Just a quick note to add to the why I breastfed thread.
         I had seen an aunt nurse but only for the briefest glimpse before
she disappeared into the bedroom. The greatest factor was an article about
LLL that I read in Readers Digest when I was 15 or 16. I had no intention of
getting married and even less of having children (the ethics of
overpopulation and all that) but breastfeeding seemed logical for those who
did choose to have children. When I found myself married and quickly
pregnant at 21 (quite swept off my feet ;)  we decided we had better do some
research on the process -- attended two different prenatal courses and read
every book possible.  The LLLI conference was held in Toronto that year and
the local leader and her family got their picture on the front page of the
local paper with a story about their attendance (this was a VERY small
town). So at 8 mos I attended my first League meeting.  Charles was early,
but not a premie.  Skinny, ill from distress and aspirating meconium, and in
what seems now a very primative NICU. Everyone else could take care of him
but I could breastfeed.  The restrictions were ludicrous in retrospect.
Nothing over 2 minutes a side ( in case he tired) I sat on a bar stool in
the midst of the nursery and if a lab tech came in they set up screens
immediately in my face (not for my comfort but the lab techs -- I might have
embarrassed them).  I lied through my teeth -- yes he has been at the breast
25 minutes but he's not been awake 2 minutes a side!.  He recovered quickly
-- much faster than expected, grew like a weed and is now in 2nd yr Univ.  I
fed him into toddlerhood -- til he looked up one day said 'done' and never
nursed again.   I was the first person on either side of our families to
breastfeed in 3 generations. Eventually my family gave up discouraging me.
The babies were too healthy and I was too stubborn.  They never did accept
tandem nursing -- it was strictly closet nursing when we visited.  But this
was almost 20 years ago and I think things would be different now, although
my inlaws are still ill at ease with my LC work.
        Often co-workers get discouraged and complain how little things have
changed but they are wrong.  Maybe over the short term things seem bleak but
looking back 20 years I am amazed at the difference. NO ONE I knew had ever
nursed through a pregnancy let alone tandem nursed. My friends and I were
the only ones who had nursed 3 year olds let alone 4 or 5 or... year olds.
To do so was incomprehensible to most people, especially health
professionals.  Now it is commonplace although not average.  It's like water
on a stone, change can be discouragingly slow but it is still change.
-- Rhoda- on Canada's wet west coast where we actually saw the sun for an
hour today!!
----"Without interest and passion, nothing great has ever happened in history"
                                                                        G.W.
Hegel