World Breastfeeding Week:

For breastfeeding mothers, healthcare professionals and self-styled ‘lactivists’  all across the globe, World Breastfeeding Week is a time of celebration; a time to pay homage to and show active support for something that for many women is more than just feeding or nutrition, but the foundation of a lifestyle of ‘mothering at the breast’.

This year’s WBW theme is ‘Just 10 Steps’, which is referring to the list of 10 Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. While our local hospitals have come a long way in the promotion of breastfeeding in our area, none of the three we checked have mention of these 10 steps being implemented on their maternity floor listed on their websites. In addition to it being our opinion, it’s also the recommendation of UNICEF that these ten steps be followed in order to ensure that those mothers who wish to breastfeed may do so successfully.

Wouldn’t you love to have research-based information, hands-on assistance and access to more trained breastfeeding professionals available in the hospital both during your pregnancy and after your baby’s birth to help you meet your breastfeeding goals? You can help make that happen! One of the ways that you can personally support breastfeeding this week is to call, email or send a letter to the hospital that you delivered or plan to deliver your baby at and let them know that you want to see their active support of breastfeeding through the implementation of the 10 Steps to Successful Breastfeeding initiative. Tell them how your experience would have been enhanced had they fully embraced and promoted the 10 steps, and how much you want to see other mothers succeed. Better yet, do all three! Grass-roots movements have motivated many businesses to change their policies or bend to public demand and our hospitals are no different. We can help make this change in our community.

If such acts of hard-core activism aren’t your style, there are other ways to show your support. One of the best ways is, of course, to be unashamed to nurse your baby when he needs to be fed. Texas law protects a mother’s right to breastfeed her baby in any location that the mother has the right to be. So in other words, if you can be there, then you can feed there. In fact, you can even get a card from the Department of Health Services that states the law!

Another way is to blog about it. Tell about how your experiences have changed you or your family, how you overcame difficulties and how much you enjoy breastfeeding. If breastfeeding didn’t go how you planned, talk about that, too! Mothers need to hear stories of breastfeeding that are successful; that show how women overcame difficulties, stories that tell what you’ve learned and what you’ll do next time that will better your success rate. As a community, we need to share our experiences about how breastfeeding helped make us into the mothers we are today.

This is The International Breastfeeding Symbol. This symbol is recognized all around the world to denote breastfeeding or breastfeeding mothers and the support and promotion of the same. You can read more about the history of this symbol here, and can get you own breastfeeding symbol window clings, bumper stickers, patches and more at the Breastfeeding Symbol Store. Wouldn’t one look awesome on the back of your car or on your canvas grocery tote? If you’re a local business owner, having this symbol on your door is a great way to attract women into your business! You can also get this symbol as a small sticker on your Facebook profile picture as a sticker with the Twibbon application.

Something we hear from many mothers who were the first to have a baby in their group of friends is that once they’ve breastfed successfully, for any length of time, they find that they suddenly become the experts on breastfeeding in their group of friends. We think that’s awesome, and it’s an amazing way to make a real difference in a mother’s life. While we definitely encourage mothers to support their friends, and for friends to seek out peer support, sometimes it’s nice to consult a professional. We have a couple of options in Southeast Texas;

the Christus St. Elizabeth Breastfeeding Warmline 409.899.8523 or toll free 1.800.810.2829, and La Leche League of Beaumont 409.347.1245. Both are free to call and if you leave a message, someone will get back to you. La Leche League International is a breastfeeding support organization that works worldwide and our local group meets on the 2^nd Thursday of each month at 9:45AM at St. Jude Thaddeus in the Education Building, Room 5. The next meeting is Thursday, August 12.

In conclusion, there’s really no wrong way to celebrate World Breastfeeding Week. The special relationship between a mother and her nursing baby or toddler is renowned in literature and poetry through the ages, so there must be something special about it. If you’re pregnant and considering breastfeeding, then get out there and talk to some nursing moms and find out what that special something was for them. Find out what makes moms who’ve breastfed several babies keep coming back to it. In a world where babies are pushed to be more and more independent, World Breastfeeding Week truly celebrates the togetherness of mother and child, and we hope that you’ll take part in that celebration with us.

