What you need to know about Vicks Vapo Rub.

I'm copy and pasting this from CBC.ca.  I've saved a lot of stuff on Pinterest, and this is one of the things I think I need to share.  I came from a generation that had this stuff crammed up my nostrils, and I'm sure some of you lived that too.  Certainly putting it on a child's chest can't be bad, right?

Well, sometimes it is bad...
*I want to mention that this article did not specify whether or not it included "Vicks BabyRub".  I would have to imagine that the menthol smell could still do exactly the same thing as the Vaporub, though I don't know for sure.

Avoid applying Vicks VapoRub to babies, pediatricians say
CBC News Posted: Jan 13, 2009 8:12 AM ET Last Updated: Jan 13, 2009 8:09 AM ET

Parents should not apply Vicks VapoRub, the salve used to relieve symptoms of cough and congestion, to children under the age of two, doctors warn.

Dr. Bruce Rubin, the lead author of a study on the ointment, from the department of pediatrics at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, in Winston Salem, N.C., and his colleagues became interested in the effects of Vicks VapoRub on young children when they cared for an 18-month-old girl who developed severe respiratory distress after the salve was put directly under her nose.

Procter & Gamble's product label warns it is not indicated for children under two. But Rubin said some parents may still choose to use it for a sick child, usually by rubbing the salve on the feet or chest.

"The ingredients in Vicks can be irritants, causing the body to produce more mucus to protect the airway," said Rubin.

"Infants and young children have airways that are much narrower than those of adults, so any increase in mucus or inflammation can narrow them more severely."

In the January issue of the journal Chest, Rubin and his colleagues published the results of tests of the effects of Vicks VapoRub on the respiratory systems of ferrets, laboratory animals with a similar airway anatomy and cellular makeup to humans.

Test tube results showed Vicks VapoRub exposure increased mucus secretion in the animals' airways, whether the tracheas were normal or inflamed to simulate a person with a chest infection.

"Some of the ingredients in Vicks, notably the menthol, trick the brain into thinking that it is easier to breathe by triggering a cold sensation, which is processed as indicating more airflow," he said. "Vicks may make you feel better but it can't help you breathe better."

"This may be of little physiologic consequence in older children and adults, but in infants and small children, this potentially can lead to respiratory distress," the study's authors concluded.
Vicks safe 'when used according to package directions'

Crystal Harrel, a spokesperson for Procter and Gamble in Cincinnati, said complaints are rare and the product is sound.

"Vicks VapoRub has a long-standing history of being safe and effective when used according to package directions. Where marketed, it is in compliance with the applicable health and safety regulations."

Rubin said he recommends never putting Vicks in or under the nose of anyone, regardless of age. Parents should also follow the directions and not use Vicks or similar generic products on children under two, he advised.

On Dec. 18, 2008, Health Canada said children under six years old shouldn't be treated with cough and cold medication, citing reports of misuse, overdose and rare side-effects.

The best treatments for congestion are saline (salt water), gentle suction with a rubber bulb, warm drinks or chicken soup, and time, the researchers said, noting if a child is struggling to breathe, then it's a medical emergency.

At his pharmacy in Bay Bulls, N.L., Tom Kennedy said from now on, he'll discuss the product with parents before they make a purchase, adding he won't hesitate to offer them a chicken soup recipe instead.

Circumcision Disrupts Breastfeeding

I'm stealing quotes to pin on Pinterest, but there's no image (AGAIN), so I need to re-post it with an image.

This all came from NOCIRC.ORG.

Postoperative Pain, Stress, and Exhaustion

Human milk is the best food for babies.1,3 Babies who are breastfed are more likely to experience optimum health and well-being throughout life than babies who are given a substitute for mother's milk. It is imperative, therefore, that nothing be done that would interfere with successful initiation and completion of breastfeeding during, at least, the first year of life. Mothers need full information, well in advance of birth, so that they may avoid the pitfalls and snares that prevent success in breastfeeding.

We now know that newborn babies are born with fully functioning pain pathways.23 Infants exhibit greater physiologic responses to pain than do adult subjects.23 Male neonatal circumcision has been documented to be an extremely painful, distressing, traumatic, and exhausting experience for a newborn male infant.24-28 Circumcision disrupts the baby's normal sleep patterns.25,27 Post-operatively, the circumcised infant is in pain and is in an exhausted, weakened, and debilitated condition.28 Most importantly, the circumcision procedure frequently causes the newborn to withdraw from his environment,25 thus interfering with his process of bonding and breastfeeding.28

La Leche League International (LLLI) first reported problems with breastfeeding by circumcised male infants in 1981.30 Circumcision has long-lasting postoperative pain that continues for days after the surgical event.29 Howard et al. found that some male babies are unable to suckle the mother's breast after circumcision,29 thus confirming the LLLI report.30

The Workgroup on Breastfeeding of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that stressful procedures that interfere with breastfeeding be avoided.3

Breastfeeding problems among circumcised male infants have been verified by lactation consultants.31,32 Parents may avoid creating this problem simply by refusing to consent to the circumcision of their baby boy. In doing so, they would also be adopting the recommendations of the AAP and LLLI to avoid stressful procedures.3,30 Mothers who protect their new baby from circumcision are more likely, therefore, to be

successful in breastfeeding and less likely to have to resort to providing breast milk substitute.3,29,30
I'm not posting all of it, because this is what I need. Click THIS LINK to find what I was looking at.

How I Feel About Circumcision Regret

Lately I've read a lot of stories of parents regretting having their sons circumcised.  I wish I didn't have to ever read one.  Some of the things I read just bring tears to my eyes, and it hurts my heart!  These parents spent months getting ready to bring this little boy home with them, talking about how he'd grow up to be amazing...how he'd play in the NHL, or how he'd grow up to be someone who changed the world.  Dreams for their perfect little guy.

And then when he was born, and they looked at him and knew they'd been given something wonderful.

The next day as their little one looked up at them from their arms, they were asked a question they weren't prepared to answer because they had never been given all the information they needed to make a fully educated choice.  They believed the doctor when s/he listed all the "reasons" it should be done.

"It's cleaner."
"Your son will thank you for it later."
"He'll be the only one in the changeroom with foreskin.  He'll be laughed at."
"It's a useless flap of skin anyway."
"He won't even feel it.  Most don't even cry."
"It'll keep him from having UTIs now, and when he's old."
"No woman wants a man with extra skin on his penis."
"It'll stink if we don't."
"Foreskin is a lot of work and gets infected easily."
"It's better for him to have it taken off."
"He'll never remember it if you do it now."

So much bullshit.  Parents are so rarely being told the truth by the doctors about what circumcision really entails.

I really do believe that if parents knew exactly what happens behind those closed doors, we wouldn't have to read all of these horribly sad stories from fathers and mothers who wish they could turn back time and protect their sons.  

