DEAR READER
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
trying on a metaphor
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
titsay
@theartofmadeline
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Show & Tell
Three Goblin Art
JBB: An Artblog!
cherry valley forever
hello vonnie
Stranger Things
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Cosimo Galluzzi
we're not kids anymore.
h
RMH
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
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@aneasyworld
Gender Bending
I’ve had this post brewing in me for a while. I think a lot about how girls become girls and boys become boys. How much of it (beyond the obvious physical differences) is innate, and how much do we as parents contribute to our little boy’s love of tractors, or our daughter’s dreams of being a princess? And what about those children raised gender neutral? (more…)
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100km London to Brighton Challenge.
100km London to Brighton Challenge.
Wow. Hello? Is anyone still there? I haven’t posted here in a ridiculously long time, but I did something this weekend worth remembering and I want to record it before it escapes my brain altogether. At 6.30am last Saturday I gathered with a few hundred other nutters hardcore endurance runners in Richmond Park, London, all of us bound for Brighton, some 100km south of our current location. I…
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If you are a woman who doesn’t have caregiving obligations, you’re earning somewhere between 92 and 96 percent on every male dollar. If you are a woman with caregiving obligations, you’re earning closer to 70 to 72 percent on the male dollar. What’s really going on here is we are discriminating against people who have to care for others, which is a role that society needs people to play. Right now we’re focusing on the problem that, if you’re at the top and take time out to take care of others, you’re knocked off your leadership track. But much more important is that, if you are a woman in the middle class or a low-income woman and you take even a day or two off to care for others, you could lose your job. You get docked pay. You don’t have access to affordable day care.
Anne-Marie Slaughter
asserts that the real problem isn’t about work-life balance — it’s that we utterly devalue the importance of caregiving roles in our society
(via stuffmomnevertoldyou)
We have this convention of not announcing a pregnancy until the high-risk first three months have passed; the only reason for it is to maintain a cult of silence around the possibility of miscarriage. But what we’re protecting is not the couple who suffers the miscarriage, but the world around them, which under cover of respecting private grief clings on to an infantile squeamishness around the particulars of reproduction.
With miscarriage, there are many routes to shame | Zoe Williams | Comment is free | The Guardian
I just have to point out that miscarriage is the ONLY time you’re expected to grieve privately. You lose a baby, a child, an adult in the prime of life, an elderly person, you usually have a very public mourning period. People offer up their condolences. Neighbors bring food and come to be with you in your grief. There are viewings, wakes, church services, grave-side services, celebrations of life. You have a miscarriage, though, and everyone expects you to keep your loss and your sadness to yourself. Bringing it up is gauche and uncomfortable, and god forbid you have feelings about it that someone else might have to deal with. It makes me so fucking angry.
(via atx-mom)
This!
(via dover)
I’m sorry, but this really bothers me. Why aren’t women allowed to just be REAL? Labor is hard work. What is wrong with looking like you just accomplished an incredibly difficult task immediately after the fact? Let’s be honest, after giving birth women are going to look flushed and sweaty and puffy and tired and absolutely glowing with happiness. There is nothing to be embarrassed about or ashamed of in that.