~h

Heather Thomas is a former breastfeeding mom of two with a combined 6 years of breastfeeding experience under her belt. She has worked with La Leche League and in the community as a breastfeeding educator for over 6 years, and is one of the founding mothers at Whole Mothering Center. She is currently homeschooling her two boys and writes at This Adventure Life.

This article is sponsored by:

This article was written for and originally published August 4, 2010 in the Macaroni Kid Golden Triangle Newsletter

Have you ever thought about how birth shows have impacted our culture? Do you have any idea how many women ‘learn’ about birth from those shows? Do you understand what they are learning, and what that means for birth?

First of all, a clarification must be made. Birth shows are not documentaries, which are usually made for the express purpose of teaching someone about something. Birth shows are entertainment only. That is important, so I’ll say it again: Birth shows are not educational. They are entertainment.You cannot learn about birth from a birth show any more than you can learn about fighting crime by reading comic books.

In order for a show to be entertaining, it must be exciting and in many cases, have conflict. Have you ever been to a ‘normal’ birth? (I hesitate to even use ‘normal’ in this context because our perception of what is normal has been so altered, in part, by birth shows.) In reality, labor is not terribly exciting. In fact, for most of it, it’s pretty boring for everyone but the birthing woman (who is probably working harder than she’s ever worked in her life) and her immediate support person (husband, partner, doula, etc). It’s not until the actual birthing part that things start getting exciting for the spectators – including the doctor! If things go as they should, then the doctor really just catches while Mom does the work. But a television show can’t really market hours of clock watching and moaning/rocking/walking with the laboring mom – though if they did, it would help women and their support team understand how labor works and what a laboring mother needs to do her job effectively better than what they are showing now.

However, if there is a problem, then suddenly there are nurses who have to be bustling around the room, monitoring things. Doctors come rushing in, white coat flowing behind them – everyone is doing something. It becomes exciting – and marketable. Now, just to clarify, we’re not saying that birth always goes as planned or that there isn’t a need for a qualified care provider. Indeed, that’s why most of us opt for some type of care provider to serve as the ‘guardian of life’, because we do know that sometimes, interventions can be life-saving. But that does not mean that the number and increased invasiveness of the interventions we’ve come to accept as ‘routine’ and ‘normal’ have produced better outcomes - just the opposite, in fact.

So right off the bat, you can see that any birth that is out of the norm and therefore exciting to watch automatically gets preference over a normal, non-exciting one. Oh sure, they throw in a couple of normal births – even home births now and then, but the overwhelming majority of births are in the hospital and full of interventions and ‘emergency’ c-sections. What ultimately happens is that the percentage of births shown are skewed – we see more ‘abnormal’ births than normal ones. Because we see more abnormal labors and births, we start to believe as a culture that birth is amedical condition that needs to be managed.

How is this damaging? Well for one, we get scared. Because we are scared, we start letting fear dictate our decisions instead of educating ourselves and making choices that are research-based and logical. We start to loose faith in the natural process of birth and that our bodies (with rare exception) were designed to give life. We forget (or don’t learn) how a woman’s pelvis expands (and how her position affects that) and how a baby’s skull bones move in order to work together to let the baby out. We start to believe that our bodies are not capable of giving birth without a team of hospital staff members to ensure the outcome. We forget that there are no guarantees in life and whatever our choice is,  we’re just trading one set of potential risks for another. Combine that with a handful of unethical obstetricians who realized that they could capitalize on that belief by offering ‘working hours’ c-sections to women and you have exactly the culture we have now: skyrocketing cesarean rates and a body of women who view invasive, unnecessary, major abdominal surgery as just another ‘choice’.

Birth in birth shows is almost always portrayed as a process that cannot safely take place without the intervention and management by a doctor. Women are portrayed as inactive subjects from which a baby must be rescued – almost never as active participants who give birth. The process of a doctor working with a laboring couple is never shown. You never see a doctor coming into the room and informing a mother or couple of their options, alternatives and risks (also known as educating them so they can provide ‘informed consent’) and allowing the parents to choose what happens; instead a doctor comes in, makes a recommendation or gives a command and the couple agrees. You never see instances where the mother disagrees with or chooses something other than what the doctor wants. That, too, is damaging because it subtly conditions us to be ‘good little patients’ and do what we’re told.

