Welcome to The Bumpy Road!
Welcome to The Bumpy Road, the official blog for The Lactation Network! I am so excited to bring you fun posts about all things bump, pump, and parenting related! My hope is to share a variety of everyday mom stories mixed with advice from experts! Making, having, and raising kids is indeed “The Bumpy Road,” and the ride is always more fun when shared with others.
Let’s get this shindig started! My name is Caitlin, and I work at The Lactation Network, an insurance-covered lactation care and breast pump provider, providing support to moms all over the US of A. I am a mom of 3 awesome kiddos who keep me on my toes. You’ll get to know them and all their hilarious, loveable, exhausting antics through my writing, and I hope they’ll bring your lives as much joy as they do mine.
Michael is 6, and he is at such a fun age. Typical oldest in many ways, like myself, but he surprises me every day by being extremely outgoing and spontaneous – two things I was NOT at 6. He is about to start 1st grade in the Fall, and I am as in denial as I am unprepared.
Addie is 4, and wow, she is a strong-willed little lady, which I can love one minute and struggle with the next. She is a crazy natural athlete who loves dresses and nail polish. Raising a daughter is a challenge because I’ve been her; my relationship with her emotions is intimate and is guaranteed to give me gray hair as a result.
Jimmy is 11 months of love-bug. He is my first to refuse a pacifier and my first with blond hair and brown eyes. I hired a sleep trainer when he was 8 months old out of complete desperation (this will be a blog topic soon. PS: the sleep trainer was worth every penny). I’m still nursing and pumping for him and am not in a hurry to stop as he is very likely the caboose of this busy family.
My husband, John, and I have been married for 8 years this October. We have known each other for 18 years. I frequently laugh at how much our lives have changed from when we first met (which is obviously a good thing because if we were still dancing at 3am at a fraternity house, things would be super weird). I will for sure have blog posts on how husbands can best handle pregnancy, postpartum life, and nursing. Mine has donated plenty of material – some do’s and certainly some dont’s. He and I both work, and we are about as close to 50/50 as we can be when it comes to raising our brood.
With my career having led me to this point at The Lactation Network and subsequently, a voice on The Bumpy Road, I should note I am so grateful that I get to come to a job every day that helps fellow moms, both working and stay-at-home, breastfeed their babies. I will do my best to feel adequate enough to share some of the knowledge I have acquired simply by doing this baby, nursing, pumping gig three times over. Each time has been different, and each has had its ups and downs, so I’ll be sharing all the oh-so intimate details of my experiences – the good, the bad, and the, well, the less-than-perky boobs.
So, here it goes – the first step down The Bumpy Road.