Parents are not being told of long term effects of circumcision by their doctors.  Parents are making choices on minimal information, trusting that the medical "professionals" are telling them what they need to know.  And they're being left to make a decision for their son that should never even need to be made in the first place.  You can't take back what's done, and these medical professionals are leaving the guilt and pain for the child and his parents, while lining their pockets with the blood money.

Parents aren't being told how circumcision can negatively impact the mother/child bond, or that it's quite common for a circumcised baby to refuse breastfeeding afterward.  They aren't being told how this one traumatic event could forever alter their tiny son's opinion of them, and of himself.  They aren't being told the whole story, and they're making a choice for their son that should never have been made by anyone but that boy.

I have people ask me all the time why I "care so much" about circumcision, and it's for two reasons.  First, it's because I have to speak up for the little ones who don't have a voice, and whose cries are being ignored.  People have to stand up for those who can't stand up for themselves.
The second reason I do this is because of the fact that so many parents are left shattered after finding out too late what they allowed to be done to their son(s).  The guilt is intense, and forever.  Even when parents are able to understand that they did the best they could with the information they had at the time, so often they still carry the guilt of not knowing better, sooner.

I hate that there are people hurting forever for something that doesn't need to be done.  I hate that there are children being violated, and adults being lied to.  I hate that doctors aren't recognizing or acknowledging that foreskin is meant to be there, and that to cut off a functional body part makes no common sense.

To those who made the best decision they could make with the information they had at the time, and who went on to find out that the decision they made was not the one they'd have made if they knew more, I want to tell you that I'm sorry you weren't fully informed.  I am sorry that you carry guilt.  I am sorry that you even have to.

Our sons deserve better.  By not informing parents of the full and total truth, doctors are denying these boys of their right to an intact body, free of unnecessary and dangerous medical procedures.  They are allowing parents to believe half-truths and total lies, and to be left with the burden of guilt.

As the parents of intact and circumcised boys, we need to stand together and educate others.  We need to take what we know, and share it.  Knowledge is power!  Sometimes we can give parents information their doctor never gave them, and it can save their child from that trauma, and it saves those parents from knowing too late.  

We, as a whole, need to stand up and speak out.  We need to end the suffering for those little boys, and we need to make sure that guilt-baggage is a thing of the past.

I'm sick of knowing that there are people who live in pain everyday because of this.  I'm so sorry it wasn't different.

Living Within Sensory Processing Disorder

 

What is sensory processing disorder?

Children with sensory processing disorder have difficulty processing information from the senses (touch, movement, smell, taste, vision, and hearing) and responding appropriately to that information. These children typically have one or more senses that either over- or underreact to stimulation. Sensory processing disorder can cause problems with a child's development and behaviour.

Who has sensory processing disorder?

Children with autism and other developmental disabilitiesoften have sensory processing disorder. But sensory processing disorder can also be associated with premature birth, brain injury, learning disorders, and other conditions.

(Taken from HERE.)

************************************************************

Anyone else have a child with this?  I have two.  (The twins.)  It's made life interesting, that's for sure.  If you have a child who lives with this, you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about.

Our son's SPD seemed to improve dramatically when we took him off sugar, but it's still there.  Just under the surface, all the time.
Life needs to stay within certain lines for him to cope well.  It's why our morning and nighttime routines never falter.  He's able to do pretty much anything during the day as long as he knows what's coming.  He's not into surprises.  For him not to lose it completely, he needs a lot of notice of an event that is going to take place, and to be reminded of it daily.  On the way to do something, he will ask repeatedly what is going to happen.  He has to know the plan.

If a plan doesn't work out; if we tell him we're going somewhere, and for whatever reason we can't (for example, if the store is closed), all hell breaks loose.  We have to be very careful how we tell him what our plans are.  We make sure that we say, "We're going to TRY to go and..."  Then he knows that there's a chance that it may not happen, even if we are all counting on it.  Sometimes he still acts out even if he knew there was a chance of it not happening, but it's slightly less intense, and can from time to time be avoided completely.  *This is why I spend so much time making sure that stores are open/the park isn't locked/the exact times Santa is at the mall...and so on.*  It's easier to avoid a breakdown than to live through one.

We also cannot tell him that we're going to buy them (the kids) something unless we're standing in front of it and we can see that they can, without a doubt, get it.  (This could be anything from a mango, to a toy.)  Being told he can have something, and then to find it's impossible (they don't have any!), results in a meltdown.  He doesn't know how to handle it, and so he just doesn't.  What we say is going to happen HAS to happen.

What really grinds my gears is that there are people who see his behavior and assume he's "bad", or "spoiled", when in reality it's not at all.  He's SUCH a sweet and kind and wonderful boy, and if we say that we're just going to look at something (like toys), he doesn't freak out if he gets nothing.  Because it wasn't part of the plan anyway.  No biggie.  It hurts me to know that people judge my son, and me, for something he didn't choose to have.  Children with SPD look like everyone else, and there are no obvious markers for people to use to identify it.  I try not to glare back at the people who feel the need to glare at me in a moment when all I really need is an understanding smile (or nothing, you know?  If you can't manage a smile, just do NOTHING.  It's better than glaring at me...or my four year old son!).

The Boy is under-responsive to touch, under-responsive to movement, he has all but three of the sensory seeking behaviors, he has an emotional dysfunction...yet with all of this, it is still dramatically less than the list he had when he was still getting foods with sugar.  (There are entire lists now that he doesn't have any "checks" on, whereas before, every one would have been checked.)  Sugar absolutely aggravated his SPD, and caused his behaviors to be more extreme.

As for our Older Daughter, she is learning to live within it.  Slowly.  
The type my daughter has is the same type I have.  I think of it as a sensitivity to certain things.  (Perhaps because I've lived with it, I don't find it all that "abnormal".)

She's got hypersensitivity to touch, hypersensitivity to movement, poor muscle tone (born with this), hypersensitivity to sound, hypersensitivity to smells.

It's something we noticed with her from the start, though we really thought it was just "preemie" behavior.  But it never went away.  With her, the world needs to be soft and quiet.  And it needs to smell good.  She is the first one to cover her ears, even in a place that no one else really notices the level of noise.  She hates wind.  A drop of water on her shirt sets her off into hysterics.  She's learned to live with the sound of a lawn mower, but used to scream to the point of her face turning purple if she heard one.  She'll avoid foods that every other person in this house likes, because it "smells bad".  (It doesn't smell BAD, it just HAS a smell.)