One of the most tragic issues with this whole mindset is that we’re losing the knowledge about why vaginal birth is good for you, body and spirit, and why it’s good for your baby. There’s little mention of the hormonal shift after a natural vaginal birth that assists in bonding and breastfeeding, or the pressure that passage through the birth canal puts on baby’s lungs that has been linked to less risk of respiratory issues later in life. There is little mention of the correlation between bad (traumatic, victimized, powerless) birthing experiences and post-partum depression and post-traumatic stress disorder – and yet both are on the rise. Do a Google search on “benefits of vaginal birth” and it’s pages and pages of ‘benefits of VBAC’ – in part because so many women now are having c-sections with their first birth. Combine that with the ban many hospitals (including our own, Southeast Texas!) have placed on VBAC and the relatively few doctors who will even deliver a planned VBAC (NONE in Southeast Texas!), and you have a group of women only just realizing how their lack of real education about birth haspermanently affected their reproductive futures.

We’re also being further conditioned through birth shows to believe that a hospital is where babies are born and that doctors are the only acceptable attendants. Rarely are other birthing locations shown (despite the abundant research that says that birth center and home births are as safe, if not safer, than hospital births and that midwives have better outcomes than OBs do for women with low-risk pregnancies), or alternatives offered. The few shows that did highlight midwife-attended, birth center or home births have been quickly cancelled – and it begs the question, ‘why?‘ Could it be that if women were routinely offered the opportunity to see birth in a more normal context, that the cultural expectation would shift and hospitals and OBs would start losing their income because women would start demanding more freedom from the assembly-line births we’re offered in hospitals now? Already there are more and more women choosing to birth at home or in birth centers with midwives because they’re realizing how much their options are limited when they go into the hospital. They’re becoming educated and empowered – and that’s a threat to the current Establishment. And that’s awesome.

I’ve singled out TLC in this article, but the truth is that several networks are causing just as much harm. Discovery Health is just as guilty. Sensational shows about pregnancy are always on, and the commentary in shows like “Pregnant at 70” and “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant” have as much fear-mongering as the birth shows do.

We jokingly forbid our clients from watching birth shows. Though we of course cannot ‘forbid’ our clients from anything, the sentiment is sincere. Watch them if you like, but recognize them for what they are – entertainment, and know that this is what is helping to shape your view of birth. For everything you see that bothers you or scares you, do some research! The internet is full of articles about the normal processes of birth, and how typical hospital policies and procedures often cause the very problems that the introduction of modern technology into birth that they were supposed to prevent. Please educate yourself - let knowledge help you make your decisions, not fear based on what you ‘learned’ from a TV show.

~h

While ‘real’ information is vital, we also want to support fathers who voice their experiences! We came across this article written by Ven Batista after his wife had their second daughter at home, and we just had to share it. It’s posted at Homebirth.org.uk, which is a homebirth site that’s in Britain but that has a ton of great information if you’re considering homebirth.

For more information about birth, visit our newly updated Birth Page!

~h

Is life like a pendulum? Must things swing one way and then back or can we turn the tide? What do you think?

~WMC

Shelby has always been on the independent side, wanting to do things herself and do them her way. Lately she’s been choosing her clothes and dressing herself in the mornings. I love it, because it’s one last thing I have to do, she gets a great sense of personal pride from it and has pretty good 4 year-old fashion sense if you ask me (*polishes nail on shirt*). But some days, when we have somewhere to go for instance, that’s just not going to work for me. There’s coordination to consider, not to mention the weather. She doesn’t get why she hasn’t been able to wear any spaghetti-strap sundresses the last few days (with the temp topping out at 40). When she must be forced to wear clothes that are not of her choosing, dressing herself makes her feel more in control. And that’s cool, I respect that. But she’s sooooooooo slooooooooow. I admit, I have less patience than any mother should. I tap my foot and I sigh loudly, and too often I get too frustrated and somewhat angrily do it myself. I really hate that about myself, and it’s one of my resolutions this year to make a conscious effort to be more patient. After all, I’m a stay at home mom, and beyond the housework and the errands, my number one job is taking care of my favorite little person.