These beauty standards are being taking to new realms of ridiculousness. This is just silly. Are marathon runners expected to put on makeup and get a blowout just after crossing the finish line, so they will look their “best” in their post-race photos? No. Are athletes expected to run back to the locker rooms and fix their hair before talking to the press about their big win? No. Especially not male athletes. How many times have you seen a pro basketball player interviewed just after the game with sweat literally pouring off of his body? Guess what. Women have real bodies, just like men. We sweat. Our hair gets messed up. We have circles under our eyes. Our bodies have odor. We have hair under our arms. Why can’t we just own these bodies of ours, the way men are allowed to? I didn’t bring makeup with me in my hospital bag. I didn’t even really bother to brush my hair before going home. It just didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but bonding with my new baby. I have photos of myself immediately after giving birth, hours after giving birth, days after giving birth. Do I look my “best?” Maybe not in a conventional sense, but I think I look goddamn glorious. I love every photo, with each smear of vernix and streak of blood and sticky bit of meconium, and with my flushed cheeks and my smile and my sweaty hair. I look like I have just been through something, not like I just stepped out of the spa on my way to brunch on a leisurely Sunday. I think that women who ask stylists to come do their hair and makeup after giving birth do women everywhere a great disservice. We are already expected to get our “pre-baby bodies back” right after pregnancy, and now this too? They make it seem like birth is easy breezy, and if you don’t look like them afterwards, you must have done it wrong. This is not birth, this is the privilege of wealth and the subjugation and objectification of women. Birth is bloody and messy and animalistic and instinctual and utterly transformative. It’s long, difficult, blood-vessel bursting work. It is WORK. It’s work that only women can do. It’s work that exhibits our unique strength. Let it be so. When I teach childbirth preparation classes, there is one big takeaway message I want my students to leave with: childbirth is the most difficult work you will ever do, but you CAN do it. If women don’t hear this message and prepare themselves for the big task that lays before them, they won’t be able to adequately cope, and if they can’t cope they will become overwhelmed by pain and fear and their experience with childbirth will be a negative one, and maybe even a traumatic one. This is not the image of the postpartum experience we want to be sharing. It just perpetuates falsehood and sets up women to fail. This isn’t real. This isn’t positive. This isn’t empowering. And sorry if I step on anyone’s toes here, but it makes me really, really angry.
I think you make a good point here–that the pressure to look put together after having delivered a baby is burdensome + misogynistic. And I am also anti-solicitation of any kind in the hours after birth; I think it’s extra shady to pitch formula, family portraits, or anything else in the recovery room.
That being said, I think it’s important to consider the framing of this conversation–are we angry with women who want to present as high femme in the hospital, or are we angry at a healthcare system that strips us of our agency + leaves us clinging to whatever small comforts will make us feel like individuals again?
Lots of women use beauty regimens as comfort measures, as ways to feel powerful, especially in situations where they are most vulnerable. Giving birth in a hospital, where decisions are so often made for rather than with a laboring mom, where we are spoken over + down to, where we hand over our lives + the lives of our babies to complete strangers, can be so scary.
I would definitely rather have more choices around the medical care I receive than around my appearance, but I’m not mad at women who schedule a mani-pedi + lash extensions at 39 weeks. I’m more mad at the way that medical institutions tend to make the childbearing woman feel subhuman.
And just to add that there is obviously insane media pressure on (celebrity) women to look fabulous immediately after birth, when then trickles down to make all women feel like that is something to aspire to. The ultimate example obviously being the media's (and apparently the world's) complete horror that Kate Middleton still had a visible bump two days post partum. Like you say I am not angry with her for appearing blow dried, immaculately made up and (apart from that bump), looking as if nothing had ever happened. But I am mad that the media wouldn't have her any over way. It would be totally unthinkable for her to instead share images of herself sweaty, glowing and looking super human following her natural births.
I’m sorry, but this really bothers me. Why aren’t women allowed to just be REAL? Labor is hard work. What is wrong with looking like you just accomplished an incredibly difficult task immediately after the fact? Let’s be honest, after giving birth women are going to look flushed and sweaty and puffy and tired and absolutely glowing with happiness. There is nothing to be embarrassed about or ashamed of in that.
