Just in time for the end of National Breastfeeding month! Incidentally, my kiddo is nursing as I write this! I have a family friend that I've known for years(she was actually my Achievement Day's leader at church when we first moved to Austin when I was 10yrs old!) who is a fabulous photographer. In honor of World Breastfeeding Week at the beginning of August, Rylee and I participated in her photo series of nursing mommas in different public settings. The aim was to normalize breastfeeding and make all mommies, no matter where they might be, feel comfortable feeding their babies!
Here's some of my thoughts on breastfeeding that I shared on her Facebook page when she shared one of these pictures. She was getting lots of different comments, and I wanted to share a little of my own story and explain why these pictures are so important to me.
Let me just preface this by saying I'm an RN who gave birth naturally to a healthy full term baby with a nurse midwife and we were practically skin to skin for the first 2 weeks of her life. For whatever reason, we had HUGE problems trying to get her to latch and suck properly. With the help of a IBLC and pumping and syringe feeding, we finally got her to eat with a nipple shield. As a new momma with a super plentiful letdown on both sides(=messy feeding time!)and a baby that ate almost every hour, took her time nursing, and had to use a nipple shield, I DREADED going out in public for probably the first two months. Nursing with a cover was such a nightmare and I came close to crying many times in frustration trying to juggle it, the shield, and my starving baby! She's now five months old, off the nipple shield, and nursing like a champ, as you can see in these pictures! We breastfeed wherever now, and I normally don't use a cover due to extreme Texas heat and a baby who flings it around anyway. But I'm still nervous to nurse her outside the mother's room at my church(which is normally pretty crowded, hot and cramped).
At some point through all this, I realized every mom has such a different experience with her baby, so we can't POSSIBLY judge her and what she's doing, especially if she is just trying to love her baby and take care of him as best she can. Let's all be supportive of each other as women and mothers! And thank you Leilani for capturing this special moment for me and my daughter.
And now for some gorgeous pictures we took in a church in downtown Bastrop.
And of course it wasn't too long before Rylee lost interest in nursing for the camera!
Check out this incredibly talented lady's website http://www.photosbylei.com/
She does beautiful birth photography and also specializes in Lifestyle Family and Children’s photography out of the Austin area.
I'm grateful every moment that we are able to breastfeed and that I've been able to stay home with her. To all you mommas out there, keep up your hard work! Know you're not alone in this crazy thing called parenthood.
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