Who am I.

Hmmmmmm. Well, this is the space for the long version.

So let’s start with why I am interested in birth and babies and families.

I grew up in Bad River, an Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) reservation in northern Wisconsin, where the rest of my family all still resides. Growing up amongst family, with many strong women surrounding me, I was raised with a sense of how important and integral community was to my wellbeing and to my family. My grandmother was in education, my mother in social services, one of my aunties was a tribal nurse, and most of my family has been active in tribal politics at some point or another. Family mattered. Community mattered.

I grew up loving babies. I had 13 dolls I apparently insisted on sleeping with each night when I was about 5. My family joked with me for years about the “baker’s dozen” of kids I was going to have. Holding babies was a special treat since I was the youngest in the immediate family. My aunties loved kids and at every community gathering they had little ones who stopped by to say hello. And my grandmother….well, she has a special spirit. When she passed away we had many young people in the funeral days come and say what an impact she had had in their lives.

Suffice it to say, I grew up in a culture that valued children and family, and I had an obsession for babies.

I also somehow got it in my head somewhere along the way that birth wasn’t a medical condition but a life process. I read obsessively as a kid, and I’m sure such notions came from some remarkable books I read along the way, but I have no idea which ones. My mom and aunties were children/teens of the 60s so I’m sure some of the peace-love-nature of that period also contributed. And my mother had a lactation consultant that she worked with, and at some point in my early teens she pounded into my head how common-sense breastmilk was for babies. These concepts very much shaped my pregnancy, birth, and parenting.

When I got pregnant, I was a very-young-for-Madison 22 year old. Though my daughter’s father was Ho-Chunk and had more family in the area, being away from my own family and community was very different than how I was raised. My birthing class supported the notion that birth is not a medical procedure, and we hired the instructor as our doula.

And having that doula was a part of why, even after a 36 hour labor, an unplanned transfer to the hospital (we had planned a homebirth), and doctors strongly encouraging a cesarean, I never felt as though I lacked having say-so in the birth of my daughter. And having a voice, and feeling as though at most every point I was making self-informed decisions about my care, impacted everything about my life.

When my daughter was two, her father and I discussed how frustrating it was to have a gathering place for parents in the area. We also expressed annoyance at the lack of easy access to items we found essential to our parenting - slings, nursing bras (well, not so directly essential to his parenting ;), cloth diapering supplies, and wooden and non-electric toys and baby products. A concept began to form of creating such a business. And in time I met another mom who was envisioning and working to create the same business. And thus Happy Bambino came to be.

Having over three years of working with hundreds of different families reinforced another cultural trait that was a little less obvious growing up - the understanding that people all find their own way in their life. So, while I am a strong supporter of natural birth, breastfeeding, and instinctual parenting, I feel even more strongly that every family has the right to be supported in whatever informed decision they make for what works for them.

Through my experience with Happy Bambino I have also developed a knowledge of parenting resources in the area, as well as relationships with folks in the community who provide services to families, and sharing that information comes naturally to me. I am knowledgeable about babywearing and fitting baby carriers, nursing bras, cloth diapers, and many other products that make parent’s lives easier. Though I understand that buying “stuff” does not necessarily a good parent make.

People and babies and families make me happy - and birth is one of those processes that changes who we are. Being a part of that for some families is an honor. And so here I am!