These beauty standards are being taking to new realms of ridiculousness. This is just silly. Are marathon runners expected to put on makeup and get a blowout just after crossing the finish line, so they will look their “best” in their post-race photos? No. Are athletes expected to run back to the locker rooms and fix their hair before talking to the press about their big win? No. Especially not male athletes. How many times have you seen a pro basketball player interviewed just after the game with sweat literally pouring off of his body? Guess what. Women have real bodies, just like men. We sweat. Our hair gets messed up. We have circles under our eyes. Our bodies have odor. We have hair under our arms. Why can’t we just own these bodies of ours, the way men are allowed to? I didn’t bring makeup with me in my hospital bag. I didn’t even really bother to brush my hair before going home. It just didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but bonding with my new baby. I have photos of myself immediately after giving birth, hours after giving birth, days after giving birth. Do I look my “best?” Maybe not in a conventional sense, but I think I look goddamn glorious. I love every photo, with each smear of vernix and streak of blood and sticky bit of meconium, and with my flushed cheeks and my smile and my sweaty hair. I look like I have just been through something, not like I just stepped out of the spa on my way to brunch on a leisurely Sunday. I think that women who ask stylists to come do their hair and makeup after giving birth do women everywhere a great disservice. We are already expected to get our “pre-baby bodies back” right after pregnancy, and now this too? They make it seem like birth is easy breezy, and if you don’t look like them afterwards, you must have done it wrong. This is not birth, this is the privilege of wealth and the subjugation and objectification of women. Birth is bloody and messy and animalistic and instinctual and utterly transformative. It’s long, difficult, blood-vessel bursting work. It is WORK. It’s work that only women can do. It’s work that exhibits our unique strength. Let it be so. When I teach childbirth preparation classes, there is one big takeaway message I want my students to leave with: childbirth is the most difficult work you will ever do, but you CAN do it. If women don’t hear this message and prepare themselves for the big task that lays before them, they won’t be able to adequately cope, and if they can’t cope they will become overwhelmed by pain and fear and their experience with childbirth will be a negative one, and maybe even a traumatic one. This is not the image of the postpartum experience we want to be sharing. It just perpetuates falsehood and sets up women to fail. This isn’t real. This isn’t positive. This isn’t empowering. And sorry if I step on anyone’s toes here, but it makes me really, really angry.
Bouncing Back: A return to fitness.
Not so long ago I had an epiphany of sorts, in the shower, where all good epiphanies happen I believe. I had spent the best part of the last four years either pregnant or breastfeeding, and despite being neither of those things now, my eating habits suggested differently. Okay, my diet wasn’t terrible, but breakfast consisted of cereal or toast, lunch often involved yet more toast, and dinner, as…
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Parenting does strange things to your perception of time. The routine tasks that keep children alive and healthy make the hours drag on endlessly, but beneath that tedium is a constant awareness of time’s inexorable passage. You miss the infant or toddler you had a year ago; you anticipate missing the child who’s there with you now, urinating on the couch or asking, for the fifth time that morning, when she can have a dress like the one Elsa wears in Frozen but a long one, not like the short one she already has, and also a crown to go with it. So the experience of parenthood consists of a never-ending series of small annoyances layered on top of a briskly unfolding tragedy.
Gabriel Roth, Cry Daddy - The Slate Book Review
That last line is the most poignant and true description of parenthood I have come across to date.
(via dover)
Go off
this is the best
give this white boy a medal
Matt Damon keeping it real
Won’t spoil it, but I’ll just say the last sentence is cold and perfect.
I really just love Matt Damon more and more every time he speaks
That last line had me cracking up. He’s great.
He reminds me of my brother, in a good way. I just mentally high fives Matt Damon.
So, parenting. I don't know, I'm sure some people manage it, but in my experience it is impossible to have a baby, and then not let said baby take well and truly over your life. Pregnancy, birth, f...
