Bisphenol A has been shown to be a hormone modulator and has been linked to several forms of cancer.  Read about the Environmental Working Group’s findings here.  And here is the EWG’s information on baby-safe bottles and formula. 

Low Milk Supply is a site that I have just recently come across.  It’s focus is on helping women understand what may cause a low milk supply and provide current, accurate information to help mothers increase their supply.  The site was created by lactation consultants Diane West and Lisa Marasco as an outgrowth of their BFAR site (Breastfeeding After Reduction).  http://www.lowmilksupply.org/aboutus.shtml

MOBI Motherhood International is the website of the MOBI yahoo group.  The group (Mothers Overcoming Breastfeeding Issues) provides information and support to women who are or have experienced breastfeeding challenges.  http://www.mobimotherhood.org/MM/default.aspx

My year of pumping seems so distant now (oh how I wish I had this understanding of time and perspective while I was going through it all) and yet it encompasses everything I do on a daily basis: my book and publishing company, the fact that I am now nursing my 18 month old daughter, my new business venture, Nursed and Nurtured, through which I hope to provide education and support to women in order to provide them with the support, encouragement, knowledge, and strength that I wish I had received with my son.  The lessons from that year are still being deciphered and continue to amaze me. 

Life is precious.  The experiences we have in this life are, each one, an opportunity for growth, for reflection, for celebration, for sharing.  The past five years have taught me to enjoy life in the moment, not to wish away the experience regardless of how difficult or trying it may be since it’s these difficult moments that remind us just how sweet life is.  As the U2 song states, “The only pain is to feel nothing at all.”  To really experience life you need to feel the entire range of emotions, and I guess in some small way I look at difficulties now as a reminder of how good life is.

Dennis Brutus, an anti-apartheid activist, was imprisoned in South Africa at the Robin Island Prison.  While there he wrote a poem called Endurance.  It begins:  Endurance is the ultimate virtue, The essential thread on which existence is strung, When one is stripped to nothing else and not to endure is to end in despair.

Perhaps the most important lesson I have learned from my experience exclusively pumping specifically, and from motherhood in general, is the lesson of endurance.  To simply endure and continue, even though it may be difficult, provides such wonderful rewards in the end.  And now, five years later, I can look at my wonderful, sensitive, thoughtful son and not have a single moment of regret over the many, many hours I sat expressing my milk for him; the many, many hours of sleep I lost; or the freedom that I may have had if I was not pumping.  I don’t think I could say the same thing if I had, as had been suggested to me numerous times, chosen to switch to formula.