That fact alone, though, isn’t enough to keep me from wanting to scream when she’s buttoning her pajama top. One. Button. At. A. Time. So. Very. Slooooowly. But I’ve realized I need to take a second to take notice of what’s going on: She’s doing it. All by herself. This little thing that couldn’t even drink out of a cup with no lid, or who couldn’t talk or ride a trike not that very long ago, is actually using her tiny little fingers to do what is actually quite a complex dexterous task. When you look at it in that (somewhat dramatic) way, it makes it a bit easier to breath for a minute and let them do it, because you realize it‘s value- a developmental milestone. I remember not long after we moved, we had to be somewhere, and she was looking for the exact fairy she wanted to have in her pocket. She couldn’t find the right one, and in my frustration I told her “Just pick one! It’s not important!“ She replied, “But mama, it’s important to me.“ Bam. Right in the heart. It’s things like that that make you step back and think. She’s not dragging it out to goad me, she’s being deliberate. And while my child is one of the champion dawdlers of the world (payback my mom says, apparently I was a pro “daisy picker”), I know that when it comes to carrying out a task, unless she’s trying to get out of it all together, she’s trying to do it right. And I’m glad. She can’t go through life with me doing everything for her. I refuse to tie her shoes for her when she’s thirty, you just have to draw the line somewhere. So I’m glad she’s so keen on practicing now.

My child is my first priority, and I’m working to work at her pace. I mean, what do I have to do that is so important I can’t take a few minutes to let her choose which oatmeal she wants in the morning, or which stuffed animal she wants to sleep with at night? I’m pretty sure those socks will still need sorting when I’m done waiting. As a first time mom, I’m finding out everyday those tiny little battles and triumphs that non-parents don’t even know exist and that get a small from veteran child raisers when I talk about them. The molasses time warp of having a preschooler is just the tip of the iceberg.

I expect tardiness to Kindergarten to be quite frequent.

~AnnA

The battle between children and anything green is epic. It’s no secret that there’s no love lost between the two. And on Christmas Eve it can be even harder to convince them they won’t die if they eat a veggie. As with any other day of the year, you’re probably going to have to get sneaky.

My favorite trick to use any time I can is baby food. Yes, my daughter is 4 and has long since given up the Gerber jars, but other than being marketed to the diaper set, it’s really just pureed vegetables. You can even go organic if you like (I like Beechnut). The two flavors I use the most are carrot and squash, respectively. The carrot I use in pretty much everything- soups, pasta sauce, it can really go anywhere. If you use a lot it will indeed give you a carrot-y flavor, but it generally just makes the dish a bit sweet. The squash I always use in home made macaroni and cheese. I’ve used it with the boxed variety, but I don’t like it as much. The squash flavor doesn’t blend well with the orange cheese powder taste. But used in the cheese sauce of a yummy home made mac & cheese, preferably oven baked, it is oh-so good. And I promise the kiddoes won’t even notice. You can use any flavor you think will mesh well with your dish. I tried the peas mixed in a green chile soup once and didn’t care for it. But then, I’m not a big fan of peas, and Idid know that I put it in there. I also like to use the fruit purees, especially mango, in things like smoothies, slushes and breads.
I also like to use the fruit purees, especially mango, in things like smoothies, slushes and breads.
Something my mom has been doing for years is putting spinach in her cornbread dressing. It is totally fantastic. So good, in fact, we make her make it for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. She just makes her dressing (no, you cannot have my Mama’s top secret dressing recipe, but I’m sure you can find one almost as magical online) and adds in one package (depending on pan size) of thawed, drained, chopped frozen spinach. Other than the lovely dark green streaking through, you hardly notice it’s there.
Of course, this is just the beginning of tricking your unsuspecting children into eating something good for them. Add cooked carrots to sweet potatoes (yes, even the caramelized sugar-covered kind) before mashing. Slip some cauliflower into the regular mashed potatoes (or replace them all together! I’ve heard it’s awesome). And don’t forget those desserts. Apple sauce in place of oil in brownies and cakes, all-fruit spread in place of sugary jam in the filled-type cookies. Maybe some zucchini bread? Get creative! Tis’ the season to enjoy ourselves, and trick the kids a little (we all know who’s really eating those cookies left on the mantle….).

~AnnA

How do you get there? Here are some suggestions:

1. Set a good example.
CHOOSE to be happy. CHOOSE to see the bright side of things. In today’s world of anti-depressant laden parenting, it’s HARD sometimes to just choose to be happy, or in a good mood. As a mom who does take anti-depressants, I know first hand how difficult it is to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and make a choice NOT to be grouchy. As the mom, it usually does fall to us to take the lead in attitude, and knowing that makes it both harder and easier to lead by example. It is worth it though if you’re the one who tends to set the tone in your home. Being concious of that fact and making the choice to be cheerful can help drive that negative energy away.