It isn't always easy with her because her reactions are immediate and can sometimes seem like they're just out of the blue, but like I said before, we share many of the same traits in what we can and cannot handle.  So I get it.  I can look over at her and know when something is making her anxious just by looking at the profile of her face, because it's making me anxious too and I can see her tense jaw and know exactly how she's feeling in that moment.  But, I have no doubt that she'll make it through life without most people ever even noticing it.  Unless someone is actually paying close attention, it's unlikely that they'll notice it.  She's one of the most amazing people I've ever met in my life, and I know that as time goes on she'll learn to adapt even better than she already has.  When someone does notice, it'll be someone who cares about her.  (Most people don't pay enough attention to anyone else to notice that they can't walk in tall grass.  Ever.  Or that they wear a sweater in summer because the breeze makes their skin feel crazy.)

I've found that people are more understanding with Older Daughter, maybe because her type of SPD works better for them.  I think they treat her more kindly because she's "so sensitive", and when she acts out it's because of something like rain, or noise.  The whole thing plays into their idea of her being a helpless, delicate, "poor little girl".  For some reason, the world around us seems to want to treat her like a victim in this, and at the exact same time treat her brother like he's a terror for having the exact same behaviors that are caused by the exact same disorder.  It boggles my mind.  I'm trying to raise her to be independent and strong and to not play OR BE a victim.  I'm trying to raise my son to be sensitive and kind and be proud of the person he is, in a world set on hating men.  So the whole thing just irks me beyond belief.
Way to label them based only on stereotypes, society.  You suck.


If you want to see if you or your child have any of the symptoms, find the checklist HERE.

Here is another, for infants and toddlers.


I think a lot of people have SPD and don't even realize.  And I think a lot of kids have it and no one has ever diagnosed it, or it was mis-diagnosed as something else.  

I know that when I was first pointed in the direction of this information a couple years ago, I finally felt like I wasn't losing my mind...I knew there had been something different about them, I just didn't know WHAT.  Knowing this made all the difference.  Which is why I shared it.

Read more here:
http://www.todaysparent.com/health/kids-safety/sensory-processing-disorder

http://www.spdcanada.org/

https://myhealth.alberta.ca/health/pages/conditions.aspx?hwid=te7831&

http://www.spdfoundation.net/about-sensory-processing-disorder.html

Whole For The Holidays

Swiped this image from HERE.

So I'm not sure why, exactly, but it seems to me that this time of year there are a lot of babies being born.  Maybe it's the spring mating season thing?  I don't know, and I don't pretend to really care why.  The thing I do care about is that during the "holiday season", we're all ready wracked with enough insanity, before we add to it the babies.  

With every pregnancy announcement and upcoming birth, those of us who call ourselves "intactivists" just get STRESSED RIGHT FREAKIN' OUT.  I swear, I have an ulcer.

Nothing says "Happy Holidays" like knowing that people you've spoken to about circumcision a dozen times (at LEAST) over the last several months, very likely just had their newly born son circumcised.  And it's not as though they didn't know the facts.  If they ignored the sea of information I gave them, the decision to cut him would have been completely based on the husband's insecurity with his own genitals.  ("What's wrong with being circumcised?  I'm circumcised!  And my son will be too!")

What really GETS to me about this time of year when it comes to circumcision is that these adults are thinking of all of the super cute little outfits they're going to buy for their son.  They're thinking of the gifts that they'll have for him under the tree.  And they'll be spending two months flipping through flyers and websites, looking for that perfect gift for themselves.  'Tis the season for giving (and receiving), right?

I have this "crazy" idea.  How about instead of worrying about which Christmas sweater you're going to buy your son, you just leave your him with the foreskin his body was meant to have, and call it even.  It'll save you $24.99, and save him a lifetime of living with your idea of what his genitals "should" look like.

How about you just forgo the circumstraint, the tearing, the screaming, the trauma... 

How about you just love your son for the person he is, without thinking that his penis was made so horribly wrong that it must be "fixed" before he goes home from the hospital because, *GASP*, what if someone was to see it intact?!  The HORROR!!!

How about this holiday season, you leave your son's penis alone.  Give him the gift of a whole, intact body. Your son's "package" came perfectly wrapped, exactly as it was designed to be. It's a gift that keeps on giving all throughout his life, and one that he'll never grow out of.  (Which is more than I can say about that ugly sweater...)

Christmas sweater...see what I mean?!
(Swiped image from HERE.)

If you need more information, here are some links.  

www.WholeNetwork.org
www.Dr.Momma.org
www.SavingSons.org
www.4Eric.org
www.IntactAmerica.org
www.CIRP.org
www.NoCirc.org
www.circumcision.org


Also, if you have any questions and need someone to talk to, please, email me, chewygranolamomma@yahoo.ca
or send me a message via my Facebook page.  (LINK HERE.)

Bottle Propping Isn't Safe.

You know those days when you see something and shake your head so hard you think it might just come right off and roll down the street??  I'm having one of those days.

See, I'm in some twin groups on Facebook.  It's not uncommon I read things about how these parents "had" to make their babies CIO because they are "only one person".  ("DON'T JUDGE ME!" is another common statement that seems to go hand in hand with these comments.)

AS a twin mom who never got much help from the start, the whole excuses thing irritates me BAD.

My husband worked 14 hour days from the time I got pregnant until our twins were just over 2 years old.  That means after travelling to and from work, when he was home he was sleeping, showering, or eating.  Never ever did he have more than 2 hours in that entire time, to bathe a baby/cook a meal/wash some clothes.  I managed to not only never "have" to make them CIO, I didn't even WANT to.  How can someone listen to their babies cry and not go to them??  And then to brag about it..."My twins were sleeping through the night at 6 weeks old.  CIO works and I'd do it again!"

Seriously?

My twins didn't EVER sleep through the night until they were 16 months old.  And by "sleeping through the night", I mean, "slept more than 5 hours in a row."

So here's the photo that really got my gears all ground up.  See those things??  "Milk Maid Baby Bottle Holder", they're called. 

Now, here's my thing;  I've HAD twins.  I had teeny tiny twins.  I had twins that needed to be fed every 3 hours, around the clock, for the first 6 months after they came home from the hospital.

Not ever did I need to prop a bottle.  Not ever.  You know why?  I'll tell ya.  I used my freakin' arms and hands.

GASP!

I know!  Crazy, isn't it?!

When my twins came home from the NICU they were still too small and too weak to breastfeed successfully.  They came home almost 2 weeks before their due date...after 8 1/2 weeks in the hospital.  They'd gone from NG tube to a "Haberman Feeder", to a preemie "bottle"...  To me, it was a pleasure to hold their bottles.  It sure was better than watching those NG tubes being changed.  : (

Haberman bottle

Preemie bottle (provided by hospital.  I filled them with pumped breastmilk.)

I managed to hold two bottles at once until I had established my son on the boob, and then (after we figured that out) I would put him on my breast while I held the bottle for my daughter.  She would either be in the nook of my arm, or the nook of my knee (depending on how feisty they were that day!).

Bottle propping is dangerous, and it removes that physical contact that ALL babies deserve, crave, and NEED to thrive.

I'm not sitting on some kind of "high horse", or saying I'm better than anyone.  I'm saying that I followed my instincts, and then (many months later) found out that they were right.

