My Happily Ever After: August 2014

Welcome to the Milk Mama Diaries Carnival (August). For this month, we write about the World Breastfeeding Week 2014 - Breastfeeding: A Winning Goal for Life and share how breastfeeding can help the Philippines achieve the 8 Millennium Development Goals developed by the government and the United Nations. Participants will share their thoughts, experiences, hopes and suggestions on the topic. Please scroll down to the end of the post to see the list of carnival entries.

For the record, this is my sixth revision. I wasn't, and I still am not, sure if I could even properly express my thoughts on some of the topics that came up for this year's blog carnival. But I thought I'd give it a try anyway these three are actually significant to my own journey.

I was not breastfed. My mother had me via C-section and had to be kept in the maternity hospital for a full month due to infections. There I received formula: a cow's milk-based one that caused angry red rashes wherever it touched my skin. But I can tell you with a straight face that this had absolutely nothing to do with my decision to breastfeed.

The truth is, I'm unsure of how I developed the idea that breastfeeding is the most natural thing for mothers to do. Like breathing. Like blinking. Breastfeeding and formula feeding both always seemed completely normal to me, but eventually, I decided that formulas are the back up plan. Breastfeeding is the ideal plan.

Now that I'm a mom I realise that the ability to breastfeed an infant is quite possibly the most important life hack nature provided.

My closest friends know that my idea of being a wife and mother is heavily based on the whole 50s concept of perfection. Modernized, of course, to include my having a career besides being a wife and mother. And this is where I began.

I could have stressed myself out over the amount of information I suddenly felt I had to consider. Bottles, pumps, bags, storage...it was a lot to take in. I will always unabashedly credit Jenny Ong of Chronicles of a Nursing Mom for easing me through all the bits and pieces of new knowledge, but my son (and any future children) has his Auntie Tatiana to thank for giving me the most unusually encouraging words I heard prior to giving birth:

"Don't sweat it if you aren't able to breastfeed your baby. It will not make you any less of a mom or a woman."

Those most matter-of-fact, absolutely honest, and completely pressure-free words made me feel completely reassured that failing at this motherhood goal I set for myself would not result in a cataclysmic world's end. It reminded me to relax and just take that first journey step. Consequently, I have been successfully breastfeeding my son for 20 months.

It is a very empowering feeling, succeeding in a goal I set for myself. Even more powerful than this check mark on my list is that I've witnessed how well the milk I am providing has shielded my son from a wide variety of viral attacks my family has gone through in the past year and a half. In fact, when my son finally succumbed to a bout with the cold virus, he recovered in two days--after which, he transferred the virus to my mom who had to suffer through the viral attack for two weeks. I have to say that seeing this happen has made me feel like a superhero.

Self-image improved? Definitely a yes! I may not be too proud of the state of my physical fitness--I've lost and regained the 20 odd pounds I put on during pregnancy--but it is a matter of pride for me that I am able to do this for my baby. And yes, despite the prudery involved in seeing a naked breast, this sense of accomplishment has since led me to unabashedly nurse my son with or without a cover anytime, anywhere.

This has also led me to consider myself among the lucky ones who did not have to go through the horrors of searching for the perfect combination of formula, bottle, and nipple. Oh the horror stories friends who formula-fed shared with me!

See, economy isn't just about money spent, in my opinion. It's also about the time spent doing what needs to be done. Before giving birth, here's how I imagined formula feeding my baby would be like:

1. Buy cans of formula enough for approximately a month and a half's worth of feeding. Just in case the grocery runs out or I am unable to immediately restock.

2. Buy bottles and test run countless types of nipples and nipple brushes to make sure my baby is comfortable with his feeding bottle and the teats are durable and won't give him gas.

3. Prepare sterlized water every single day and make sure all feeding bottles are thoroughly cleaned and sterilized, ready for use.

4. Measure out formula per feeding.

5. Mix formula every feeding time.

6. Buy a gargantuan diaper bag that will fit a day's worth of diapers plus a day's worth of bottles. And carry it around every time we go out, which is quite often since my husband and I are involved in real estate.

7. Make sure I have spare nipples just in case the bottle is dropped on the ground somewhere.

8. Have a minor panic attack if in case we run out of clean bottles or formula powder and we're on the road.

9. Figure out where we can settle down so I can mix formula comfortably while baby is distracted by something and will not wail and whine for me to hurry up.

10. At night, make sure all items are easily accessible and ready for night feedings.

This may or may not be true for everyone and frankly, I could very well have missed an item here and there. But the very thought of having to go through this every single day terrified and horrified me. I imagined myself breastfeeding, however, the image felt so easy and picture perfect:

1. Baby cries.

2. Bring out breast, allow baby to suckle.

3. Proceed with regularly scheduled program.

4. At night, bring out breast, allow baby to suckle, go back to sleep.

I am not dismissing the health benefits here, mind. I have always been aware of the health benefits of breastfeeding. This second consideration was all about economy and lifestyle. I wanted a calm and relaxed way to go about the daily feeding routine despite constantly being on the road.

The final point of consideration is one that occurred to me only after I began breastfeeding. It seems to me such a strange and solemn way to end this thought train but ultimately, it's the one that I feel has the greatest impact of all.

A trip to the grocery store says it all: boxes and cans of various sizes filled with foil-packed formula. But I'm not really thinking of the damage producing such packaging does to the environment.

That formula that very likely started out in a test tube in some laboratory after being extracted from a nursing mother, one with four legs, and heated, given additives, refined, and very likely, tested on another four-legged animal, maybe a rat. Taking just one sample, at least two other lives that were disrupted just so we can have better formulas to feed human children.

I am fully aware that not all mothers are as fortunate as I am that I am able to breastfeed my child. But there was once a time when human milk was given to human children (in ancient tribes, mothers who could not produce their own milk were kindly helped out by mothers who could) and animal milk stayed within same species circles. How strange that we have this concept of a "global community" when we've lost such a basic sense of a what a community started out as: a group of people helping and supporting each other?

I've seen this happen in the breastfeeding community I am part of online. Mothers having trouble with their supply have reached out to other mothers for help and it was quickly given. In a way, beyond the idea that breastfeeding is a zero-waste source of food, I've since learned that breastfeeding might eventually become a way for us to reconnect with each other as people.

Maybe.