy Birthday Mom!
https://jacqueline-laughlin.medium.com/happy-birthday-771b417939bd
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Happy Birthday Monk!
Today is September 20th 2022, my son’s 48th birthday. When I was nursing him in the way way way back, I didn’t think about this day. No luxury of fast forward into the future; in fact, I thought little and just kept moving along. My grandmother had always mentioned to sit down and take my time and suggested ever so gently that all would be alright. I don’t think I have a single photo of him nursing
Diaper Pin MOM & DAD & Monk at 9 months It would not have occurred to me to take such a photo or to even have someone take a photo of me nursing my baby. I don’t recall who took the photo, perhaps my mother or father. Likely suspects with a camera. I was dressed, had a bra on, no leaking and probably getting ready to go somewhere and packing up a diaper bag, hence with a diaper pin in my mouth. Things are different now. That’s Ok!
I didn’t have a computer, or smart phone, and this was pre-internet for me and he and I were still very close and connected and I would not be who I am nor would he be who he is without that relationship. So I am grateful and very grateful to celebrate his birth and to share this day with his father and to honor the women.
I am in the final stages of finishing up a second book on breastfeeding as a specia invitation to encourage any mother who wishes to nurse her baby for 365 days will have all she needs.
I have set out to have 52 women who have done so as part of an Elder Speaks: Wise Woman Series where you will get to meet the women who have just done that. First there are ten women, then 30, ten 100, and then 1000
If you would like to tell your story, please let me know… someone desperately needs to hear what you have to say. Birthday Blessings for each of you!
Please check out…. these two YOU TUBE videos… just for you…
Be of GOOD CHEER!
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FULL MOON MAGIC
RE-LACTATING OR BEGINNING AGAIN…
A Total Lunar Eclipse
I was reading something earlier today about the power of a knee jerk reaction to teach us something profound. The power of our emotional response can indeed be a window to something much deeper .
With all of this talk about missing infant formula, contaminated food sources, and broken supply chains; it is easy to miss the source of why our hearts ache.
This is a good time to allow space and time to get present and inquisitive with our impulses and urges that feel “automatic” and to get curious about from whence these seemingly knee-jerk reactions stem. Does that place within you feel like an aligned place of intuition and knowing? Does it come from your Higher Self? Or does it perhaps feel shaped by outdated conditioning and in need of an update… The invitation is simple: to slow down and get present with looking into why we do what we do. (Bonus points for talking it out with a trusted ally, practitioner, or therapist!)
https://www.astrograph.com/horoscopes/configurations/2022/May/15What if you or your little one could only eat one type of food… and it was taken away. lost, unavailable. Money couldn’t buy something not on the shelf. No disposable diapers, what would you do? How would you feel as a mother unable to sustain and provide? Who is to blame? This is the place and the time we are asked to sort out those feelings with kindness to ourselves and others. It is truly full moon magic. Awareness heightened beyond belief. It is painful, disturbing, this season of discovery and loss and change and longing for connection and understanding.
One estimate says 43% of baby formula is out of stock nationwide. The shortage is stressing out parents and putting babies at risk — here’s what you need to know. Marketplace Reporthttps://www.marketplace.org As with many shortages, the baby formula crisis doesn’t have just one cause.
Things really started getting bad in February, when the company behind Similac recalled several products over bacteria at one of its main manufacturing plants. That plant is still closed.
Similac maker Abbott Nutrition and just three other companies — Mead Johnson Nutrition, Nestlé USA and Perrigo Co. — produce almost all of the baby formula in the United States.
“It’s been this way for decades,” said Brian Dittmeier, senior director of public policy at the National WIC Association. “We’ve had large manufacturers that have consistently commanded the market space and edged out the competition. … You wind up with a situation where one plant closing for the matter of a few weeks has this ripple effect throughout the entire industry.”
It’s particularly dire with something like baby formula that is a necessity and that doesn’t have substitutes.
“There are many infants that can only tolerate one or maybe two types of formula,” said Carri Chan, a professor at Columbia Business School. According to Chan, some parents can easily switch their babies to any brand of formula that’s available, but some can’t. They need specific kinds for health reasons.
“And so when there’s a shortage in that area, there’s not a possibility to just switch to an alternative,” Chan said.If you had a baby recently within the past year or so, re-establishing your own milk supply would take some work and time, but it could be done. Stories of women who have adopted a baby and never having given birth seem far- fetched as to the lengths they would go for touch and nursing. where does the milk come from. How is it possible?
https://www.llli.org/?s=re+lactation
You could check out some resources that might help. Or you could call a friend if yuo know someone who is still nursing her baby. See if she might help you. Take your little one to the breast. See how it feels to reclaim your power for something you once had. If you even nursed a few weeks or a few months. take a shower together. Take your top off and your bra! If you ever had a baby, See what it feels like . All the hormones are still there. Prolactin, oxytocin, your desire might rise or not. It doesn’t much matter if you have milk, now does it?
