Category Archives: breastfeeding

birth stories breastfeeding childbirth

Three articles

May 8, 2009 – 9:47 pm

So, did you know that breastmilk can cure an eye infection? Or act as a gentle eye makeup remover? There are many more amazing uses of this awesome resource that God has designed into a mother’s body, here’s a link to a great article detailing this subject: Your Walking Medicine Chest

The next great article was written by yours truly! Actually it is June’s birth story, featured here on bless my birth, but now available to a wider audience (hopefully) on the OC Register’s website. Here’s a link to that: The Story of June’s Birth

And lastly, an extremely important birth story, written by my friend Sherrie, about the birth of her son Harvey, also on the website of the OC Register: Harvey’s Birth

And be sure to click on the link to Sherrie’s blog, domesticday, on the sidebar!

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Life-giving Mustard Seed Blessing

January 8, 2009 – 7:48 pm

This morning we dropped Sid off at the airport, so that he could catch a plane to Texas for a tattoo convention.  On our way home Jonny, Aveline, June and I stopped off at one of our favorite places Cream Pan, a Japanese bakery in Tustin.  There were four pretty Asian women together at a table behind us and at one point I overheard one woman explaining to her friend beside her, how she had nursed her little babies in the night, that they slept beside her and she would barely wake up to roll over and nurse them!  I couldn’t help myself, I turned around and apologized for overhearing, then I said, “That’s exactly what I’ve done with all of my babies!”  She went on to tell me that her friend hasn’t been getting any sleep since she’s been waking up so often to get out of bed to go to the baby’s room to nurse him back to sleep.  She went on to describe her family’s “family bed” which was comprised of two king-size beds pushed together, I told her I dream of that much sleeping space for us!  In their bed(s), she and her husband and their three children had all shared sleep.  Later, she said, her children all together shared one of the beds in another room.  She told me about their unusually close relationships to one another, now that they are older, and how she feels that her children fight with each other less often than other siblings she knows.  She said, “It’s an investment, it’s the whole Dr. Sears thing.”  I said that that’s the way I see it and that I am shooting for quality relationships like the ones she is now enjoying with her children, and her children are enjoying with one another.  She told me “Good job, keep going, it’ll be wonderful, you’ll see.”  Sweet!

 

We came home and I started our homeschooling day by reading a spirit blessing from a handy little pamphlet entitled Daily Spirit Blessings; With the Blessings of Your Father and the Names of God by Arthur Burk and Sylvia Gunter.  Here’s the one we read:

 

Day 3 – I bless you with life-giving relationships.

Spirit, your Father designed you to receive life-giving and be spiritually life-giving.  He will bring you people who will cause you to leap for joy.  I bless you with people who minister to you, spirit.  I bless you with divine appointments where God connects you for a moment or an hour with mighty men and women of God.  I bless you with drawing life-giving strength from their spirits.  I bless you with God bringing joyful people, with companionship with those who know the joy of the Lord.  I bless you with being mutually life-giving.  I bless you in the name of the Ultimate Life-giver.

 

For me, my experience with the mother at Cream Pan was an encounter with a life-giving spirit!  I had left there feeling uplifted, validated and joyful to go forward with my philosophy and convictions when I wasn’t especially needing it, and definitely not looking for it.  This woman was an unexpected source, too!  She was strikingly beautiful and glamorous, she wore impeccable makeup and stylish clothing.  I thanked God for that encounter and then came home to be surprised and blessed by this blessing I would pray for my children’s spirits.  It confirmed the gift of my encounter, in my heart, as a true gift from God.  He knows I’ve been trying to notice them more, so He gave me a freebie today!  

 

After I read the blessing, I explained to Jonny and Aveline (and June, as she scribbled and showed me her drawing of “A, A, A, A,” as she called it!) that I felt that blessing was for me too because of the woman I had spoken with at Cream Pan.  Then I went on to our Bible reading for the day from The Golden Children’s Bible.  This is what I read:

 

THE GRAIN OF MUSTARD SEED

He put forth another parable to them, saying:  

“The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in the field.  It is indeed the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the greatest among plants, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and build nests in its branches.” 

