Happy Birthday Molly

Today marks the ninth birthday of our sixth child, Molly.

Molly laid a lot of ghosts to rest for me, as she is the first one of my babies breastfed full term. It had all gone a bit pear shaped with the previous five. I tried with all of them, but the shortest time had been two weeks, the longest six weeks and that with mix feeding thrown in almost from birth with some of them. Molly on the other hand nursed for four years eleven months exactly. I discovered the wonderful support network of La Leche League (LLL) when I was still pregnant and we never looked back.

So today not only marks her birthday it is also a personal milestone for me. I will have been nursing for a staggering nine years over three children and I expect with baby Markus due in August I will be totting up another five years or so on the top of that. Not bad for a woman, who was once told that I would never be able to breastfeed my children, because my nipples were too flat...
Yeessss, right. Or that my milk was just not enough for my hungry babies. Breastfeeding would always hurt, because I am fair and have sensitive skin. One bottle won't hurt, because nipple confusion does not exist. Hah, tell that to my babies, who refused the breast almost from that first bottle!
I could go and on, but shall not bore you with the details.

The most disparaging thing about all that is that even today mothers still get told the same thing, when the actual percentage of mothers, who genuinely can't breastfeed is very small indeed.

Things are improving of course, but we have a long way to go, before every mother, who needs it will get the support she needs to enable her to breastfeed her baby for as long as she chooses to do.

Right, will step off my soapbox now ;-)

Without any further ado.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOLLY!


We love you lots, gorgeous girl. Have a wonderful day :-)

And for those of you interested in these sort of things, Molly's birth story can be found here.