I have officially decided to also document my journey as a mom on our blog as well as the usual family/Jase updates. I thought about starting a whole new blog, but that just seemed too time consuming... or I'm lazy!
I found such a great response from my
Let's Get Personal post, though most of it was private messaged. This is part of the reason I am going to keep this going. There are clearly other women out there who have gone through what I have in some way, shape or form. I will do my best to highlight both good and bad of parenthood and hopefully portray a
real picture of how life is the good and
bad hard times. I can't really pin point why I feel the need to do this, but I think its because as a media society it's easy to only see the "happy" part of peoples life. Don't get me wrong, I in no way like to see people struggle, but it's nice to know there are others out there that you can relate to. For example: when you see someone post a picture of their dog who just did a cool trick and yours just had an accident in the house, you can't help but think.. REALLY!!! We're human, it's natural. What what you usually don't see is that their dog just had an accident about an hour before and thats why they're so happy the dog just did a cool trick now! (Side note, have you seen how cute my Abby is?? If you've ever met her, you know she doesn't always just sleep! Most of the time she's terrorizing something and I'm pretty sure Jase's first words will be ABBY NO!)
This post is going to be based of another momma blog I came across about two weeks ago,
The Happy Home Fairy and a almost continued post of
Lets Get Personal. If you are in my immediate family you probably know that I struggle with not being able to breastfeed almost daily. I try most of the time to turn to God for support and guidance, but I can't help myself to also turn to google to find ANYTHING positive about formula. I do this because before I had Jase I never researched it, I only researched breastfeeding to prepare for that. Of course I found TONS of great information on breastfeeding and almost all included SO MUCH negative on formula. Like I have said before I had it in my mind that formula was poison, this led to a lot of hurt when I had to turn to it.
Now, in todays world there are so many reasons moms turn to formula instead of breast. What I find is many women are under the assumption other women give up because it's TOO HARD and cant
tough it out. I will admit, before I had Jase I was probably one of them. I was so sure I would be able to breastfeed, almost cocky about it, like why would someone choose anything different and we're made to do this. (How horrible of me to judge another mothers/family's choice). Let's think about it, do you fault the adoptive mother for giving her child formula? No you applaud her for feeding her child and giving them a better shot at life. You wouldn't dare fault her for not trying to lactate (it can be done), SHAME if you do!
What I realized after reading a post from the
Happy Home Fairy titled
R.I.P.P - Rest in Peace Pump, was that I was making breast milk an idol and not trusting GOD to keep Jase healthy. (see quote below). I felt the only way to be a good mom was to breast feed, (really Lindsey, there is so many other ways to be a good mom) and honestly society didn't make me feel any better about not being able to. A lot of you may think the opposite, like you're uncomfortable feeding your baby in public (I've been there, My boobs where HUGE, Jase wouldn't latch correctly and would cry after, what seems pleasant about that?!) You also may feel like everyone around you bottle feeds. I, however, feel the opposite. I know a ton of people who breast feed. I sometimes feel like I have to explain to people why I'm pulling out a bottle instead of a boob. I also know people who feel like they have to make note that their child's bottle is filled with breast milk and not formula. Why do we feel this way? We should NEVER have to justify what we are feeding our child, we're feeding them right? It's really no one else's business.
It's so sad to me that when I search for positives on what I'm doing for my child I mainly get forums of other moms bashing women who couldn't/didn't breastfeed. The main thing that really irks me is the people who think a woman who feeds their child formula is not giving their child the best. You don't know what that person went through, you don't know what they struggled with AND you don't/didn't have it harder then them and still made it through, get off your high horse!
I am almost thrilled when I find other women who weren't able to/chose not to breastfeed and their children are thriving, smart and healthy because honestly research would tell you different!!! My mom has to remind me sometimes that she was formula fed. She will ask me "do you think there's something wrong with me?" Haha maybe a little mom, JUST KIDDING!!!
So I leave you with the MAIN THING that stuck out from
The Happy Home Fairy's blog. I quote from her blog because she pretty much took the words out of my mouth:
"Our world puts a huge amount of pressure on us mamas to give our babies breast milk. Breast is best. Breast is best.
But is it always best?
I believe with every fiber of my being that God created breast milk to be an incredible source of nutrition for our little bundles, but I do not believe God intended for us to make an idol out of it.
An idol that says, “I can control my child’s health if I give him/her breast milk.”
An idol that makes you fear the alternative – formula.
Ultimately, after the last year of pumping and washing and sterilizing and storing and sacrificing, I can say with confidence that what it really boils down to is this -It doesn’t matter what your baby eats (breast milk or formula) because God is in control of your baby’s life/health.
God doesn’t want you walking around all anxious and stressed. God wants you to live in freedom."
Hopefully you have clicked the link to her blog and read the entire post (it's really a good one)! If you haven't, click here.
Momma's, if you're struggling with something, let God guide you. Scott is always looking at the positive and he say's he's almost thankful Jase couldn't latch well because it got him used to the Nipple Shield, which in turn made it SO easy to take a bottle. (Gods plan all along?, Is God using me?) I also want to say a BIG THANKS to GOD for letting the person who invented formula be born, without it my little boy would have suffered!
Stay Tuned Mamma's...