This is what some organizations say about it:
"The most serious risk of propping a baby bottle is that your baby could choke and aspirate formula into his lungs. When you prop a bottle, your baby can't stop the constant flow of milk into his mouth, even when it's too fast or too much for him to swallow. Bottle propping also increases the risk that your baby will develop an ear infection. When you feed in a horizontal position, milk can flow into the Eustachian tube, where the fluid can become infected. Hold your baby's bottle at a 45-degree angle when feeding to reduce the risk of ear infections. Bottle propping can also lead to tooth decay because milk stays in contact with the teeth longer."

"Babies need lots of physical closeness to develop emotionally. Babies in orphanages where bottles are propped often and physical contact rarely occurs can develop higher-than-normal levels of cortisol, a hormone related to stress, a 2001 University of Minnesota study found. Lower-than-normal levels of oxytocin, associated with emotional development, and vasopressin, associated with social development, can also occur, according to a 2005 University of Illinois study. If you must feed your baby in an infant seat because you have twins or triplets, hold the bottle rather than propping it. Make sure you compensate with lots of cuddling between feedings."  (1)


"Do not prop bottles for a baby.  Propping means a young baby is given a bottle to drink by itself and the bottle is propped up (with a pillow, for example) so that it can flow into the baby’s mouth.
Propping a bottle can:
— cause choking and suffocation, 
— possibly cause ear infections and baby bottle tooth 
decay, and 
— deprive the baby of important cuddling and human 
contact." (2)

"It is very important that your baby develop good eating habits. Bottle propping is  discouraged because...Less Interaction with parents, Ear Infections, Choking/aspiration, Tooth Decay." (3)

"Propping a bottle is psychologically unwise and can be physically dangerous. Holding your baby during feeding is one of the best ways to establish close parent/child bonds." (4)
(There are a million links to show the exact same information over and over again, online.  I'll stop at four examples.)I found that feeding time with my babies to be some of the only really calm, quiet moments in our hectic day.  I enjoyed having them close to me.  I was more than aware of just how very lucky I was to have brought them home with me in the first place.  And after spending 8 1/2 weeks being told when I was "allowed" to hold my own babies, once we got them home I was not willing to miss out on any opportunity to absorb every ounce of that contact with them.

It really is disheartening when I see moms so proudly propping bottles, even when they state that they had another person there that could have helped them...so each baby could have been held.  (But it was just inconvenient, and would "spoil" them.)

We all know that the floor does need to be swept.  I agree.  But that job will wait for you.  Dishes need to be done.  They wait too.  And supper can be made at any point in the day.  It doesn't have to be made at the exact same time they need to be fed.  A little bit of planning goes a long way!

I've found that the issue at hand may not even be that these twin moms force their little ones to CIO, or prop their bottles.  After some reflection on the whole subject, I think what really bothers me is that I am an attached parent, and these things just scream detachment*.  How could someone not WANT to hold their babies??  I know all too well that being a mom of twins isn't easy, and I'm not trying to throw stones.  I just know that it's totally possible to attachment parent twins.  Even when you're on your own.  Even on no sleep, with no help, and no prior experience.

I guess if there's one sliver lining here, it's that I now know without a doubt that after all this time I can still SEE the insanity of the internet, because it still bothers me.  THAT'S how I know I'm walking the right path.  (And how I know that my brain has not been completely corrupted!)

*If you want to read a perfect example of a "detached parent", check the link to a post on "Imperfect Parent".

(1)  Livestrong: http://www.livestrong.com/article/555767-propping-babies-to-eat/#ixzz2973Cl5eV
(2)  Team Nutrition (USDA.gov): http://teamnutrition.usda.gov/Resources/feedinginfants-ch5.pdf

(3) Stanton Territorial Health Authority:  http://www.stha.ca/files/services/123/Bottle%20Propping.pdf

(4)  National Network For The Child:  http://www.nncc.org/nutrition/guide.bottlefed.html

IUDs...I Wish I Didn't Know.

A copper, and Mirena IUD.

Okay, again, short and sweet (as short and sweet as they get around here).  I don't want to get into a big debate on birth control, because I think if you don't want a baby, you need to prevent pregnancy.  I'd rather see you prevent a birth than to end a life.  (I'll get into my whole stand on that in another post when I'm not so tired, and can provide links, etc.)

For now, lets just talk about IUDs.

Here is a link to the Wikipedia description.

So there are two different kinds.  I honestly didn't even know they still did the copper wire ones...I live on the moon, I think.  But I have seen it mentioned on Facebook in some mommy groups recently.  (Which is what sparked all of this.)

Okay.  So when my twins were born, they were in the NICU.  I'm sure if you also don't live on the moon, you know that already.  Anyway, when they were 6 weeks old, I went for my check-up with my (super hot) OB...Dr. Gregg Hancock...(shout out for him here because he's [overall] pretty awesome).

So...after a short break thinking about him, I'm back to the topic at hand.  LOL  IUDs.  So, I went to my appt. with him, and because I'd just had twins (I assume), he asked me if I was planning on using birth control until we were ready for more children.  I said I'd considered it, but hadn't really looked into it too much because I was SOOOOO not ready to start having relations with my husband again.  He suggested an IUD.

Now, let me just say here that the only time I'd ever even heard of an IUD was in grade six sex ed.  Seriously.  I may not only live on the moon now, but clearly was born and raised there.  LOL
He told me that an IUD is "as good as getting your tubes tied, but easily reversible."  He said [TMI WARNING] I stopped bleeding, he'd put one in, in his office, and it'd be a small pinch and that would be that.

Super.  Small pinch.  This...from the same guy who told me that the dye he was injecting into my fallopian tubes would be a "small pinch".  0_0  Not quite, buddy.  (One word to describe that?  HOLY F*CK!!)  Well, because of what I faintly remembered from grade six, and the "slight pinch" description from him...I asked the kids' primary nurse what her opinion was on IUDs.  And, at first, she didn't want to tell me anything.  She said "I don't know much about them."
I knew she was holding back!!!
When the other nurse in the NPCU (Neo-Natal Progressive Care Unit) left for lunch, she told me what she knew.

She told me that in the 35 years of working in the same NICU, she'd seen no less than five babies born with problems associated with them.  Their mothers had gotten pregnant while wearing one, and that four were born with limbs (or partial limbs...like hands, or feet) missing because they'd been CUT OFF by the copper wires.  She said that they don't bleed to death because of how they're forming...it rubs the same spot over and over, and as they grow and run out of space, the wires get tighter against them, and they just sever the body part they're up against.
Seriously.
And then there's the fifth baby...
Brace yourself.
This baby was born with the IUD INSIDE OF IT'S ABDOMEN.  Yeah.  I'm not shitting you.  She told me that it had formed right around the IUD (so in this case, whether those wires are plastic or copper...it could happen).  Immediately after birth, she said it had to be whisked away to surgery to try to remove it.  She said that while it was inside of it's momma, it was safe from infection.  As soon as it was delivered, the chance of infection increased.  And obviously, it's not okay to live your life with an IUD sticking half way out of your belly.
She ended this by telling me that there are worse things in life than being pregnant.  And clearly, she was right.