Here is a thing I wrote. So, parenting. I don’t know, I’m sure some people manage it, but in my experience it is impossible to have a baby, and then not let said baby take well and truly over your life. Pregnancy, birth, feeding and raising tiny humans has utterly dominated my every waking moment for the past 4 years and has made up the fabric of my day, every day. Which has been both wonderful and totally bonkers, inspiring and, well, intense. Right now though, I feel like some of the fog is lifting. I can sustain my attention for more than 60 seconds on topics other than cloth nappies and the best strategy for getting your toddler into their car seat without giving yourself an aneurysm. I am beginning to prioritise myself more, and my need to get fit and use my brain in different ways, rather than always feeling at the bottom of the pecking order. There is, oh my God imagine, space in my life for more than just babies. A dog! Why will no one let me get a dog? Part of the reason for saying farewell to this blog is that the impetus to write incessantly about parenting has waned. But while I am still here, not quite clear of those all encompassing toddler years, I thought I would write down the most important stuff that I have learned. The pearls that I want to pass on, to other people still very much beneath the mist, trying to figure it out, with only 4 hours sleep and a strong coffee to their name. *** The very most important thing I know: We all fuck up. Like, you can read all of the Janet Lansbury you like, rehearse all the right things to say in the midst of an epic toddler tantrum, be the most zen and empathetic earth mother to your three year old who has very specific cup preferences, but at some point, you will lose your shit. Not in a ‘I’m strategically raising my voice to get you to listen’ way, but in a ‘Dude, I am exhausted, my patience is in the gutter, you are pushing me to my goddamn limits and I am just yelling because I am full blown ANGRY with this TOTAL LACK OF COOPERATION YOU ARE TAKING THE PISS MY GOD!’. This is not a thing that any parent is planning on, and shit, when it happens on the way into Sainsburys with a thousand judgey old people staring at you, know that it will be one of the low moments of your life. But guys, we are human, and while I LOVE positive parenting sites like Janet’s, I think we need to be honest that sometimes a situation will just push a button and we will yell and it will be ugly. It’s okay, our children will not be emotionally broken as a result of this, and it absolutely does not undo all the other good stuff that we do. On behalf of mothers everywhere, I am officially cutting us some slack. Parenting though, it’s a judgey game. Actually I think it begins way before we are even parents and we are in a restaurant and there is a family on the table next to us. Ipads are on, pasta is being thrown and the parents are just benignly drinking wine and pretending not to notice the breadsticks that are being crushed and then liberally sprinkled about the floor. And we sit there and we think, ‘That will never be me, I will never be that parent, I will do so much better than that’. It carries on when we have had our baby, and you see an eighteen month old in the pushchair chowing down on a packet of Quavers and you act all aghast, because suspiciously cheese flavoured reconstituted corn shall NEVER pass the lips of YOUR preshus angel. And then again when you’ve got a toddler and you see those big kids dominating the bouncy castle, bumping yours right out of the way and onto their faces, while their parents drink beer and literally could not give less of a shit, and you vow to never let your children be such obnoxious little brats that leap all over babies without a care in the world. We all judge, of course we do. Judgement is useful! When you are thrust into the oblivion, I think it is good to look around at what others are doing and syphon off the things that you like, and want to emulate, and the paths that you swear you’ll never go down. This is all a healthy way to work out the parent we want to be. But also, shit happens. The afore mentioned shit in the last paragraph for example. And it helps precisely no one if you are there, looking on, at parents having a hard time or wilfully ignoring their children, because they’ve had ENOUGH that day, and passing judgey judgement. I am trying my best to remember that, and to not be a dick. So if we have ascertained that we are all going to have bad times, and that we will refrain from being too harsh on others who are having bad times, what about the rest? Repeat after me: there is no right way. I know amazing parents who put a ton of effort into their interactions with their children, set up wonderful Montessori style activities, and are mindful of everything they do. I also know amazing parents who work full time and drop their kids of at child care every day and let them watch a ton of TV in the evenings because they are all freaking tired. I have written a lot about the guilt that suddenly descends when you have kids and makes you feel like whatever you’re doing? Not good enough. NOT. GOOD. ENOUGH. But the conclusion that I have drawn is that if it is