----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Vicky York" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 6:33 AM
Subject: [SPAM]Re: [LACTNET] LACTNET Digest - 21 Dec 2008 (#2008-204)

**Hello Vicky and others,

> Rachel, thank you for such a well-written and sweet post. Your comment
> about
> giving birth and then not being able to nurse leaving a void is so true.

**I fully agree.

As
> a postpartum doula I've worked with so many families in which the grandma
> confessed that she tried to nurse but "failed" and still feels that regret
> some 30 years later, feeling she let her baby down.

**Yes, that is what I've often noticed: it's not just now, that it hurts. It
will keep hurting through the years. I'd rather emphasize the other side of
this: if we can pull a mom through, the overcoming will keep giving strength
through the years.

I have told some that
> they didn't fail, society failed them, formula marketers and the docs who
> were influenced by them sabotaged them.

**I doubt this, as much as I know others on this list may disagree. Society:
that is us; society is you and me, not some strange entity we have no power
over. We can pass it by by being there.
These days, my volunteer bf collegue is in and out of hospital, because her
two week old boy got a bacterial infection from her in labour. He's on an
ab-IV and will probably go home next Wednesday. She wanted to stay with him,
but Saturday evening, she was completely broken again. She can't sleep in
hospital; her boy is sound asleep and she's wide awake, not able to let go
of the turmoil of thoughts in her head. These have bothered her since about
five days after she delivered, as she dreaded another ppd, just like she had
with her first, five and a half years ago. She felt exhausted and with a
pretty low Hb, she was just at the end of her rope. What a chaos to be in:
fear of losing control, fear of falling victim to another ppd, fear of not
enjoying everything (and thereby not enjoying everything...), fear of having
to hand care for your infant over to the nurses, fear of your baby getting
ABM, fear of failing where your daily job is to support moms in person and
on so many fora as a bf counsellor, fear of your husband being annoyed with
your 'behaviour'... We have another collegue in our area and she and I have
been making an effort these last ten days to pull her through and I'm pretty
sure we will.
And if she makes it through, it is not only because of us (she has to do the
work herself!), but nevertheless our role is very important and we know
that, because that is our work we do with so much love and devotion: helping
moms through, through the process not only of breastfeeding, but of finding
a new balance in life in a new role.
Hiding in the role of victim (of society, of formula marketers, of docs and
nurses) is not really gonna help. In the core of things, you can only fall
victim to something when you lack strength (muscle, physical, mental,
personal strength) to withstand and counter whatever is making way for you.
Therefore, in my opinion, the main issue is: building strength, finding and
collecting those around you that will help you build that strength and let
go of those defence mechanisms that prevent you from accepting the helping
hands offered.
Our role should not be to fight off threats, but to build up inner strength
and appeal to that strength in counselling women. Anyone who ever lost a
loved one or cared for a sick person, knows that we usually amaze ourselves
as far as drawing from unsuspected inner (re)sources is concerned. There is
always more than we ever thought there could be and it will support us
throught the hard times ánd throught the good times that come afterwards.
Nothing is more empowering than looking back and seeing how much progress
you made and how much you invested in making things work for you and your
loved ones.

In Vienna, I think it was Richard Bowlby who said: "How to rescue someone
out of a well or a pitfall...? Go down and be there with the other person
and come out together." It's sharing the fear and the tears that will help.
It's staying awake like Jesus asked from his disciples in his last night,
that is important. It's hard, but exactly it being hard and sharing it, is
what will help.
Forget about the other factors for a while; they don't exist, as long as
loving people around someone struggling *do* exist. You keep bad influences
at bay, when you offer a mom good influences.
Expressing faith in her strength, even if she can hardly figure out where
that strenght is right now, is what can keep a spark of hope burning, a
flame that can be fanned in the days and weeks to come.
I was touched by the image someone else offered here last week I think,
about constituting a safety net with your presence. It was about parents
underneath their children, but it also applies to devoted HCP's/IBCLC's
underneath breastfeeding moms. Let's not hand over the power to institutes
we don't want to be so influential. No better 'revenge' than proving 'bad
influences' to be 'wrong' and 'good influences' to be 'right', because they
got you back on track, back into your strength.
In line with Gonnekes Christmas card: we can all be a sparkling star to
someone else and light the way when it's dark, so that the other one can 
find a stable to be safe in, out in the fields, out in the serenity of 
seclusion where we can offer the gold and incense and myrrh (huh... Myr?! 
hahaha) of our expertise and up-to-date knowledge ánd of the professionality 
of our personal involvement.

I wish you all peaceful Christmas days and a happy new year!

Warmly,

Marianne Vanderveen IBCLC, Netherlands


P.S. Vicky, I'll be in Portland next summer... would love to drop by! ;-)
(... and maybe visit others, too, along our way from Portland to Los 
Angeles...! please e-mail me privately!)

             ***********************************************

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