I never got one.  That's the moral of this story.  I also never got pregnant until we put some serious effort into trying...when the twins were 20 months old.  And when we did try, it took a month.  So one day when I'm more on my game, I'll tell you why THAT is a dramatic story too.  LOL

So...do your research.  That's all I'm saying.

And, in conclusion, I leave you this one link that was posted by Guggie on her wall...(she just can't help herself...LMAO!)

Mirena Crash: The Mirena IUD Side Effects After Removal

Thank you for reading.  I'm sorry if I scarred you.  (We're in the same boat now, I guess.) 

Another Thrush Post...This One Is From Experience

So, the last time I posted some info on thrush, it was from research...not first-hand experience.  Now, thanks to my baby's first illness, I speak from experience.

My daughter is 13 months old, and just got over thrush.  She's never had a drop of formula in her life.  Not one.  Other than being breastfed about 30 times a day, she's eating solids and drinking some water from a sippy cup or bottle if she needs it.  (I'm just not making milk like I used to, no matter how much I put her on the boob or what else I do, so sometimes she really does need a drink of water.)

Anyways, when she turned up with thrush (Oral candidiasis), my husband started asking me how she "caught" it.  I explained to him that they don't "catch" it, and that we ALL have that yeast in our mouths all the time.  I told him that when someone's immune system is low, or they're on antibiotics, the natural yeast can go a bit crazy and cause thrush.  Our daughter had just been sick for the first time a few weeks ago (we all were), and I'm sure it beat the hell out of her immune system.  It was ROUGH, and we all suffered for two weeks with it.  (Three adults and three kids all sick at once.  Super fun.)

I can't help but laugh at all of the old wives tales I've heard about thrush since Little Miss got it.  And I'm here to call bullshit.

Thrush is not caused by bottles.  It's not caused by pacifiers.  Kids don't catch it from being around other kids who have it.  As I said, it's caused by yeast over-growth, and THAT is caused by use of antibiotics, or by a lowered immune system.  And it can be passed from baby to your boob, and if your boob isn't washed everyday, or if you re-use the same (contaminated) bra, you and baby can pass it back and forth...for however long it takes for you to realize what's happening!

I found it pretty easy to deal with, compared to how I'd imagined it.  Wash those boobs, wear a clean bra everyday and wash the old one in hot water before re-using it, and let those boobies air out.  Sunshine kills yeast, and airing those boobies out can kill that yeast pretty easy.  You can hang your bra in the sunshine and kill yeast too...(this is also done with cloth diapers to sterilize them, right?).  You don't have to just lay in your backyard letting it all hang out (though more power to you if you want to, LOL).  You can just sit in a chair in your house located in some sunshine.  

Now, that said, the back of my house points at a condo, and the front faces a busy street...so I wasn't about to sit in my kitchen window with the girls hanging out...and we've recently acquired a house guest for the next little while, I did my topless time in the bedroom.  No sunshine, but it didn't seem to matter.
I picked up gentian violet at the pharmacy but never used it, and now after reading the below information, I'm glad!

 I read this on the "Ask Dr.Sears" website (found HERE):

"Warning - gentian violet has been used for many years to treat thrush. A recent study done in Australia has linked gentian violet to cancer of the mouth. However, many other professionals around the world believe that it is safe, and continue to recommend it. For this reason, we suggest you use this remedy sparingly, and for as little time as possible."

What I ended up doing was taking the advice of one of my readers...I took garlic pills, zinc, and kept up with my Vitamin B & C that I always take daily anyway.  Oh, and the 40 gallons of yogurt the baby and I ate!  (Not really...but it sure seemed like that much!)
I ALSO gave her the anti-fungal drops 4 times a day for the week, and by the end of that week, the baby was thrush-free.  (If she hadn't had such a high fever for so long, I'd never have used the anti-fungal, but because of her age I wasn't going to mess around with it.)

And, as I was discussing on the Facebook wall, I can't say for certain whether or not it could be possible for formula to cause thrush.  The truth is that we don't know 100% what is in every single can.  It's not uncommon for formula companies to recall it because something is in it that shouldn't be there.  What's to say that none of that could possibly cause an overgrowth of natural yeast?

What I CAN say, though, is that without a doubt formula causes thrush to go crazy.  It's full of sugars and is milk-based, and everything I've read on thrush is that it feeds on the sugars in dairy...so babies shouldn't be given any dairy products other than yogurt for as long as two weeks after the initial break-out.  It only makes sense that thrush would LOOOOVE to feed on the formula that coats the inside of a baby's mouth.

(I had a formula-fed baby [after she was 4 months old], so I'm not hating on you...just pointing something out.)


The major thing I wanted to get across here is that thrush is not caused by YOU.  You didn't do anything wrong.  It was NOT from "improperly sterilizing bottles", it's not from Baby finding a pacifier under the couch that has been there for God-knows-how-long, and it's not caused by your boobs.  It's caused by the overgrowth of this ever-present yeast.  Without a doubt, once infected, it's possible to get into a cycle of re-infection if things aren't cleaned and dried properly, but it's NOT how it STARTED.  And that's the main point here.

Also, when my Dr. checked my daughter, he said that thrush does not cause fevers in children.  HERE it proves otherwise.  Clearly her thrush extended past her esophagus, which is why she had a high fever for 3 days, until she started the anti-fungal.  (Have I mentioned my Dr. is an ASS?!)

Here are some articles on thrush:

Ask Dr. Sears:  http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/childhood-illnesses/thrush
The Portable Pediatrician:  Look under "Oral Thrush"
Medicine Net.com:  http://www.medicinenet.com/thrush/article.htm
Breastfeeding Essentials:  http://breastfeeding.hypermart.net/thrush.html

The story behind this little thrush thing is...interesting.

We took the baby to the Dr. at 10:30am to get checked out (if she hadn't had a fever for 3 straight days we wouldn't have gone), and the Dr. said she had "tonsillitis and thrush".  He said he'd call in a prescription for me right away.  That was the last day his office was open before Christmas, and it closed at noon that day.
I went to the pharmacy to pick it up and found he hadn't yet called it in.
An hour later it still had not been called in.
Another half hour later, the pharmacist sent a fax to his office to tell him that the prescription hadn't been called in (because it was 6 minutes after noon, and the phones at the office were turned off).

Nothing.

He never called it in at all.  The pharmacy closed at 6pm, so I knew we were out of time, and were running low on options.  At 6:30pm my husband drove myself and the baby up to the Emergency Room.

