(2/2) “I was 16 when I had my first born, being a teen mom was hard. A lot of people would see I had a newborn and ask how old he was and the conversation always seemed to end with a comment like “oh you look so young”. I never understood what that had to do with anything. It doesn’t change my ability to do what I set out to do in life…

(1/2) “But breastfeeding was an important goal for me, I really like doing research and had attended lots of classes during pregnancy. I understood the health benefits. I knew I wanted a natural labor and delivery, cloth diapering, and all-natural ways of feeding my baby. I wouldn’t have had the money to formula feed, I was 16 just finishing high school…

(2/2) “I spent my whole next pregnancy dreaming about skin to skin contact and breastfeeding my baby, all the things I had missed with my first pregnancy. When the time came, we had a successful unmedicated VBAC, and it was everything I had wanted. She was a little early and was large and they wanted to supplement her as a precaution…

(1/2) “I’ll start by saying it, so it doesn’t come out of nowhere; we had a neonatal lose. My first pregnancy was unexpected twins. I had a very healthy pregnancy, and everything looked great until one night, at 32 weeks, I woke up in full blown preterm labor. They tried to stop it but couldn’t. During the delivery my daughter suffered a birth injury and was sent straight to the NICU, my son went to the special care nursery….