working out for you and you’re family? Probably good enough. I am definitely the geekiest parent on the block and if there is stuff in our family that is bothering me (my kid has started waking up in the night again, my kid hasn’t eaten any vegetables in a month, my kid has an all consuming obsession with sharks at the expense of any human interaction, let’s say, just as an example), then you can bet I will be up all night scouring the internet for ways to improve the situation. But I do try and separate out the stuff that bothers me, because it bothers me, and the stuff that is driven by what I think I should be doing, because a Mormon lady in New York is doing it. A word on parenting blogs: There are some amazing women out there who write inspirationally and honestly about their time with children (shout outs to Renegade Mothering, Parenting Illustrated with Crappy Pictures and Recipe Rifle for keeping it so real). For the most part though, once a blog has paid sponsorship, they have to maintain their brand, and their brand is usually them, being a completely perfect parent. Of course they are dealing with the same crap as the rest of us, OF COURSE THEY ARE, but they are photographing and writing about fun trips to the pumpkin patch, or how they just weaved their own yurt out of felt. Which is cool, I love those blogs! I love felt yurts! But the phrase ‘Comparison is the thief of joy’, has never been so apt. Here are some other things I know: Never tell the mother of a new born to ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’, ‘savour every moment’ or that is all ‘goes so fast’. It does go so fast but a day when you’re up at 5am and your partner is away and it’s raining and the internet has broken also lasts a thousand years, so that kind of makes up for it. Instead, take the mother of a newborn food: cake, coffee and meals she can reheat. Literally the only gifts worth giving. This too shall pass, this too shall pass, this too shall pass. They will stop doing that annoying thing that they do eventually. Sure, they’ll start doing some other annoying thing instead, but a change is as good as a rest right? And seriously, if I was to pass on one piece of actual advice to the parent of small children it would be this: Ignore them sometimes. I am cultivating a style of parenting I like to call ‘conscious neglect’ (admittedly i might need to work on my branding), because honestly, it’s okay for kids to fend for themselves for a good chunk of the day. I think a lot about my Grandma, who raised three children in the North of England during the 1950s. She had a job and did all of the domestic chores without even a goddamn vacuum cleaner or washing machine, while her husband worked away a lot. Seriously, how was this even possible? Well she sure as shit wasn’t putting together colour match wheels and busy bags and making toast that looked like a little bear (although that bear toast? OMG). And yet she was still an amazing mother. So I think about her when I tell my kids that they have to entertain themselves for a while so I can cook, or get dinner ready or mess around on my iphone and feel thankful that I don’t have a mangle and that it’s no longer an expectation that I scrub my front steps every day. They’ll be okay on their own for a while, and it makes me appreciate the times when I sit down to do something nice with them all the more. I’m sure I’m forgetting things. How to do a one handed nappy change on the parcel shelf of your car for a start, but that’s okay, you’ll figure it out. I need to go and do some other stuff: Plant some cabbages, swoon over yellow kitchen tiles, read a BOOK, Snap Chat a friend, secretly buy a dog. Stuff that still exists, waiting for you, when you emerge from the fog.
Jon Stewart on the Charleston shooting:
I didn’t do my job today. I’ve got nothing for you in terms of jokes and sounds because of what happened in South Carolina. And maybe if I wasn’t nearing the end of the run or this wasn’t such a common occurrence, maybe I could have pulled out of the spiral. But I didn’t.
I honestly have nothing other than just sadness once again that we have to peer into the abyss of the depraved violence that we do to each other and the nexus of a just gaping racial wound that will not heal yet we pretend doesn’t exist. I’m confident though, that by acknowledging it – by staring into that and seeing it for what it is…We still won’t do jack shit. Yeah, that’s us. And that’s the part that blows my mind.
I don’t want to get into the political argument of guns and things. What blows my mind is the disparity of response between when we think people that are foreign are going to kill us and us killing ourselves…
If this had been what we thought was Islamic terrorism, it would fit into our [narrative]. We invaded two countries and spent trillions of dollars and [lost] thousands of American lives and now fly unmanned death machines over like five or six different counties, all to keep Americans safe. We’ve got to do whatever we can – we’ll torture people. We’ve got to do whatever we can to keep Americans safe. But nine people shot in a church, what about that? “Hey, what are you going go to do? Crazy is as crazy is, right?”