We sat there (in a room) for 2 1/2 hours before we even saw a Dr.  She looked in Baby Girl's mouth and said straight out, she does NOT have tonsillitis.  She said that babies this age do not even get tonsillitis.  She said that the baby had very bad thrush, and that's it.  She also was the only one to mention that I would need to treat myself to avoid passing it back and forth with the baby (my own Dr. failed to mention that).

I told the Emergency room Dr. about my family Dr. not calling in a prescription, and told her that he had said that Baby Girl had tonsillitis, and her excuse was that he is "getting older, and is overworked."
Now, call me a bitch if you want to, but I don't give a flying monkey's butt HOW old he is, or HOW "over-worked" he is.  If he's practicing medicine, he need to be ON TOP OF HIS GAME, or he needs to stop.  NOW.  My little one is a BABY and this is not the first time he's done this to one of my kids.

(As soon as I can actually contact him, I'm going to tell him that I want to be referred to another Dr. ASAP, or I will be contacting Health Canada, and whoever else I need to talk to, and put in a report against him.)

So anyways, after what was 3 hours in the hospital, we finally got to go home...after we stopped at the 24-hour pharmacy to pick up the prescription.
I'm somewhat glad that Dr.Ass didn't call in the prescription, really.  He'd have given her penicillin for no reason at all, and it would have no doubt given her a bladder infection.  (Gotta love antibiotics!)

In closing, thrush is no big deal...normally.  If you're getting factual information on it, it helps.  LOL  And if your Dr. isn't a complete ass, that helps too.

Next time I'll take the all-natural route and skip that shit-show all together.  Can you blame me?!

**For the record, I want to say that I don't think that EVERY baby is the same, and that sometimes what works for one, won't work for the next.  I'm not a Dr., and don't pretend to be...I'm just a mom.  Nothing I write is medical advice, and is only my own experience and/or written from research I've done.
I also don't want to say that there has NEVER in the history of mankind been a baby who got thrush from a dirty bottle, but from everything I've read, it's just not how it happens.  If you think that's what caused it in your baby, that's fine.  I'll agree to disagree with you.  Maybe you're right.  Maybe you're not.  I'm not going to argue about it.**

Why I Didn't Breastfeed My Baby

Over the last 2 years or so since I've had the internet (yes, I lived my whole life without it!), I've read every excuse under the sun for why people didn't breastfeed their babies.  I've read sad stories of moms who could have done so much better if given a little support.  I've also personally known mothers who have said outright that they didn't want to breastfeed their baby because they "just wanted [their own] body back", and they went into detail about how they hated being pregnant...  And then there was one, Rebecca, who boasted about how her boobs would be "perky" because her daughters had been given formula, and that those who breastfed were "jealous" of her.

It's hard not to want to shake someone who says that they "don't give a shit what anyone says" (meaning every Health Organization EVER), because "formula is just as good".

Before I knew better, there was a time that I too used formula.  I'll tell you why.

Once upon a time I had twins.  They were born at 30 weeks, and were very small and weak when they were born.  My son was less than 4 lbs, my daughter was less than 3 lbs.  My son was born with severe AOP (apnea of prematurity), and bradycardias, and was fitted with a CPAP (which was referred to as an "Aladin" in the NICU).  My daughter was born after 5 minutes without oxygen, and was immediately given a breathing tube that went in her nose and down to her lungs.  Immediately after their birth they were both taken away to the NICU.  They brought my daughter back in so I could see that she was alive, and then I didn't see them again for five hours. I was ready and able to see them, and refused to sleep until they let me, but they were "doing rounds", and I wasn't allowed to be in there until they were done.

After being taken back to my room after having them, I started pumping.  For the first 24 hours they got only IV vitamins and minerals, and then after that they got the tiny bit of colostrum I was able to pump.  Every 3 hours around the clock I pumped.  I stayed in the hospital for 3 days...a day longer than needed, but the Dr. on during that time said he would write that I needed "observation" so I could stay an extra day...so I'd have access to my twins.  Going home without them was surreal.  Not what I had imagined. Nothing was the way I thought it would be.  Leaving them there, fighting for their lives in the NICU was NOT part of my birth plan.

This was the actual sign outside the NICU my twins stayed in.

When I went home I took with me a hospital-grade pump.  And again, every 3 hours around the clock I pumped them my special milk.  We visited every single day, and I took it with me.  They were fed it through their NG tubes, and at the time it was all I could really do for them.

When they were 32 weeks (gestational age), 2 weeks actual age, I was allowed to start trying to put them to breast.  I'll never forget that first time.  My daughter had been doing sucking actions when I held her, and finally after harassing the nurses for a week, I was allowed to see if she could suck.  The nurse that helped me was amazing.  I mean, she was a wonderful blessing in my life...I wish I could have seen her more often.  She put up a screen so I could try nursing them right there at their incubators, and she helped me get them both on at the same time.  It was crazy...two very floppy babies, both trying to nurse.  Neither of them gained anything from it...they hadn't taken any milk.  But at least they tried.  They were still too small, and hadn't learned to suck, swallow, and breathe at the same time.

5 weeks old.

I kept trying.  I was determined to breastfeed those babies.  I had wanted to even before they were born early, and because I knew my milk was specially made for my preemies, I was even MORE determined.  I was unstoppable.

Then I met my match.  Her name was Erin, and she was a nurse in the NICU.  During one of her shifts she was caring for my twins, and one other baby.  I asked her if I could take one of them into the nursing room and put them on my boob.  She snapped.  She told me that I was "wasting the nurses time trying to breastfeed".  She told me that I was "wasting the babies' valuable calories trying to breastfeed for 45 minutes, and they never took more than 1cc of milk."  She said that unless I wanted them to stay in the hospital for even longer, I had to "accept" that I wasn't going to be able to breastfeed them, and that I needed to "focus on pumping".  Then she handed me my son and told me to GO.

I just stood there with my mouth open.  I took my son and just wanted to cry.  We went into the nursing room, and I remember saying to him "you have to really nurse well, buddy.  You need to take more milk than you've ever taken, or I'm not going to get to do this anymore."  He took 2ccs.  My daughter took none.

After that I did what I was told.  I focused on pumping.  When they wanted to introduce a bottle, I did it.  It was a step up from their NGHaberman" bottle.

For 6 weeks they were in the NICU, and then the NPCU (progressive care unit), before they were moved into the "Care By Parent" unit of the NICU.  I got to live there with them in the hospital, and do 95% of their care for the last 16 days of their stay.  There I would pump around the clock, and feed them in their special bottles, and when the nurses were busy, I would try to put them on my boob.  I was sneaking, trying to prove them wrong.  I knew if we went home on bottles, they'd end up on formula.  Pumping every 3 hours and feeding them for 45 mins. each was exhausting.  I knew I couldn't keep it up.

