A few weeks ago on Facebook, I mentioned this made-to-order organic cotton hoodie, from Etsy seller simplebear.

"I'm hoping this will be the ultimate breastfeeding hoodie," I said.

And guess what? IT IS.

And guess what else? Simplebear has a made-to-order hoodie to give away to one of you!

Because not only is this the ultimate breastfeeding hoodie — it's really just the ultimate mama hoodie. I will tell you why.

Continue reading "The ultimate breastfeeding hoodie + giveaway!" →

The noise-canceling headset did not cancel out the noise of my miniature screaming copilot at an altitude of 10,500 feet. My three month-old daughter Emma, was an unwilling second-in-command.

Her infant car seat had attached so nicely to the right front seat of my Mooney TLS single-engine airplane that our loving mother-daughter piloting adventures seemed meant to be. Had Mooney planned for this in the design of their TLS? After all, there are more and more women pilots every day. Surely they sought to accommodate the infants that these women pilots would produce, and undoubtedly wish to travel with. What corporate thoughtfulness, what social insight…what was I thinking?

Pre-baby, I knew I would never be one of those "traditional moms" who seemed to lose her mind and identity in a whirl of post-partum hormones. I was first and foremost a pilot. A fully instrument-rated, multi-engine, commercial and airline transport pilot and instructor. A woman in a man's world. No baby would ever stop me from flying.

Certainly, I thought, the reason most babies and children were such poor travelers was due to lack of practice. If you feed a child hotdogs and chicken strips, they will only tolerate Denny's or McDonald's. Feed a child sushi and brie and you will create a junior gourmet who craves fine international cuisine at the tender age of two.

Similarly, taking my tiny infant on plane trips piloted by me would turn her into a model traveler and junior pilot. I knew that my future two year-old daughter would sit happily for hours in the Mooney, enjoying foie gras on crusty French bread, while precociously assisting me with transponder and GPS settings.

Continue reading "Mile-high Motherhood" →

bonnaroomama explains: "After my son was born, complications from my c-section left me hospitalized for about three weeks. My family worked very hard to keep my son near me and support my breastfeeding efforts."

It looks like despite those rough first three weeks, Bonnaroomama and her family have gone on to enjoy a rich life full of music festivals and good times:

My son Conan is pretty much weaned now, at 13 months. It's been about a week since he last nursed, and he's perfectly happy without it. I have mixed emotions about it — on the one hand, it is SO liberating, but on the other hand it's the end of a really close part of our relationship, a connection we will never have again. But time moves on, and my little guy is rapidly metamorphosing from a baby into a toddler.

Thinking back on my early experience of breastfeeding, the thing that really jumps out is that I never, NEVER believed that we would make it through a whole year. For the first 2.5 months nursing was excruciatingly painful for me. Besides the physical pain, I felt like a total failure because I was constantly in a state of dread regarding the next feeding. A good mama would WANT to feed her baby, right?

That special one-on-one nurturing bonding time that I had so hoped for during pregnancy sure took a LONG time to materialize. I nearly gave up on so many different occasions. In retrospect, only my sheer stubbornness and a sort of twisted sense of maternal self-sacrifice kept me going. Now, a year later, I'm glad I did. Because as horrible as the first couple months were, the later months really did make up for it.

Continue reading "Breastfeeding was crazy hard, but weaning is sad too" →

Mama C-Ta says of this beautiful portrait of her and her son Julian: "Nursing my 2 year old — I want to capture it before it ends which can happen without a moments notice."

Photo by Sherry Insley

Looking for a unique and special BlessingWay gift or a way to show appreciation for your dedicated Midwife or Doula? Maybe you yourself need a talisman in the birth room to give you strength to push that baby out.

When I was preparing for the birth of my daughter, I wore one of these beautiful pendants to remind me that in recent history, approximately 6.5 billion other births had taken place and that I could do it too. I bought one for my Doula also.

If a squatting, crowning woman is a little TMI for you, there are also pendants for Lactivists, C-Section Awareness, and the life giving Placenta. I like that they come in different skin tones and unique patterns and bright colors too.

Go browse the collection and look! Even world-famous midwife and author, Ina May Gaskin has one: