Happy New Year Netters,

Woke up around 3:00 am tossing and turning in bed.  Not unusual lately,
with the aches and pains of the muscles and bones.  or is this
pre-menopausal stuff I keep hearing about???  Decided to get up, be
productive and get on Lactnet.
Thanks Jan for the Birthday Greeting.  Where do the years go????  I do look
back and remember when I lived in Calif. sitting in the first  UCLA classes
to become a LC.  I remember thinking "I have been a maternity/nursery 
nurse forever working with BF mothers and now you have to go to class to
specialize in BF. How ridiculous."  How much did I have to learn and how
little did I know where the journey was going to take me.  After I
graduated from the class, I was transfered to Chicago via my husband.  I
visualized this big progressive city all ready for Pat Bull to change  BF
according to all that I knew about BFnow that I was a CLC.   First thing I
did was have lunch with Marion Thompson, one of the founding mothers of
LLLI.  Knowing this was the home of LLLI, I wanted to know where I could
fit in as a professional  BF consultant.   I also made a visit to Dr.
Gregory  White's house (OB/ LLLI).    I took Marion's and Gregory's
suggestions and began to make ground rounds at several of the major Chicago
hospitals.  For the first several years my husband kept asking me when my
hobby was going to begin to make money since I did almost everything for
free at the beginning.  I live in the suburbs (30 ++ miles from the city)
and I would actually drive  into the city to do BF home visits.  That was
the good old days.  While building my private practice, I was able to get
on staff with a  peds group, 1 hr. away to do BF classes and see their
patients.  Several  months later was kicked out because the OB Drs. did not
like what I told their patients about BF.  ThenI  got on staff with a local
OB doctor.  A few months later, was released of that job because he was
getting too much flack from his hospital and other associates because "Pat
Bull was giving out crazy information to BF mothers  and potentially
dehydrating the babies."  (I recommended not to PC/supp after BF)  Finally,
I was hired to develop the first lactation hospital in the midwest by the
director of nursing who had heard me speak at one of the Chicago hospitals.
 Of couse I knew everything about BF and this hospital was going to be a
wonderful BF hospital.  I went in and got rid of supplementing babies with
water (had a consent form all moms had to sign if they supplemented),
limiting time at the breast, stopping BF with jaundice, and making it an
option to take or leave the BF discharge packs.  You can image what trouble
I caused back in the early 80's.  I got told many times "Why don't you go
back to Calif. where you belong with the other fruits and nuts?"  Chicago
was not quite ready for me nor a LC at that time.  I remember calling Judy
Lauwers and asking her if I could use her book "Counseling the Nursing
Mother" as a resourse/reference book in the hospital  because it was the
only book besides Womenly Art and Karen Pryors book.  Remember that Judy???
Actually, a few years later I settled out of court on that job because of
my "standing up and fighting for BF" and all the wonderful politics that go
on in a hosptial.  Then there was the Chicago Milk Bank I thought would be
a fun volunteer thing to do on the side.   What an exerience !!! I even got
NBC TV coverage on that one.  They actually filmed me nursing my baby while
interviewing.  ON TV.  Yes, Jan.  How the times have changed.  There has
been so much progression in the BF field, but still so much frustration to
deal with.  Much the same as we had to deal with back when I started.  The
wonderful thing we all have today is networking, supporting, and 
encouraging each other.  This year, lets not forget where we came from and
where we are heading.  It might be small steps, but if we all keep walking
forward, not complaining too much, we might be able to reach the goals of
2000 and others along the way.   I do have so much to be thankful for and I
wish everyone a wonderful, healthy , happy New Year.
"Follow your dream.... if you stumble, don't stop and lose sight of your
goal, press on to the top.  For only on top can we see the whole view..."
by Amanda Bradley

Pat Bull, RN, IBCLC
The Breastfeeding Connection/Medela
Naperville, Il- where it is in the upper 40's