That’s the part that I cannot, for the life of me, wrap my head around. And you know it’s gonna go down the same path. “This is a terrible tragedy.” They are already using the nuanced language of lack of effort for this.
This is a terrorist attack. This is a violent attack on the Emanuel Church in South Carolina which is a symbol for the black community. It has stood in that part of Charleston for a hundred and some years and has been attacked viciously many times – as many black churches have. And to pretend that – I heard someone on the news say – “tragedy has visited this church”. This wasn’t a tornado. This was a racist. This was a guy with a Rhodesia badge on his sweater. So the idea that – I hate to even use this pun – but this one is black and white. There’s no nuance here. And we’re gonna keep pretending like, “I don’t get it, what happened. This one guy lost his mind.”
But we are steeped in that culture in this country and we refuse to recognize it. And I cannot believe how hard people are working to discount it. In South Carolina, the roads that people drive on are named for Confederate generals who fought to keep black people from being able to drive freely on that road. That’s insanity. That’s racial wallpaper. You can’t allow that.
Nine people were shot in a black church by a white guy who hated them – who wanted to start some kind of civil war. The Confederate flag flies over South Carolina and the roads are named for Confederate generals. And the white guy is the one who feels his country’s being taken away from him. We’re bringing it on ourselves.
And that’s the thing – Al Qaeda, all those guys, ISIS – they’re not shit compared to the damage that we can apparently do to ourselves on a regular basis.
On May 29, 2014, the issue of timemagazine magazine which proclaimed the “Transgender Tipping Point” was revealed with me on the cover. June 1, 2015 a year and 3 days later, Caitlyn Jenner’s vanityfair cover was revealed proclaiming #CallMeCaitlyn I am so moved by all the love and support Caitlyn is receiving. It feels like a new day, indeed, when a trans person can present her authentic self to the world for the first time and be celebrated for it so universally. Many have commented on how gorgeous Caitlyn looks in her photos, how she is “slaying for the Gods.” I must echo these comments in the vernacular, “Yasss Gawd! Werk Caitlyn! Get it!” But this has made me reflect critically on my own desires to ‘work a photo shoot’, to serve up various forms of glamour, power, sexiness, body affirming, racially empowering images of the various sides of my black, trans womanhood. I love working a photo shoot and creating inspiring images for my fans, for the world and above all for myself. But I also hope that it is my talent, my intelligence, my heart and spirit that most captivate, inspire, move and encourage folks to think more critically about the world around them. Yes, Caitlyn looks amazing and is beautiful but what I think is most beautiful about her is her heart and soul, the ways she has allowed the world into her vulnerabilities. The love and devotion she has for her family and that they have for her. Her courage to move past denial into her truth so publicly. These things are beyond beautiful to me. A year ago when my Time magazine cover came out I saw posts from many trans folks saying that I am “drop dead gorgeous” and that that doesn’t represent most trans people. (It was news to be that I am drop dead gorgeous but I’ll certainly take it). But what I think they meant is that in certain lighting, at certain angles I am able to embody certain cisnormative beauty standards. Now, there are many trans folks because of genetics and/or lack of material access who will never be able to embody these standards. More importantly many trans folks don’t want to embody them and we shouldn’t have to to be seen as ourselves and respected as ourselves . It is important to note that these standards are also infomed by race, class and ability among other intersections. I have always been aware that I can never represent all trans people. No one or two or three trans people can. This is why we need diverse media representstions of trans folks to multiply trans narratives in the media and depict our beautiful diversities. I started #TransIsBeautiful as a way to celebrate all those things that make trans folks uniquely trans, those things that don’t necessarily align with cisnormative beauty standards. For me it is necessary everyday to celebrate every aspect of myself especially those things about myself that don’t align with other people’s ideas about what is beautiful. #TransIsBeautiful is about, whether you’re trans or not, celebrating all those things that make us uniquely ourselves. Most trans folks don’t have the privileges Caitlyn and I have now have. It