For the last two weeks, the preacher has made me cry! Maybe he's just really hitting my heart with his words, or it might be the hormones gifted to me by the little human I know is coming out soon, but either way, I spent the last two services praying I didn't have mascara running down my face.
This Sunday, he said we needed to be praying for our hearts to be broken for what breaks God's heart. Now I am sure the whole rest of the congregation was thinking about poor children and drug afflicted families, but I sat there, crying my eyes out, thinking about breastfeeding.
Aside from the calling to marry my husband or to stay home with my babies, I have never felt a greater calling than what I feel is my calling to help people breastfeed. I live in an area where breastfeeding is not really the norm, nor is it as accepted as I wish it was. Often I feel so overwhelmed by the challenges, that my impact seems nearly non-existent. As is common in much of this country, many moms here would rather pump and feed their baby a bottle in a restaurant than face the judgment the receive for nursing. I also live in an area where many of the breastfeeding professionals are much more interested in the profit they can gain than the lives that they can change. So, our challenges are daily and very big.
Now why did this make me cry Sunday?
There are hungry babies in this country.
There are babies affected by child abuse every single day.
There are babies who almost lose their lives because their families can't afford formula and dilute it to toxic levels. Formula companies convince moms that what you can buy is better than what God gave you. And while breastfeeding might not solve these problems, I really feel like it might help. And just as a disclaimer, I know there are people that can't breastfeed and with my whole heart I am understanding and compassionate to those people, but a LOT of people just make a choice not to try or not to try very hard.
Even in the poorest of cultures, babies have a greater chance at survival when their moms choose to breastfeed. Yes, a mom who barely receives the intake to meet her own nutritional needs gives her baby a greater chance at life when she breastfeeds.
I cannot attribute this next opinion to anyone but myself and I don't know that there will ever be research to prove my opinion to be true. However, I strongly believe that would could decrease abuse in our country if we increased our breastfeeding rates. There is no greater way, in my opinion, to bond a mother with her baby than breastfeeding. Baby-friendly hospitals in some countries have seen a dramatic decrease in abandonment of newborns when mothers are encouraged to breastfeed.
Now, please, please, please do not leave me hateful comments, thinking I look negatively toward formula feeding moms. That is NOT the point of this post. I am not saying all moms who choose to use formula abuse their children. I am, however, saying some moms are more prone to being abusers and the pattern of abuse might actually be stopped with the bond that breastfeeding brings between mother and child.
I also see a great financial struggle with some formula-feeding families. If the families that cannot afford formula and are forced to dilute it would have made the choice to breastfeed, these babies would never suffer from the complications that can come with malnutrition. Being a stay at home mom, I know how challenging finances can sometimes be. I think if moms were better educated on the kind of money they would be forced to spend on formula, they might make better decisions.
Lastly, my heart breaks because formula companies in this country convince families that what they can provide from a can is better than the way God intended our babies to be fed. The lack of regulation of what these companies can advertise never ceases to astonish me.
I know the preacher intended for me to think about AIDS ravaged villages and poverty-stricken orphans, but my heart breaks for breastfeeding. I guess God breaks each of our hearts for different things and mine will always break every time I see a baby with a bottle of formula, because I know what he is missing.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Second Baby Blues
When I became pregnant with my second child, I expected everyone to jump up and down for us like they did when I was pregnant with our first. Don't get me wrong, people were excited. And when I am in the hospital delivering this baby, people will be showering us with love and I may feel completely different. However, there is something really different about being pregnant for a second time.
I have found myself with hurt feelings so often during the past nine months because second babies are just less exciting to people. When you are pregnant for the first time, people really want to help you. They want to give elaborate gifts and have showers for you and provide you with all the love and advice you could imagine. Not so much the second time. First of all, I am having another boy. Soo, most people assume we are pretty well set. Granted, we do have 15 Rubbermaid totes full of boys clothes in our attic, so they might be right, but in my mind, this was the opportunity for people to enable him to have things of his very own. Secondly, I am going to cloth diaper this time around. Soo, the people that did want to buy us presents wanted to buy us diapers and now they are just boggled by what we could possibly need. Even at the shower we did have, guests would spend half of what they would have spent on the baby on a toy for big brother so he "didn't feel left out."
I have also had to remind myself that when I was expecting with Carter, I was a full time college student and a full time employee, therefore constantly surrounded by people. I am now, and have been for the last two and a half years, a full time mommy, so all those people just aren't in my life like they were before. I have had to realize that the lack of love I am feeling probably comes from the fact that I have invested very little in relationships over the past two years.
Now, all that being said, we really don't need as much stuff for this baby as we did the first time around and I feel like an overindulgent American even typing this silly post while my baby's nursery is stuffed to the brim with tiny socks and 4,000 wipes. However, the mommy (or crazy pregnant lady) in me doesn't think about it that way. My preggo brain goes nuts and I take it as though people already love this baby less than they do my first.
In all honesty, most of this "lack of love" feeling probably comes from my own insecurities. I am so devoted (some might call it obsessed) with my precious two year old that I can't yet imagine the love I will have for this baby. I have to understand that when people are rationally thinking that Baby #2 is fortunate to be able to wear the 54 outfits they bought for Baby #1, they are probably right. They are also probably thinking that they now have to buy another Christmas present and birthday present for at least the next ten years, so I should really just calm down. When he comes out and I look into those perfect little eyes for the first time, just to get him snatched away by grandparents and friends galore, I'll let ya know if I still feel bad for him. :)
I have found myself with hurt feelings so often during the past nine months because second babies are just less exciting to people. When you are pregnant for the first time, people really want to help you. They want to give elaborate gifts and have showers for you and provide you with all the love and advice you could imagine. Not so much the second time. First of all, I am having another boy. Soo, most people assume we are pretty well set. Granted, we do have 15 Rubbermaid totes full of boys clothes in our attic, so they might be right, but in my mind, this was the opportunity for people to enable him to have things of his very own. Secondly, I am going to cloth diaper this time around. Soo, the people that did want to buy us presents wanted to buy us diapers and now they are just boggled by what we could possibly need. Even at the shower we did have, guests would spend half of what they would have spent on the baby on a toy for big brother so he "didn't feel left out."
I have also had to remind myself that when I was expecting with Carter, I was a full time college student and a full time employee, therefore constantly surrounded by people. I am now, and have been for the last two and a half years, a full time mommy, so all those people just aren't in my life like they were before. I have had to realize that the lack of love I am feeling probably comes from the fact that I have invested very little in relationships over the past two years.
Now, all that being said, we really don't need as much stuff for this baby as we did the first time around and I feel like an overindulgent American even typing this silly post while my baby's nursery is stuffed to the brim with tiny socks and 4,000 wipes. However, the mommy (or crazy pregnant lady) in me doesn't think about it that way. My preggo brain goes nuts and I take it as though people already love this baby less than they do my first.
In all honesty, most of this "lack of love" feeling probably comes from my own insecurities. I am so devoted (some might call it obsessed) with my precious two year old that I can't yet imagine the love I will have for this baby. I have to understand that when people are rationally thinking that Baby #2 is fortunate to be able to wear the 54 outfits they bought for Baby #1, they are probably right. They are also probably thinking that they now have to buy another Christmas present and birthday present for at least the next ten years, so I should really just calm down. When he comes out and I look into those perfect little eyes for the first time, just to get him snatched away by grandparents and friends galore, I'll let ya know if I still feel bad for him. :)
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