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Weaning After A Really Long While
I know this sounds trite, but it’s time to wean when you want to…
Madison and Leilani Still at it at 9 months! The tricky part is how!
https://www.llli.org/breastfeeding-info/weaning-i-want-t
If you have successfully sustained the womanly art of nursing your little one for at least 365 days or more; no one need remind you that how you transition to another way of loving and nurturing yourself is as unique a path as you could imagine.
If you were under the false impression that weaning was simply the transition to solid food, how wrong you would be. This blog came about as a space for testimony for women to speak about the maternal experience of breastfeeding for an extended period of time.
The longer a woman nurses, the less we tend to talk about it. Partly because we lack words and partly because once again it’s both intimate and private and we risk with our disclosure a harsh critique of extended nursing as selfish and not in the best interests of the child.
It is very very helpful to have someone to talk to about these things. Ideally a nursing mother; but clarifying why you no longer wish to nurse is a different conversation than how to gradually do it with love. Mother’s who have nursed in isolation particularly struggle with grief, loss and guilt when they often times have only had their little one to support and understand the importance and connection of the mother-baby couple.
Child-led weaning is a great concept. Proponents advocate for allowing the little one to ease of the tit when we ask if the little one is ready leaves decision-making up the shortest person in the room without considering the needs or demands being placed on the mother. While nursing is one aspect of parenting and child caregiving, for some of us, nursing made our lives easier, joyful and peaceful and leaving that part out increased the drudgery and lessened the joy. Having a partner in child rearing, and care giving means a shared responsibility.
Often times, sitting in a still place, weaning is not so much a “choice” as a decision that is determined by the circumstances surrounding the separation of human mothers and babies. Raising animals for food and pleasure reflects cultural beliefs about making it easier to care for animals if they are separated
from their attachment to their mothers. What does it do to their mothers?
Politically and socially, we separate mothers and fathers from their children to punish them for seeking freedom. How do mothers stay physically close to their babies without distancing yet not nurse the way they did in the past. This is not just a question of graduating to alternate ways of sucking and nutrition.
How do we experience letting go, and setting limits when the time is right and in the best interest of meeting the shared needs of mother and child. Saying no when someone cries for us, or when we are spent and fatigued beyond our limits. Unavailable to our child because we are not present and whole within ourselves.
Attachment with love and interdependence is thought to be something that you get over. Outgrowing the need for nursing, how does that look in your world?
https://www.llli.org/weaning-gently-outgrowing-the-need/ Have you heard some of these absolutes before… I am sure you could make your own list. What now?
If they (the baby) (fill in the blank).
- has teeth
- will take a bottle
- cries when the mother leaves
- eating solid food
- has a sippy cup
- is potty trained
- can talk
- can walk
- can sit up
- can hold their own bottle
- has a dad
- has a sibling who didn’t nurse
- is spoiled
there is no need to continue nursing.
If the baby’s mother (fill in the blank).
1. has to go back to work
2. has a fever
3. taking medication
4. has to go back to school
5. isn’t married
6. using drugs
7. is an alcoholic
8. is mentally or emotionally unstable
9. has other children
10. is nursing another baby
11. enjoying nursing
there is no need to continue nursing
if you don’t want to….
Consider gently with love…..
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What do Mother’s need? The keys to Successful Breastfeeding #1
• Love
• Knowing What You Have
• Freedom
• Mother-Baby Couple
• Healing
1 Corinthians 13:13
“ . . . For there are these three things that endure:Faith, Hope, and Love. but the greatest of these is Love.”
LOVE
How are you with the love that you have in your life and the love that you have in your heart and the love that you have for your child, the love you have for yourself? Do you love God, the Goddess; do you worship and feel loved and perfectly made by your Creator?
Does it (love) feel comfortable and good and unblocked? When you have a baby love comes up because for most of us we fall in love with our babies in a way that we could not know was possible. Maternal love is different, especially for a small infant. Breastfeeding your baby is one way that you can love your baby. Not the only way, but one way and a very important way that establishes the primary relationship that child will have with the world and everyone in it.Breastfeeding triggers all sorts of feelings, and hormones and chemicals that allow us to extend the connection and bond that starts when you make love and a little one is conceived, grows during pregnancy and extends through the first few years of life.