2. Focus on the positives
Start with yourself. Take a couple of minutes every morning (or evening – whenever) and concentrate on the things in your life that are positive. It may be something small like, “I totally resisted the urge to have an extra donut at breakfast” or “I am so glad that the kid’s aren’t counted tardy until the 8:30 bell”
From there, work on your family. Pick a time and make it a habit – at a mealtime is a good one, and have each person take a turn to share something positive or interesting they learned, saw, did, or thought about. Use that time to be encouraging and uplifting. Start small – once a week if every day seems like a big-undoable-thing. Don’t let it get overwhelming!

3. Clutter causing your funk?
We sometimes don’t realize how our home’s physical environment can affect mood. My personal philosophy on “stuff” has become (with LOTS of work), “Whatever is in my space should be something that I LOVE, that makes me HAPPY, makes me feel GOOD or BEAUTIFUL.” That has helped me (major packrat that I am) to let go of things that I’ve been hanging onto that don’t conform to the above!
If there is a mess in the main living areas (or even your own spaces), or you have clutter causing problems, work together to clear the space. Start a “5 minute family clean up” time focused on one problem area. We call ours the “10 Second Tidy” (from that show, “Big Comfy Couch” – even though it’s longer than 10 seconds). Set a timer, play some energetic music (Tejano/Latin/Salsa music is GREAT for motivation!) and either let the kids decide what to contribute to cleaning, or assign tasks. Make it a game… Start out doing it once a week, or once a day, and build from there. There are several schools of thought about the placement of things in your home, or the colors that you use to decorate having an effect on your moods too. Even if you don’t subscribe to those reasonings, everyone enjoys a change of scenery once n a while. If all else has been eliminated and the funk persists, try changing things up a bit with different furniture placement or paint colors.

4. Focus on enjoying your time together.
Family togetherness – just enjoying being together as a family without the outside world intruding is a great way to improve the vibe in your home. You can start small – family dinnertime (or whatever meal works best for all of you) - Dinner Games are a great way to get into a new routine. Advance to Family Game Night, Family Dance Party (each person picks a song and dances however they want to the music; after everyone has a turn, put on a different song and have everyone dance together), Family Craft Night or whatever floats your boat. If you’re more of an outdoors-y or techie family, find activities that fit your family’s style! It may take a while to find a good fit, but you can make the journey part of the fun.

5. Need less pressure?
Try this: simply BE with your kids. Turn off the TV, put away the PC, throw your schedule or agenda out the window and just BE with them, doing what they’re doing. If they’re in a bad mood, just observe – be in the moment with them. Don’t try to cajole them out of it, just BE. If they’re in a good mood, great – let your kiddos lead.

6. Count your blessings – literally!
Tack up a big poster board and start counting your blessings. Each person contributes one item on the list. It can be as plain or as decorated as your family wants to make it, but the focus should be on all the positives.

7. Get a motto!
If you’re spiritually inclined, put up a verse or saying that makes you feel good in a prominent space and let that be the “reminder” for your family. We have a big chalkboard in our kitchen that often has song lyrics or something funny that one of us said written on it. You can get a cheap “whiteboard” or “dry erase” board by taking a piece of posterboard to Manning’s and having it soft laminated. Make it easy!

8. Fill your home with love.
Give lots of hugs and kisses and cuddles, and say lots of “I love you”s. Remind your spouse that s/he hung the moon for you. Make sure that your kids know that they are the EXACT children you asked for. Leave little love notes tucked into random places for your family members to find. Never underestimate how much positive feedback and self-esteem building little things like that can influence the atmosphere in your home. Happy people make happy spaces.

9. Create a cleansing ritual for your home.
Talk with your family about how to improve the funk. Kids love words accompanied by action! Grab a broom and sweep, sweep, sweep the negativity out the door. Make your house smell great – bake some bread or cookies, try potpourri, scented oils, essential oils, incense, Renuzit, Air Wick, whatever makes you inhale deeply and smile. If you’d like some spiritual help, try burning some sage (if there are not respiratory issues), sprinkling some scented water, reciting a poem, reading a verse or saying a prayer…whatever speaks to you and yours.

