Learning to love my body wasn’t easy work when I had the smooth lines and tight skin of a twenty year old.

Now after I’ve grown two babies in my belly and spent all of the last 6 years breastfeeding, finding ways to honor and cherish the contours and valleys of this body is, well, rather interesting. In some ways it is bloody hard, knowing that core strength and push ups won’t change the soft shelf of skin that held my babies. That the criss-crossed map of stretch marks will endure (I had mistakenly thought that the second baby would use the stretch marks made by the first, since I had more than plenty to spare… ha!

In other ways, time is helping me down the road of self love. Some of those thorny edges of myself demanding perfection have been sawn off by the passage of time, and so very many sleepless nights, and a drawer of mismatched socks, and deciding that brushing my hair and my teeth before I leave the house is plenty, most of the time. My most grounded & accepting moments occur when I find the strength I grew more than twenty years ago, when a major surgery for scoliosis left me with a large, red scar down the whole back of me, and my body in a metal and plastic body brace for a long time after. Somehow in those days and months after the surgery I found my way to loving myself, welcoming my scar and never letting it get in my way. I wore strapless dresses, swimsuits with abandon and, most of the time, I forgot about it.

In the intervening years, I seem to have forgotten that strength. Now I must find it again.

I have been thinking about all of this for a good long time now, as I’m sure many of you have too. Because I want my two littles (especially my big little one, whose eyes and ears are so very huge these days…) to have an easier time than I have at respecting and revelling in their bodies as they move through their lives.

Finding the quiet place of peace and acceptance is tricky but rewarding when you find it. When I find it, it seems as though a million tons of weight have been lifted off my shoulders, and I smell freedom.

If you haven’t already seen this wonderful piece These are the lines of a story, you might want to check it out… it’s an inspiring & delightful read.

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This son of mine, he’s a joyful person. Truly, one would never know the discomfort and pain he’s had in the last year and a half (nearly), the doctor’s visits, the frustration at not feeling right. Deep inside, in his gut, where so much of our immune systems, not to mention digestion and toxin elimination (and so much more) is centered.

He’s learning, and we’re learning too, how to keep his gut happier, and his day-to-day life a lot more comfortable.

I’m sure many of you reading this have allergies, candida, eczema and gut trouble in your own families, and know just what I’m talking about.

I’ve wanted to distill the learnings in my mind on this topic for awhile, and here is a quick start:

- Colic just might be something else, and could very well be digestive-related. I asked our midwives to consider having a protocol to advise new parents of a baby treated with antibiotics at birth that they should be on the look-out for candida, possible allergy onset, etc. as a result of the antiobiotics as this is what happened with us and what lots of my research has shown is completely reasonable

- Listening to myself, to ourselves, was even more important than any medical (allopathic or naturopathic) advice we were given. We knew when things worked, and they didn’t. I listened to my own voice to go for prick allergy testing when we did, and I’m ever so glad. Listening to what you already know somewhere inside is hard – it takes quiet, and it takes courage. And then sharing what you have heard in yourself is a whole other story. But it’s critical.

- Lots of eczema is allergy-related. Seriously. His used to cover his body and is now largely gone since we’ve systematically and completely removed all of this known allergies – from his diet and completely from mine.

- Breastfeeding is wonderful for helping to protect little ones and yet another reason to continue as long as possible. It can help avoid asthma, lessen allergies, delay them, strengthen his immune system, and so, so, so much more.

- It’s OK to go against the grain and make up your own solid foods agenda. It’s OK to delay starting solids longer than other people. It’s OK to serve vegetables and meat first and save potentially allergenic (even gluten-free) grains for later. It’s OK (and even extremely helpful and healing) to make bone broths a huge part of a baby’s diet.

- There are great sources of nut-free products. Locally milled organic grains from farmers who don’t use nuts on their mills are perfect examples of thinking outside the box. But it’s important to consider all sources of contamination. For example, lots of organic spices are bottles in factories that may not wet clean between the lines and cross contamination with sesame (one of his allergens) could happen. Other, larger companies (who also have organic lines, like McCormick) have said they do wet clean.

