Big Latch A Big Success!!!

Hello Dear Boobjuicers and Friends,

Well, the Big Latch on PDX was a roaring success! We went to Zenana Spa (which rocks, check it out), because my friend mama G.A. has thrush (see my earlier post on this serious pain in the boob) so hanging out in a chocolate shop would have been a bummer. Mama C.C. from work joined too! We all piled into the yoga studio at Zenana (did I mention that they rock? I believe I did.) and sat on bolsters, blankets, and the floor. I have never seen so many babies in one place in my whole life. Including in the maternity ward at the Catholic hospital where my father died. Which had lots of babies in it. Which made me feel better when my father died. Tangent much Suzi?

Right, so, latching. We got 56 mamas latched on at once - or maybe babies, I'm not sure how they counted the mamas latching two babies at once (wow!!!) - is that one mama latching, or two latches, one per twin/boob? In case the fire martial is reading, there were some in the lounge outside the yoga studio, too. It was still crazy though, and a little overwhelming. I got to make an announcement for this blog, and some mamas asked for my blogcard (which is cute and has flowers on it because my awesome artist husband helped me make them). Even more exciting, I was interviewed about nursing Kiddo and about my blog for KBOO Community Radio, by a beautiful mama with a completely adorable, six-week-old snugglebean in a sling, who miraculously seemed to sleep through the whole, noisy, beautiful event.

Surprisingly, Kiddo actually cooperated! It's not a time of day that he ordinarily would nurse, so I figured I'd be lucky to get him latched at all, but he stayed latched for maybe 20 seconds. Not bad! After the official latch on time, Zenana's mother talked about giving birth in 1969 and being the only mother on the ward who wanted to breastfeed. We have come a long, long way - and we have a long ways left to go to restore this important and beautiful part of motherhood to the "modern" world.

Later we played with yoga balls and learned some tough lessons on scarce resources and inter-toddler dynamics.

As a quick reminder, latctivism doesn't have to be this large and complicated. You make progress every time you nurse in public, support another mama, or share your stories of loving to nurse your little ones. Keep up the good work!

Much love,
Suzi

PS - check out the Big Latch website later to find out how many kiddos we got latched at once!