is those trans folks we must continue to lift up, get them access to healthcare, jobs, housing, safe streets, safe schools and homes for our young people. We must lift up the stories of those most at risk, statistically trans people of color who are poor and working class. I have hoped over the past few years that the incredible love I have received from the public can translate to the lives of all trans folks. Trans folks of all races, gender expressions, ability, sexual orientations, classes, immigration status, employment status, transition status, genital status etc.. I hope, as I know Caitlyn does, that the love she is receiving can translate into changing hearts and minds about who all trans people are as well as shifting public policies to fully support the lives and well being of all of us. The struggle continues…
Empathy cards by Emily McDowell Studios! Seriously, these are amazing for illnesses. Link here: http://info.emilymcdowell.com/empathy-cards-for-serious-illness/
I JUST REALLY LOVE THESE
Breastmilk Donation
A few months ago I made a somewhat impulsive decision. I made up my mind to donate breastmilk to a milk bank. I’ve always admired women who have excess pumped milk to donate, and I never counted myself among them. I never needed to pump, so I never had any stored milk, let alone a stockpile of extra milk that I could easily donate. I always nursed my babies directly from the breast on demand. Neither of my babies would ever drink from bottles (despite a few halfhearted attempts here and there) and I was never apart from them for more than a few hours. I bought a single electric pump when I was pregnant with Eleanor and after both of my babies had left infancy behind I had used it only a handful of times.
While I was reading chapters on health care for premature infants as part of my childbirth educator training I came across a section on milk banking and of the importance for the smallest and sickest babies to have access to safe breastmilk. It suddenly dawned on me that while I had no need to pump for the sake of my own children, I was lucky enough to be a lactating woman, and I could pump for the sake of someone else’s baby. The next day I emailed Mothers’ Milk Bank in San Jose to start the process of becoming a donor.
To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if I was making enough milk to get anything out with the pump. I got this bee in my bonnet about breastmilk donation right after we night weaned, which caused a huge drop in my supply. My breasts rarely felt firm and full anymore. I knew Win was getting plenty, but he was over a year old, drinking water, and eating lots of solid foods, so his need for milk was diminished. The last few times I had attempted to pump, which was several months ago when I was planning a date night and thought it would be nice to leave some milk for Win to drink from a cup just in case, I wasn’t very successful. So the same day I emailed the milk bank I broke out the pump at nap time to see what I could (quite literally) squeeze out. Two ounces. Not much at all, but not nothing. I had received an email in response to my request to begin the donor screening process that said, “Just 1oz of donated breast milk, goes to provide 4 meals for preemies in the NICU.” My paltry two ounces could mean eight meals for a premature baby. That really put it into perspective. I was determined to donate, even if it meant doing so two measly ounces at a time.
There are lots of valid ways to donate breastmilk. I’ve heard wonderful stories from people both on the giving and receiving end of mother-to-mother milk donations through groups like Human Milk for Human Babies, but there was something about donating to a proper nonprofit milk bank that stood out to me. It’s one thing when a healthy mother of a healthy baby is regrettably unable to breastfeed, or when an adopted baby does not have its birth mother around to produce milk for it. The benefits of breastmilk for all babies is undeniable, and I think it is wonderful that donor mothers are available to help infants in these situations, but it’s really a different story when you are talking about premature infants. Access to breastmilk can be the difference between life and death for them. Just to give one example, breastmilk significantly reduces the risks of necrotizing enterocolitis, a very serious condition which occurs in 10% of babies admitted to the NICU, and has a mortality rate that can be as high as 50%. I recently listened to a discussion on Forum, a program on our local NPR station about breastmilk donation (you can listen to it here). The panel stressed that the demand for donor milk in NICUs around the country far exceeded the milk banks’ supply. It meant a lot to me that my milk could go to help another baby not just grow, but survive.