- Shea butter (organic, fair trade) is amazing. Seriously, amazing as an emollient and healer.

- Time heals, and lots of holding and love heals too. And more time.

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You have to surround yourself with people that understand, a friend told me a (long) while back. Who understand what? Extended breastfeeding (oh, you mean past 3 months?), homeschooling (my 5 year old?), a commitment to eating whole, organic foods, living more simply, co-parenting in the fullest sense of the word… oh those things. Those really strange things. Apparently.

I guess we all have our lists. As families. As parents and leaders of our families. A top 10 or a top 5 or, goodness sakes, a top 20 – of things that we are committed to, our priorities, our areas of spending and focus and time. And extra love. Sometimes those seem to jive well with those of lots of people around us in our communities, and sometimes, well, they don’t.

Now I did take her advice, or it just sort of happened. We ended up some new friends, and navigating through understanding with old ones.

What has been much harder, perhaps, is finding understanding and real true support and encouragement and enthusiasm from within our own, extended ranks. Blood relatives. Our own parents. Our top lists and theirs are so massively different. And did their parents offer them the kind of genuine support they had needed? I don’t know, and I doubt it. And I know we aren’t alone.

I don’t want to be told by a close family relative, walking down the street, nursing my 1 year old in my carrier, that I should “just cover up”.

But initial anger has subsided and now I get it. Many of the things we are doing, the changes we have made, they just aren’t part of what they understand or support. And that’s ok.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this: “Judge nothing, you will be happy. Forgive everything, you will be happier. Love everything, you will be happiest.” - Sri Chinmoy

Especially the forgive part.

In Canada our breastfeeding rates are rather abysmal, especially after a few months. Statistics from 2005-2009 shows that though a majority of women actually tried to initiate breastfeeding, over 30% of those same women had stopped after onemonth. The World Health Organization (and now Health Canada) recommends 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding for newborn babies, at a minimum, but in Canada in 2009 only 24% of women had followed this.

It’s a complicated problem, and a serious one that justifies more than a little paragraph this Monday morning. But I know one thing, I know that breastfeeding can be challenging and draining and that women who choose to do this, what is best for their babies, need support. Support and encouragement that is so often absent, or even replaced with calls to turn to formula and parent a different way. From our own extended families. When I think about it that way, the numbers don’t seem all that surprising.

As my partner, my Mister Mister said yesterday, “You’d have to be a super woman to withstand all that pressure.” Indeed, finding the courage and the guts to hold onto convictions when you’re exhausted, drained, facing a mountain of diapers, and bills and weird, hormally-induced moods that come and go… not easy.

SO in this space, today, in a tiny but fully committed gesture, I vow to remember all of this when I have more gray hairs than brown. When, hopefully, I have grown older and wiser and have the chance, perhaps, to mother grown children and grandparent little ones. I vow to listen with my heart, not my mind, and to offer true, unselfish support that doesn’t judge, that doesn’t place demands (even silent, conniving ones) or require “thank-you’s”. I vow, I promise, to break a cycle that has gone on for too long.

Do you promise too?

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Life truly is full of wonderful surprises. With a cleaner diet than I could have ever imagined eating for the last 6 months (dairy, soy, nut, gluten-free…) old clothes I had packed away wistfully quite a number of years back started making their appearance again in the front of my closet.  At last, I could once again wear my favorite vintage find ever, a gorgeous designer long black wool coat I found in a tiny vintage clothing shop in Toronto years and years ago.

And I thought I had it all covered since we have this great fleece Peekaru (which we used with my eldest, and have since converted into a front zip contraption so we don’t have to put sleeping baby’s head through the baby head hole… and covered the edges in sweet organic bamboo fleece, for our little sensitive skin mancub). But for a baby who likes to nurse to sleep during a nap around the neighborhood, our Peekaru wasn’t going to work.

So we figured out a simple but very warm solution.

A double layered polar fleece rectangle (slightly wider at the bottom) that has buttons on one side, and button holes on the other.

It literally buttons into my black coat, and keeps us all very warm and cozy (and is very on-the-go nursing friendly).

For a grand total of about 8$, buttons included. Which makes it all the sweeter.

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