I told the kids that I thought that meant that if our lowly little hearts are planted in Jesus, then we can be like the mustard plant that becomes a tree.  That our spirits will become strong and steady as they grow, and will have so much to offer to other people.  And that we will be mutually life-giving to those who are life-giving to us.

 

And I just thought I’d share that.  Thank you for reading : )  

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longing

May 14, 2008 – 3:26 pm

 

It’s 7:15 AM and I’ve just returned from a long walk.  It is rare that I should awaken early enough and with enough gusto to take such a jaunt, but oh how glad I am that this was such a morning. 

 

I’ve been experiencing a deep longing for God.  A longing that brings me to tears when I have enough quiet to sit with it, or, as in the case of this morning, walk with it.

 

This longing is heartbreakingly blissful, which makes sense in light of paradoxical logic, which I was reading about yesterday.  Paradoxical logic posits that we can only understand Ultimate Reality through contradiction.

 

Well, I thought that I’d explain how I happened upon this longing, of course my grandiose hope is that you, too can attain this longing, but I know that our Creator, the nameless one, made us each so unique that you might happen upon something different than this, that brings you closer to a recognition of God around you in an even more personal way for you.  But I’ll go ahead with my intentions anyway.

 

I think it’s pretty basic, but we’ll see how it turns out.  

 

My longing for God began with my longing for other things.  Things that my human self has a passion for.  For instance, I LOVE brand new, newborn babies, they evoke a sense of heaven in me, I am utterly carried away to a different state of being when I approach a newborn.  The more intimate I can be with that newborn, the more carried away I am.  My experience with newborns has run the gamut, from a brief glimpse of another mother’s child in a stroller in the mall (get that baby ON you woman!), to breastfeeding the three newborn babies of my womb, just following the harrowingly exhilarating adventures of their homebirths.  I was practically manic for the latter.

 

Then there’s this house, it’s near where I live now.  It was built on the top of a hill here in the unincorporated area of Santa Ana in 1929.  It looks like a mission, and I’m not at all equipped vocabularily, to describe the edifice in architectural terms (seeing as how I make up my own words and all!), but it reminds me of a villa, it has a terra cotta tile roof and . . . Oh I just can’t bear to butcher it like this.  It’s just AMAZING!  I mean, you approach the place and you can feel it’s breath, it’s alive and it tells you fantastical stories beyond what itself has experienced.  As I passed it today I imagined it, on a secluded beach with clean powdery sand leading to warm, clear waters with a small break and THAT is my heaven.  Of course I’d be giving birth there regularly to my newborn, nursing babies!

 

Then there’s bees.  For some reason bees have struck me lately as something so amazing, actually insects in general.  I’ve been longing for a deeper understanding of insects and how their communities operate (if you feel the same, I recommend the DVD series Insectia with Georges Brossard, it is available at the Orange Public Library).  Insects are so far ahead of mankind in many ways, they are complexly miraculous in their capabilities and activities.

 

Okay, okay, you get it.  Well, my longings, my human longings, when I sit with them and I feel them and maybe examine them a little (though I try my darnedest NOT to intellectualize them), they ARE my longing for God.  This notion was suggested to me in the book The Awakened Heart by Gerald May, MD (who should be sainted in my opinion).  We are human beings, created in the image of God, everything human is of God, and yes, we are capable of sin and evil, but not by longing.  When I consecrate my longings, in prayer, I feel God.  I long for God, and life becomes so sparkling, warm, shining and loving, including all people and the longing deepens.  The more I recognize the longing the more I long.

 

The things that God created, human women with our wombs, breasts and babies, bees with their “find-the-food” dances, even the creations of man, like that awesome house, they all reflect God in some way.  And as I sit here, being a human, longing for the things that speak to my heart, I am longing for God and he’s here, ministering to me in words I cannot comprehend and in feelings I cannot describe.  I want to get closer to God, but that notion makes me feel like I have to DO something to get there, or LEARN something to get there, but that is not the state of things, of He and I.  He’s here, always, and surrounding me in the things I love and long for, always.  The more I long for Him, the more I feel Him and then I long even more.