10. Practice being kind to each other.
It’s okay if it’s exaggerated so long as it becomes a habit. Don’t underestimate the impact that silliness backed by sincerity can have on your kids. Expressing appreciation for the kindness received or witnessed is sure to build confidence and regard.

11. Have a Family Meeting
If you’re feeling funky, then you can bet that your family is, too. If your kids are old enough to communicate, then they may have some valuable suggestions for improving things, too. Giving them a forum to be heard can drastically alter the way that they see things and can make a positive impact on your home’s vibe.

Whatever you decide to do, doing something on purpose to positively affect the energy in your home is going to net some kind of benefit for your family. Making your family part of the process is even better.

(Inspired by a thread from MDC, here. Thanks to fritz for the bulk of these suggestions!)

It’s well known that moving, as all major lifestyle changes, can take a huge toll on children. How can you help your child adjust to the move itself and their new home?

Before/During The Move:

Keep things as normal as possible around the house- routines, meals, bedtimes, etc. This makes children feel secure.

Be patient. Everyone is going through this, and your appreciate it when others are patient with you in times of stress.

Help your child label their feelings. Beyond the usual happy/sad, angry/hurt labeling you often do, help them understand that what they’re feeling may be excited, anxious, nervous, hopeful or lonely. Explain in age-appropriate terms what these things mean and give examples.

Use pictures, toys or books to help your child visualize themselves in their new surroundings. This helps them realize that the new destination is a real place, and can make it seem less scary as they become more familiar.

Make sure they know that you’re all going together (unless the move is due to a divorce or other similar situation). That their toys, clothes and other things will be there as well.

Talk to them often about how exciting a new place can be, but don’t get too much into all the details, you don’t want to overload their little mind.

Say goodbye to the house together before walking out the door for the last time.

After The Move:

Keep things like they were back home as much as possible. As mentioned above, kids love routine. Try to fix some of their favorite meals, make sure their favorite bedding is unpacked as soon as possible, etc. It’s all about making their home seem familiar as opposed to stark and new.

Keep them busy. I know you’ve got a lot on your own plate trying to get things settled, but keep in mind that a bored child can be an unhappy child. Take time to color, play, go for a walk, or do something fun together. The best thing would be to find a park, library or museum somewhere so that you can both be entertained and get to know your new community.

Help them deal with the absence of friends and family by having them write a letter or e-mail (with your help, of course), or make a picture to send to the folks back home. Join a playgroup to help them make new friends.

Be patient after the move as well. It can take several weeks for your child to feel at home in their new surroundings. Understand that they may long for the old days. Listen to what they have to say, and put them at ease as best you can.

The other day Shelby and I were watching TV, and she said “Mama, I don’t want to move to New Orleans anymore.” I was a bit surprised, as she’s been excited since day one. I asked her why, and she said it was because she didn’t want to have to eat bugs. I was even more surprised. After talking for a little while I realized she had seen something my husband and I were watching on TV about the new Insectarium in NOLA, where people can eat bugs in their special café. She thought that that was a common practice, and wasn’t having any of it! Sometimes our kiddoes get strange, and humorous, things in their heads. We just have to listen and understand that they see the world differently. While moving can make us just about lose our minds, we have to remember the effect it has on the little ones as well. We are our children’s best lifeline in all of life’s situations, and it’s up to us to make sure they have the information and skills to take what comes their way.

I have since reassured Shelby that no one will ever make her eat bugs, although we may one day convince her daddy to eat a cricket if we visit the Insectarium ourselves. She was down with that.

~AnnA

Read more from our wonderful NOLA correspondent at her blog: New in NOLA

Many of the moms I know who have lost a child, especially who have lost a child through miscarriage, have a hard time answering the question, “how many children do you have?” Mentioning the missing child seems wrong, feels wrong; but there’s an inner dialouge that wonders if there is an easy and quick way to get the facts about the child you lost without making a big deal out of the revelation, or if you’re even in the mood to reveal your loss, and so should you just mention the number of living children…but is it disrespectful not to mention the lost child, and is it even anyone’s business how you answer that question??… it’s a process that can cause a panic attack if the mom is unprepared.

