Why I chose to Breastfeed

I always knew I'd be a Mother growing up.  It was my lifelong "career" aspiration.  I wanted to be a wife and a Mother.  I always thought of breastfeeding as the natural way to feed your baby.  The only way.  My Mom breastfed my sister and I as long as she could.  I grew up surrounded by Mother's who breastfeed, and seeing a baby breastfeed was just normal to me.
My perspectives on breastfeeding have changed alot as I have become a Mother myself.  It used to gross me out and I thought it was crazy, and I'll admit, ridiculous, when I saw a Mother breastfeed her 2 year old daughter.  Now I hope my son and I can make it to two years! I plan on practicing baby led weaning, and letting my son wean himself when he's ready.
When I was pregnant with our first baby, (who is now in Heaven), one of my good friends reached out to me and invited me to a La Leche League meeting.  She called it a 'breastfeeding support and information group'.  I thought it sounded really strange but figured I'd probably go just to check it out.  I didn't end up going until I was pregnant again.  I asked my Mom what she thought about me going, what she knew about the LLL.  She told me it was a group of women who were extremists, of breastfeeders who were pretty crazy-or that's how they had been in her day (or so she thought).  She encouraged me to go-so I did.  I learned so much about breastfeeding!  The amazing amount of information I learned has greatly helped me in my breastfeeding relationship with my son.  Before I even started, I had a wealth of knowledge about breastfeeding, and couldn't have felt more prepared!  I'm so thankful my friend invited me to the LLL meeting.

A few things I know about breastfeeding:

-It's how I believe God made our bodies to feed our babies naturally
-It's the perfect food for babies-it has every nutrient, antibody, vitamin, etc in it needed by our growing babes
-It's cheap
-It's always available
-It is the perfect temperature
-It's Liquid Gold-is there anything breastmilk can't fix/help?
-It can be easy (my experience has been so, anyways) as long as you have the information, instruction, support, and perserverance to continue
-It's beautiful
-It creates such a wonderful bond between Mother and child
-It can be done anywhere, anytime, any place-and should be!
-It's very easily digested by babies
-It never goes bad
-It changes as our babies do
-It's been going on since the beginning of time



Just like I knew I'd always be a Mother, I knew I'd always breastfeed!