 

What do you long for?  What is the height of inspiration for you?  What are the things that happen that make your heart either squeeze tight in your chest, or feel like it’s going to swell to the size of Texas?  What causes you to need to catch your breath?  Is it beauty surrounding you in your own creative expression?  THAT reflects God.  Do you long for delicious food that delights your tongue?  THAT reflects God.  What do YOU, personally long for?  Optimum development for your children?  World Peace?  To eat yoghurt on a balcony over the Mediterranean, of one of those beautiful structures on the island of Santorini, the ones where the domed roofs were painted to match the sky?  Do you long to meet and unite with a soul mate with whom you can share the minutiae of daily life?  Whatever you long for is YOUR way to your own heart where you can love and long for God.  He’s there.  Pay attention to your reaction to things, look for God in those that delight you and lead you to longing and find quiet stillness to sit there with that, even if that means admitting something that you’ve tried to fool yourself out of, don’t be afraid to stay there, even if you feel strong emotions taking hold.  Consecrate your longings in prayer and God will minister to you in ways you don’t comprehend and you might not realize it at first, but look for those feelings that you cannot describe, that’s how you’ll know.        

 

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letter to a friend on tandem nursing

January 4, 2008 – 1:51 am


Hey!  

 

I’m happy to hear from you.  It was neat talking that day and I had hoped that we’d get in touch again sometime, so cool!

 

I would definitely say that you are NOT in for hell on earth if you decide to nurse two at the same time.  One great thing about it is that all the crazy complications that can occur with nursing a newborn are simply not a concern since you’re already nursing.

 

Tandem nursing is a lot like the other attachment behaviors we take part in with our babies and children in that we make the choice to do it and then dive into it.  Usually we enjoy the bond we are fostering, but every once in a while we might think, “Goodness, this is intense.”  And then the thought passes and we go on engaging in attachment behaviors (sometimes simply because we have already established them and it’s easier to go on with them than to even begin to consider reprogramming our children for a less attached life!) and enjoying a very deep relationship with our children!

 

I think that if we dwell on the intensity of losing ourselves (our time, our comfort, an “easier” existence) for our children that’s when attachment parenting can feel tedious or “hellish.” 

 

For me, I didn’t want to wean Jonny during my pregnancy with Aveline and I never had a good reason to wean him, so I didn’t.  When Aveline was 6 months old, I was influenced to wean him by the thought and suggestion from outside sources, that num-nums was his pacifier, simply an addiction, not a need or even a positive attachment behavior.  So, I do wish I had allowed him to wean himself, even though he did well with weaning at that time.

 

I think it’s so great that your are willing even to consider tandem nursing.  Our society does not provide the education or the encouragement to enjoy these wonderful possibilities for our families and it’s a shame.  I like to create a community for me in my head!  I like to think of all the women all over the world and throughout history who nursed their babies and shared sleep with their babies out of necessity, tradition or habit without having to decide whether or not it was right for their family.  I’m encouraged by the thought that it is natural and that our bodies will “tell” us if it isn’t good for us (or for the older child, as with Aveline, do you remember that I had to wean her when I was pregnant with June, since my colostrum came early and gave her diarrhea?).  

 

We live in such a funny time, today in this country, that these are choices that people are largely choosing NOT to enjoy.  Modern day Americans want everything, AND we want everything ON OUR TERMS.  What if parents were educated by their families and communities about an enormous, yet gentle and gradual transformation our minds and spirits would undergo when we decided to bring children into the world, and that our transformation would be necessary in order for us to give our children what they deserve?  What if we were taught that our children have a RIGHT to all of ourselves and our resources, to the BEST of our ability to give?  I wish we were encouraged in these ideas by outside sources, but I think that our children teach us this, if we respect them and listen.

 

You might like to read the message board on www.mothering.com  go to their website, click discuss and you’ll find a breastfeeding section and I think there’s a tandem nursing subsection.  

 

Let me know if you need other resources, or anything else.  

 

Go Ron Paul!

 

Love,

Jenn

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Isaiah 40:11

November 14, 2007 – 10:15 am

“Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, in His arm He will gather the lambs and carry {them} in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing {ewes}.”He will gently lead the nursing ewes. I am so blessed by that. Take a minute to breathe and let that blessing fall upon you.

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