And it does sneak up on you. Moments of profound sorrow in an otherwise normal day. Having someone unexpectedly ask a question or seeing something that brings back a memory can drive waves of emotion up that choke the breath from your throat. It’s rarely appropriate to start screaming in the middle of the grocery store, but in a perfect world, that’s what you might very well do. Then there are days where you feel like keeping everything about your experience private and the mention of it stirs up anger at having grief intrude on your otherwise peaceful day. That may be one of the hardest things for me, personally, is never knowing how I will react to the mention of my angel baby.

I would never presume to put words in the mouths of mothers who have lost babies during or shortly after birth or who have lost children who are older. My only personal experience with the loss of a child comes from miscarriage. As horrible as my experience was, both physically and emotionally, I can only imagine how many scenarios that would have been so much worse to live through. My heart aches for mothers who have gone through their pregnancy thinking everything would be fine, only to give birth to a still baby. For the mother who has held her living, breathing pink bundle only to find themselves making funeral arrangements a few days later. For the family who spends their child’s whole life in and out of hospitals due to chronic illness, and for those who have had tragedy befall them suddenly and unexpectedly… there is nothing I have experienced that is anywhere near the soul-rending pain of losing a child.

Though nothing will truly “help”, here are some websites, articles and interactive blogs that offer ways to connect with other parents. I found a great deal of support in reading the experiences of others who have lost children, and in sharing my own story. I hope that you may find a measure of comfort in such a way as well.

Support for parents during and after a loss:

Mothering.Com’s Pregnancy & Birth Loss Forum – VERY supportive, includes a “what to expect/what do you see” thread for mothers waiting to miscarry. MDC’s Grief & Loss Forum is more generalized, but there are several threads about the loss of an older child.

Compassionate Friends
Beaumont
Chapter Name: TCF of Beaumont Texas
Chapter Number: 2267
(409) 866-1788 – Jessie
Meeting Info: 4th Monday of each month 7:00-9:00 pm Shorkey Center – 655 South 8th Street

Bereaved Parents of the USA

Halo Garden

Remembrance jewelery and other ways to honor your precious little one:

My Forever Child

My Mommy’s Bracelets

A personal recommendation from Heather for  www.etsy.com seller “sTuck in the Coop“ item here. I bought this necklace with a shamrock pendant (for my husband), and two of the bars have my boys’ names, birthdate and nickname stamped on them. The third bar has “Angel Baby” stamped on one side, my due date (Dec. 2009) one one side, when we lost our little bean (June 2009) and “NIMA-EIMH” on the fourth side, which stands for “Never in my arms, ever in my heart”. The lady’s name is Heather Ellis and she was absolutely wonderful.

There are many more websites offering support than we can list here. If you know of a site or article that was helpful to you, please feel free to comment on this post with a link.

Wishing those of you who have experienced the loss of a child healing thoughts,
~h

It makes me feel terribly guilty that I’ve let the things going on in my life affect how I interact with my daughter. For all of her drama and craziness, questions and negotiations, Shelby is a pretty cool kid. She’s also extremely tiresome at times. That mixed with the afore mentioned worries has left me at my wit’s end, and I’ve been ready to about jump off a time or two! But that’s no excuse for a short fuse with the preschooler I adore.

So…. Now that I’ve confessed to not being Mother of the Year, what am I doing about it? Well, I’ve moved my laptop- my social and business lifeline- to the dinning room table. It’s situated perfectly where I can survey the entire living room and most of the house, as well as be close to the kitchen to grab snacks and juice when she calls for them. It also prompts me to want to take more breaks because of the crummy seating (antique = cool, not necessarily comfy). But the biggest perk is that Shelby can sit right beside me and do whatever, all the while, we can talk and I can listen to the new song she’s made up. I have a pack of new crayons I keep in the kitchen for just these occasions. They’re only for the table, and only when I’m sitting at it. This A) keeps them from getting broke/lost/used for mischief and B) it entices Shelby to sit next to me, color and visit. We love to draw together, and I make sure to post our creations on the fridge at the end of the day.

Are there other things that I could do? Of course, there always are. But until Bootsie gets tired of our current setup, it’s what works for us. And I’m getting lots of art to add to her scrapbook.

What do you (or can you) do to stay connected to your kids? If you have any tips, tricks or ideas, don’t be stingy- share ‘em! We’d love to hear.

~AnnA