Taking the Scenic Route

I realized after my last post that some people might mistake my pro-breastfeeding for anti formula.  I just wanted to be clear:  I am not anti-formula feeding.  In my particular family milk and soy allergies are present, so I am very motivated to breastfeed because I know I could run into a lot of problems if I needed to use formula.

I am also very pro-breastfeeding because it is one of the only aspects of natural family parenting that I have been competely successful at. 

for instance:

1. I circ’ed my son, mostly due to lack of education.  I can’t change the past. 
2. I dismissed cloth diapering out of hand for the first year of Zane’s life, and finally went full force Cloth Diapers starting around 14 months.  I was fanatic about Cloth for a while, refusing to use disposables even for situations where it became rather complicated.  When I got pregnant, and was so terribly sick, and threw up ON Zane while changing his diaper (and absolutely couldn’t handle diaper laundry) I changed back to disposables.  I am having a really hard time wanting to change back with him.  With her I have only recently felt recovered enough to even think about cloth diapering, and I haven’t managed to keep up on laundry like I need to to diaper full time yet.  I have a goal of getting both back into diapers full time, but right now I am just not organized enough and energetic enough to do it the way I should. 
3. I have used the sling with Zora, but she is so small that it is sort of nervewracking for me, so I am still mostly just carrying her or using the Baby Bjorn I got with Zane.  (I didn’t sling him until he was around 16 months)  I know that eventually the sling will be an extension of me, but I can honestly say that I am not there yet.  I have a feeling that I will feel a lot better about it when she is closer to sitting and has better neck control.
4. I don’t understand natural medicine very well.  I do use what I know, and I am trying to learn more, but I still have to turn to Western medicine a lot more than many in the NFL community.  
5. I am horribly torn on vaxxing.  I totally respect both sides of the issue, and think they both have valid points.  The only thing I know for sure is that the vaxes I will probably do, will be done on a delayed schedule.  I absolutely think the vax schedule is for the convenience of doctors/school systems and not for the health of the kids.  I also know that I won’t be doing all the vaxes for them as kids.  (the chicken pox vax in particular is one we won’t even consider until our kids get into their teens since it isn’t too bad for kids, but sucks for adults)  Other than that, I don’t really know what I am going to do yet.

For the record, co-sleeping is fairly successful for us.  We have problems in the sleeping area, but it isn’t because of co-sleeping, it is because we are a family of people who have problems getting to sleep.  lol.

Now, back to breastfeeding.  I wrote a post a while ago that probably sounded hurtful if you aren’t able to breastfeed, but I wanted to tell you my journey so you can understand why I am so happy and passionate about breastfeeding.

The original post was from February 16

I may stink at getting pregnant, I started trying to conceive in April of 1995.  I didn’t get pregnant until 1997. 

I may stink at staying pregnant, From 1997 until 2001 I had 7 miscarriages.  (ranging from 5-14 weeks).  I had another in between Zane and Zora.  (making Zora my 10th pregnancy)

I may stink at being pregnant, bleeding, UTIs, preeclampsia

I may stink at giving birth, emergency c-section because of failure to progress (he never even dropped into my pelvic area because I was abnormally narrow and he was a big kid) and depressed vital signs for Zane.  Had an elective, but very neccessary c-section with Zora.  (I was so sick that I would have not faired well with labor and birth, so it was a good choice for us)

but dangit, I can make milk like nobody’s business!

That is why Breastfeeding is such a big deal to me.