Breastfeeding. It’s empowering for many women, daunting for others. The act of feeding your baby with the nourishment only you can provide makes some moms feel whole, and others, empty inside, when breast milk doesn’t come in, or nursing is far from what they imagined.
Many mothers decide breastfeeding isn’t their path. Still more breastfeed through pain, and discomfort, and despite obstacles, and illness. For one mom, named Jamie, nothing was going to stop her from breastfeeding first one premature baby, and then, a second, even when her hair started falling out due to an autoimmune disorder.
“Motherhood means the world to me. Motherhood has changed my mind, body…and hair,” Jamie writes on Facebook as a caption to this image, which if you’re like me, will make you. Stop. In. Your. Tracks.
The photograph of Jamie breastfeeding her second child was captured by the uber-talented Tucson, Arizona-based photographer, Jade Beall.
Jamie goes on to provide background on the powerful photograph, “During my first pregnancy with my son, my water broke at 23 weeks. I was told he would be born within a few days and would have a 50 percent chance of survival with very high risk of having severe life-long medical needs. I was hospitalized for monitoring and was determined not to have my baby yet.”
After spending three months in the hospital, Jamie’s son was born at 35 weeks. A month-long NICU stay followed. Jamie writes, “I began pumping for him as soon as he was born. Breast milk was the one thing I could give him that no one else could. When you have doctors telling you when it is permissible to hold your own baby, having that one thing feels monumental.”
She and her son would have what Jamie calls “a strong nursing relationship” until he was 20 months old. “Then. My hair started to fall out,” she writes. And I can almost feel her pain. Her torment.
“As a child I was diagnosed with alopecia areata,” Jamie shares. “It’s a rare auto immune disorder that causes hair loss and has several triggers, one of which is hormones.” For a while, Jamie hid her dime-sized bald spot. And then, she got pregnant again, which exacerbated the condition. Thankfully, however, her daughter’s birth was “a beautiful, healing VBAC experience.”
“After her birth, the postpartum shed coupled with my alopecia was particularly brutal,” Jamie writes. “There was no more covering bald spots.” She says she tried a wig, and likes having options, but grew tired of hiding her true appearance.
Thus, this photograph.
“I decided to embrace my bald spots, share my story, and in the process teach my children that it is always ok to take pride in and share your true self,” she writes in the post… and pretty much reaches into people’s souls, to render them speechless.
Because, wow.
I mean, Jamie, your story is so powerful on so many levels. To me, it’s about learning to love yourself, and not just for you, but to give your children the gift of a strong, confident, capable mother, and role model. It’s about holding on to the parts of your identity as a mother, in this case breastfeeding, through anything, and everything. And above all, it’s about the power of a woman, and a mom.
Learn more about Jamie’s photography on her Facebook page. And please visit Jade’s website and Facebook page to see more of her gripping work.
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Share hereSee more BabyCenter blog posts featuring Jade’s work by clicking on the links below.
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