This was the pump I used.  We had a love/hate relationship.  LOL
This pump was my constant companion.

All around me I saw moms being encouraged to breastfeed.  I saw babies taking 100ccs of breast milk in 20 mins., and the most my twins ever took was about 10ccs.  (And that was an accomplishment!)  Never was I really encouraged to breastfeed them.  They said I lived too far away...that I couldn't put enough time in, so I'd never be successful.

Two days before I left the hospital, I started taking Domperidone to increase my supply since there was only the EXACT amount they were taking in every feed being produced.  If that kept up, there was no way I was going to be able to make enough milk for the two of them.

We took them home at 8 1/2 weeks, after 58 days in the hospital.  Before we left the nurse in the CBP unit told me that if something happened and I was only able to make enough milk for one, that it had to be my son who got it.  He was the sicker, weaker twin...even though he was bigger.  It had always been that way, and she said he would benefit the most from my milk.

They were both still using the Haberman bottles when they were discharged, but we didn't use them at home.  I would just let them suck, pull the bottle out of their mouth to let them breathe and swallow, then put it back in.  It was normal for every feeding to take 45 mins.  I was still pumping, around the clock.  One of the lactation consultants there lived around the corner from us, and brought me a breastfeeding scale.  She said that I might never get them to gain weight, but if I wanted to try, she wanted me to know how much they were taking.  Michelle Carr was her name, and she is the only reason this story has any good in it.

For the first two weeks I worked on getting my son more on the boob, and less on the bottle.  By the time he was 12 weeks old, he could nurse at every feed and gain weight!  It took a lot of work, especially since I had no help, and my husband was working 14 hour days.  But we worked together, and he turned out to be a fantastic nurser!  I kept pumping for my daughter, and tried at least once daily to get her to nurse.

By the time I could completely focus on my daughter's breastfeeding they were about 14 weeks actual age, 4 weeks corrected.  I hadn't wanted to move onto her until my son was well established.  I thought at the time that what I was doing was the best plan of action.  Well I guess I was wrong.  By that time she was terrified of my boob.  I honestly can't say I blame her.  My boob was twice the size of her head!  The only time I could get her to actually take the boob was in the middle of the night when she was still asleep and her eyes were closed so she couldn't see it coming.  She couldn't latch properly, so it literally felt like there were razors inside of her mouth, cutting at my nipple.  I was at a loss.

I called the hospital and asked to speak to the LC that was on.  It was not Michelle.  The woman I spoke to told me that there was "no reason she shouldn't be able to nurse properly and gain weight."  She told me to go 24 hours ONLY offering her the boob, and see if when forced, she would gain weight.  She reminded me at that time that because she was a micro-preemie, that she would need to be re-admitted into the hospital again if she went two full days without gaining weight.  Then wished me luck and said goodbye.

I thought she had to know what she was talking about.  This was her JOB.  She did this every single day.  She had to know better than I did...I was new at this and only got my son breastfeeding by a stroke of luck.  So I took out all bottles, and tried putting my little girl on my boob every time she was hungry.  She didn't gain one ounce...nothing.  After 24 hours she lost a full pound.  I was horrified.  All that kept going through my mind was that she would have to go back into the hospital, and even now, almost 3 1/2 years later, that brings me to tears.  I can't even explain just how traumatizing the NICU was...that will be another post.  I don't even like thinking about it.  But the thought of my daughter having to go back to the hospital...the thought that if she went back that it was because I had failed her...I couldn't do it.  There was no way that she was going to go back there.  I couldn't let it happen.  So I did what I had to do to keep her home, and I pumped and fed her my milk in a bottle.  Defeated.

By the time the twins were a week away from being 4 months actual age, my son was very literally taking every single drop of milk I had in my breasts.  I literally could not pump or squeeze a single drop of milk out of my boob after he was done.  There was nothing there.  Nothing.  Even taking Domperidone, there was NOTHING left.  I had to put my daughter on prescription preemie formula.  That was one of the lowest moments I had ever experienced in my life.  I didn't put her on formula because I wanted to.  I did it because I had to.  I had to give my son my milk because he was sicker and weaker, and I had to feed her something!  It cost $99 a case for 6 half-sized cans.  My husband's health insurance didn't cover it, and we were never able to write it off.  She had it from 4 months old until 11 months.  My husband wasn't very impressed at the cost of the formula, so on top of knowing I had failed her, I also got to listen to him bitch about the price of the formula.  He never directed his anger toward me, but he didn't need to.  I knew that the only reason she was on it was because of me.  It was my fault.

I ended up breastfeeding my son until he was 22 months old...two months into my next pregnancy.  I had to wean him because it was considered a no-sex, high-risk pregnancy.  After two previous premature labors, we didn't want to risk it.  The Dr. said I could continue to breastfeed, but he wouldn't recommend it.  He said that it would be in my baby's best interest to stop, just to be safe.  And I was TORN.  I wanted so badly to keep going until he was two...but he was so close.  In the end I stopped.  I had to fight for this new baby in the same way I would fight for my twins.  I would do whatever it took to make sure that my baby had the best chance.  Even if I ended up feeling like a failure once again, in the end.  As I saw it then (and still do), my feelings don't matter, really.  Not when I have to choose between them and my kids.  I knew that my son would be okay if I stopped, and I couldn't guarantee that the baby would be okay if I kept going.  So I told him that boobie was all gone.  He never cried about it, but for the first two days he would come over and want it, and I would tell him it was all gone, and just hold him.  It was like he knew I couldn't handle any tears from him about it.  He has always been such a kind and loving little boy...  Again, I can't get too much more into it because it makes me want to cry.

When my new baby was born, I had her on my boob within a few minutes.  She didn't latch exactly right and I didn't even care.  She was getting milk, and that's all that mattered to me.  By the end of the first week my nipples were so sore they were bleeding.  She had literally sucked the skin from the top half of both my nipples.  (They'll never look the same!)  I had to use one boob per feed, just to give the other one a little break.  I got through it.  There was NOTHING that was going to stop me.  I didn't give a shit about how much it hurt.  I didn't care.  I was GOING to be successful this time.  NO MATTER WHAT.  I knew she had a tongue-tie, but so did my son.  I couldn't explain what the problem was, but I figured out how to nurse her without her ingesting any more of my breast tissue.

She's 11 months old now.  Only about a month and a half ago I read something that came up on my wall about lip ties.  That little girl has the most severe lip tie there is!  I had never heard of it before, so had no idea that it could happen, obviously.  That was the major difference between her and my son.  After seeing that, I checked my older daughter's mouth.  Sure enough, she too has a lip tie!!!!!  She also has a very deep palate at the top of her mouth, and a tongue tie.  I'm no longer surprised that I had problems breastfeeding her.  But knowing why it "probably" happened isn't going to change the fact that it DID happen.  I have to live with the knowledge that my precious and funny and sweet girl didn't get the same as her brother and sister.  And that's on me.