In some respects, breastfeeding is a continuation of pregnancy and NOT breastfeeding aborts a relationship between you and that, which is part of you and cannot exist independently of you for quite some time. To be a mammal, live birth and warm milk is something we share with many species in the animal kingdom. We can learn a lot from watching them.“If you do not feel and experience love for your baby, it is impossible to breastfeed and to have a close and intimate relationship with that child. The sucking on your breast causes changes in your brain, your uterus, your breasts, your heart, and your muscles. The sucking also causes changes in the baby. The sucking that occurs several times throughout the day at regular frequent intervals maintains levels of hormones and changes in your body that produces the nourishment for your child, reduces stress, promotes sleep and relaxation and a sense of well-being for you both. The more unrestricted sucking you allow, the more milk that you have. The more at ease you are and the more relaxed you are, the more milk your body makes. It is creamier, sweeter, and higher in nutrients based on how well you feel, how you are eating and drinking and how much you are loved and how loving you are.”
Excerpt From: Jacqueline Lois. “Little Black Breastfeeding Book.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/little-black-breastfeeding-book/id529791868
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The “Price is Right” is My Favorite Game Show
There are some things I do daily. Some things happen weekly; biweekly, monthly; bi-annually; you get the picture, they are on the calendar, a regular practice. Somethings I don’t have to remember, they just occurred. There was some security in that knowing something would happen in spite of me, or because of me.
Every other Tuesday, I would get paid a set amount. There was some comfort in knowing that. I thought it provided some measure of control I thought over my life. I could plan things at least I thought around my spending. The regularity of that check made me do or not do a lot of things.
Until I nursed a baby, I don’t think I had an activity that occurred regularly that I allowed “control” to be given so freely and lovingly by someone else as an extension of me. TNTC (too numerous to count). Why would I count? That’s about how often you might nurse your little one some days.
Surrender if you will if you can… I just sat down, or lay down, or refused to move or to do anything else. Allowing little else to take precedence over that five or ten minutes to at least to take the edge off. And then maybe a bit more time when needed or without watching the clock. Just till done, till the next thing called or we felt better.
It wasn’t scheduled, this “nursing on demand” thing. We just had to be willing to show up for each other… I called to my little one when I felt full. My little one called to me when feeling near empty or hungry, or lonely, or curious, or just when something smelled yummy, or new or whenever.
What might you be saying by now does this have to do with the “Price is Right” ? Well I will connect the dots for you. I love the Price is Right because I get to vicariously witness people with such excitement and joy. They hear their name called and first with initial disbelief, it then registers , they mean me and the announcer gets louder and calls their name again and beckons them to come on down. They are usually crazy ecstatic! Running or moving gingerly, slowly, or great deliberation; they make their way down and bid on the prize. From that moment on it doesn’t quite matter whether they get the price right or win the game. The joy and possibility is there and tangible and folks are jumping and excited when it means they mean me and I have something excited to look forward to…
Some people associate watching the game with others, my grandmother watched and I sat with her and we shared a snack. She was very reliable about the cuddle time and the snack. We also watched a program long off the air now called “Queen For A Day”. I can relax easily into that memory from time to time. However most often, I just like seeing people happy, total strangers especially full of hope and expectation. It is absolutely contagious. It makes me smile.
I find that if I schedule my day around the Price is Right and I hold that time from 11AM to 12 Noon weekdays. My day just goes better. Watching a game show is not a quick cure for postpartum blues, or worry that won’t go away, or even a good substitution for a nap. But scheduling time for pleasure and joy reliably is a good spiritual practice. Something I learned from watching those amazing women around me who cared about me and for me.
Maybe I just won’t answer the phone, or I will sit still a minute and not multi-task. Or maybe I will actually play along with the game and guess the prices and wonder why they listened to someone else in the audience instead of relying on their first instinct and best intuitive judgment, but I rarely come away sad, after watching the Price is Right.
Do you have something you do that you can schedule in or spend time with that will give you infectious joy and confidence in yourself and the world and most folks around you?
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I want to nurse each day whenever I can, whenever I wish to… thank you for wanting my milk. I do not need you to pump my breasts so I can go away. I want my little one. My little one wants me!
No more pumping for me…
All the ways in which we stay connected to one another.
Hold each other close.
Skin to skin.
Mother- baby Couple Connected
Heart to Heart
Synchronicity …. Touch….DESIRE
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PHOTOS: Kangaroo care for newborns comes to the Ivory Coast’s moms and dads : Goats and Soda : NPR
Can the warmth of a parent’s chest be a boon to babies, especially premature births? In the 1970s, Colombian researchers found it did. The technique has gone global. Ivory Coast is the latest convert.
— Read on www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/09/18/1121295549/photos-the-moms-and-dads-of-ivory-coast-are-falling-in-love-with-kangaroo-care
Breastfeeding 365 