Additionally, the milk bank requested a promise of at least a 100 ounces from me, and I knew that once I reached that goal, I could be done, whereas if I was donating to one specific family I might form a bond with them and feel required to continue donating for as long as I could. While I was very willing to make this donation to the milk bank, it was NOT a fun activity. Pumping is pretty much the worst thing ever. I’m not producing a ton of extra milk, so it was a very time consuming process (I only have a single pump, remember!). Since I have very little free time to devote to sitting still in one spot, I found it easiest to pump at night after everyone went to bed, which meant I was often up an hour later or so by the time I finished pumping as much as I could and carefully washed all of the pump parts. Last night I pumped for the last time, and after I put the pump away it felt so good. I’m glad I did it, I’m proud I reached the 100 ounce goal, but I’m also very glad to be done. Today, three months to the day after I first contacted the milk bank, I packed it all up and drove it down to San Jose myself to hand deliver.
The process of becoming an approved donor was fairly straightforward. First there was a telephone interview, then I filled out a questionnaire. My midwife and Win’s doctor had to sign forms saying we were both healthy and fit to donate milk, and I had to go in for bloodwork (paid for by the milk bank). Donors are carefully screened because, again, this milk goes to the sickest babies in the NICU, ones who are often very premature and have underdeveloped immune systems. After the milk is donated it is gently pasteurized to preserve as many of the nutrients and proteins as possible while eliminating most of the potentially harmful bacteria, and then it is tested to make sure the bacteria count is below the acceptable threshold. After that it is delivered to babies across the country who have received a prescription for donor milk. Even though I donated to a local bank, the milk will go wherever it is most needed. You don’t have to live near a bank to make a donation either. They will cover the cost for you to ship your breastmilk to the nearest bank, and send a special cooler right to your door.
I wish I had heard of milk banks earlier in my nursing career, when my milk was more plentiful and pumping would have been easier. As it is, I’m happy to have donated my 100 ounces, but I think a part of me will always wish I could have done more. So instead of torturing myself by breaking out the pump again, I want to spread the word about the important work that milk banks are doing. If you have extra stored breastmilk, if you are producing an excess of milk, or if you are simply willing to undertake a labor of love, please consider donating to a milk bank. Check out the links below for more information.
Give Breast Milk - NY Times
Mother’s Milk Bank Donor Information
Human Milk Banking Association of North America
The traditional modern concept of success — being the measurement of monetary income as the primary indicator of effort and mastery in a certain field — is essentially a scam, a con, and a lie. To equate success with an amount of money earned, or an amount of fame achieved, is at best an unfortunate miscomprehension of the very nature of success. At worst, it’s a malicious distortion. To truly succeed at something is to devote oneself to what one loves, and to allow that devotion to bring out the best and most admirable qualities one has inside of them, so that in the end, one ultimately succeeds at the only effort that really matters: Becoming a better person than you were. The idea that making money is the best indication of success is fundamentally flawed. Far too often the individuals who make the most money are often the biggest failures in every other area of life, most notably, the areas related to personal integrity, kind-hearted values, and quality of character. Many people think that achieving material success is worth total sacrifice in every other part of their life — but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Success in one area of life should enable further and more meaningful success in all the other areas, too. Success materially and failure spiritually is no success at all.
Andrew WK (via auspices)
It seems to me that very few of us like venturing out into the relatively unknown, especially if it means we are heading off alone. Even when we can see things need to change, we make excuses why we shouldn’t try something different. We persist day after day, knowing in our hearts that all the work we are doing is futile, but still we lack the courage to leave behind what is safe and familiar. And I wonder why this is. Could it be an overwhelming feeling of responsibility? If we choose to do something different to the crowd, we might fail and then everyone could criticise us. More importantly, we might fail our children. Whereas if we stick with the crowd and nothing works out, who will blame us? This is the way everyone does it. This is the way it has always been done. Why should we think we know better than the majority? We have tried our best, sometimes under very trying circumstances. Is it really our fault if we fail?