This is the baby's lip tie.

So, it's been hard for me to figure out how to write this post and get it out the way I want to get it out.  Because it kills me to hear excuses that mothers make.  I HATE excuses.  There are facts, and there are REASONS, but excuses are something people make up when they know they didn't do what they should have done.  I've heard them all.  And sometimes I want to shake people for stopping when they were doing well, because they had other priorities...but I don't want to mix them up with the women who didn't breastfeed at all, or for as long as they wanted to, for real legitimate reasons.  Sometimes they get mixed together and it's hard to distinguish them from one another.  But there are definitely two distinct groups, and I don't want to focus on the moms who chose to stop breastfeeding.  It puts me in a bad mood.

The fact is that breast milk is specially designed for each individual baby, and it's a baby's right to have it.  People say "breast is best", but in reality, when you stop beating around the bush, the truth is that "formula is NOT best".  Breastfeeding is "normal".  Formula feeding is "abnormal".  Breastfeeding provides your baby with immunities.  Formula does not

I would never say that breastfeeding moms are better moms.  Sometimes that's not the case at all.  Sometimes a mother gives her baby formula for medical reasons.  Sometimes she gives it to her baby because she doesn't see any other option.  Sometimes giving that baby formula is tearing her heart apart, but she does it because it's all she CAN do.  And you just can't know a persons reasons when you see them check "I didn't breastfeed, I used formula" on a Facebook poll.  What I think is that breastfeeding moms know that breast milk is the best choice for an infant, that she's had some support along the way, and that she's probably overcome some obstacles too.  It's not that often I hear of moms who just instinctively knew how to properly latch and feed their newborn.  The truth is that it's a learning process, just like anything else to do with raising children.  Sometimes it takes a failure to make that mother say that it will NEVER happen again.  Sometimes knowing that they're spending their lives carrying around regret is enough to push moms farther than they've ever been pushed before, and in the end they walk out victorious because they were determined, though hell or high water, they were never going to let themselves have to carry another regret with them through their lives.

My baby girl will be breastfed to a minimum of two years, and hopefully long after that.  I am one of those mothers, and I will never ever carry the regret of unsuccessful breastfeeding with me again.  I will never allow it to happen, because having to explain to my older daughter why she was never breastfed is something I dread, something that hurts my soul to think about.

I had a friend send me an email with a link to a story that had me in tears.  There were just so many similarities between the story I read, and my own.  THIS IS THAT STORY.  (I literally had to stop reading three times to take some time to pull myself together.)

On my personal Facebook page I posted a poll for my own friends, just to see where my own friends stood on breastfeeding.  Below are the results of that poll.

Still Breastfeeding: 23%
No breastfeeding, just formula:  4%
Pumped Milk, no breastfeeding:  1.5%
Less than 6 weeks:  .75% (1 vote)
More than 6 weeks, less than 6 months:  5%
More than 6 months, less than a year:  3%
1 year:  5%
More than a year:  13%
More than 2 years:  8%
More than 3 years:  12%

5 years+ : .75 % (1 vote)

Now, that doesn't add up to 100%, but I'm not going to count "not long enough" votes.  I was looking for a time-frame, not trying to make people feel bad.  (And some of those people checked more than one option, so I just did the math based on 132 votes.)

I really wanted to try to word it so that no one felt like they had to justify their reasons to me.  Of course there are people who felt they needed to explain themselves to me...and that's kind of upsetting.  Many of them haven't breastfed in 20+ years, and they are STILL carrying around the feelings that they didn't do enough.  I'm not sure who's standards they're trying to meet...  And it made me feel like more than anything, breastfeeding has become a contest.  Who can go the longest...and if you aren't the winner, you need to justify why you didn't go as long as someone else.  I breastfed my son for 22 months, and I'm by no means the "winner", but the moms that didn't breastfeed as long as I did felt like they needed to explain themselves to me...why they couldn't go as long as I did.  It made me sad!  I think every single drop of breast milk counts.  I think that we need to climb down off of our high-horse and stop making this a competition.  I think that we need to understand that what we know today is different than what we knew a generation ago, and I'm sure our kids will know more than we do.  Of course babies should have breast milk.  I don't think that's even something that needs to be said...at least it shouldn't have to be.  But maybe if we had less women feeling like they're superior because they breastfed for X amount of time, other women who may have used formula would attempt breastfeeding.  I can't even imagine how scary it is to look at the numbers and think that if you don't make it that far, someone is going to tell you that you didn't try hard enough.

So, the point I'm trying to make is that sometimes things don't work out the way we want them to when we're raising our children.  Sometimes we do what we have to do, or at least what we think we have to do, to get them through.  And sometimes we end up carrying around some regret because of the choices we've made for them.  I wish things were different when it came to breastfeeding my older daughter.  I wish I could go back in time and change it.  I wish that in the very least I could have known about milk donors, so she could have gotten breast milk, even if it wasn't my own.  I wish she could have lived her whole life without ever having formula.  But I can't go back and change things now.  So, it's a cross I bare, and I'm going to have to know that she was given less than the very best.  It makes me sad, and because of my regret I will never ever let it happen again.  Seeing her in her incubator in that operating room was the second my life changed forever, and she has been nothing short of a pleasure to raise.  She is the sweetest, most wonderful, funniest little girl I've ever known in my life, and I love her with all of my heart.  She deserved better.  But I can't change the past.  So all I can do is make sure that for the rest of her life I never ever let her get anything less than the very best ever again.

A very sweet friend of mine (the one who sent me the link) said something that really hit home for me.  Sometimes breastfeeding "excuses" are not at all "excuses".  They are real barriers that women could not overcome...at least not at that time.

And so I'm going to ask something of anyone who's made it this far into this very long post.  If you see a mother feeding her infant formula, instead of shooting her that glare that breastfeeding mothers seem to feel entitled to give, instead remember that you do not know her story.  You don't know if she had support.  You don't know if that baby she's feeding was born early and out of fear, she fed it formula.  You don't know if she was given bad advice from a doctor she thought she could trust.  You can't tell by looking at someone if they are taking anti-seizure medications that are not safe for her infant.  You just don't know.  So please, please don't assume that she's more concerned with going out and partying than breastfeeding, or that she cares more about the "perky-ness" of her breasts than she does about giving her baby her breast milk.  Instead, perhaps when you know of a friend who is going to be having a baby, offer to help her breastfeed.  Offer her some information, and give her the support that she needs.  Sometimes all we need is one person on our side, helping us through it.  Sometimes our own lack of knowledge and experience can be what drags us down, and if we had someone who did have some real experience helping us out and cheering us on, we could succeed too.  Because no one wants to carry around regret.  And no one wants to feed their baby the only way they thought they could, and have other mothers glare at them.  Some of us feel bad enough as it is.