About the Creator

While I was pregnant with our daughter, I tried to prepare myself as much as possible for her arrival. I read through the birthing books. I researched the newborn stages and how to survive the first few nights after bringing home our sweet girl. I binge watched way too many birthing stories and "first day home" vlogs. I stocked up on all the breastfeeding items, and way too much stuff for baby. But believe me when I say that nothing could have prepared me for the struggles of breastfeeding.

Emersyn was during the first snowstorm of 2020. We found out at my anatomy scan that Emersyn had some abnormalities in her brain, and because of this I was induced at 38+3 to make sure her head circumference didnt get too big.

After a horrible induction experience, Emersyn was born blue, limp, and not breathing because the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck twice and her head was stuck. I remember looking at my husband asking why she wasn't crying, but they did get her breathing and perked up. She, of course, was immediately taken to the NICU though. Its honestly quite a blur, but in all of the chaos I do remember the NICU nurse coming into the postpartum recovery area and telling me that she knows I want to breastfeed but that Emersyns blood sugar was dangerously low so that she needed to give her a bottle of formula. Like I think most brand new moms in this situation, I  just told her to do whatever she had to do to make sure my baby was okay.

When we were finally able to see our baby girl in the NICU a couple hours after she was born, the NICU nurse told me how she already earned the nickname "Porkchop" because she had drank 2 oz of formula from the bottle her first feed. I was only able to hold Emersyn for the first time about five hours after she was born. It was at that time that I tried to nurse her for the first time. As she was pulling a curtain around me, the NICU nurse told me that I didn't have anything to worry about in terms of nipple confusion because nipple confusion wasn't a real thing. At the time, I have never even heard of nipple confusion before. I didn't even know what nipple confusion was. I had never heard of this before and none of the 'research' I did said anything about this. On our first feed Emersyn would latch, then unlatch, latch, then unlatch. Being a first time mom, I had no idea what I was doing. I thought I wasn't holding her properly, maybe my boob was too big for her tiny body, but nonetheless I thought it was surely my fault. 

The nurses were convinced it was positioning so they kept trying to walk me through how to position her and I both to be comfortable. But she wasn't very interested in latching to the breast. She would latch, then unlatch. I thought it was me, I thought I was doing something wrong, but the nurses insisted that I was doing everything just right and that eventually baby would latch. Emersyn had pretty bad jaundice, so the nurse brought out the ready to feed formula and we were told we needed to top her off with the bottle of formula. So when Emersyn would get mad and start crying at the breast, we would give her the bottle. Little did I know, this was the beginning of an endless battle with nipple confusion.

I tried for three weeks, every two to three hours, around the clock, to get Emersyn to latch. We would try until she would get mad and starting yelling and then I would top her off with formula. The day after we got home from the hospital, I started pumping after every feed and within a week of being home she was weaned completely off of formula and she would be topped off with bottles of my expressed milk. Her not latching quickly took a toll on my mental health. Watching my daughter cry every time I tried to nurse her because she was having to work too hard to nurse, or because I was doing something wrong, or because she wasn't latching properly, whatever the reason was really hit me hard. Over the course of those three weeks, we saw two different lactation consultants, the public health nurse, and Emersyn was having appointments once or twice a week to check on other health issues where I was constantly asking for help with breastfeeding. I feel like I tried everything. I got the "breast like" bottles, the slowest flow nipples, I established a great milk supply in my own breast and was pumping at least double what she was eating in a day, pumping before latching her, nipple shields. You name it, I tried it.  It quickly lead to us both sobbing and her ultimately getting a bottle. I felt like I was doing every single thing I could possibly do any nothing I working. I felt like I was failing her. As time went on, I slowly gave up and would try and latch her for less and less time before giving in and giving her a bottle. Eventually, she was solely bottle fed, and I pumped around the clock to make sure she had milk to drink.

I thought I was weird because I had this extreme attachment to wanting to nurse her. I was ashamed to tell my husband exactly how I felt. But I so badly wanted that breastfeeding experience and I felt like I was missing some special bond with her if I didn't get to nurse her. So it wasn't an easy decision when I stopped trying to latch her but for my mental health, I had too. I went through the grieving process of not being able to nurse, of feeling less than a mother and feeling like I was missing out on something special. It sounds dramatic, but after struggling with infertility for many, many years I didn't want to risk missing out on any part of motherhood, including breastfeeding. I cried, alot. Some days I still catch myself thinking, if I just held on for a little bit longer maybe things would have clicked for us.

I know now that our journey ended up right where it was meant to be. That was the beginning of my exclusively pumping journey, which I also never knew was a tthing. No one ever told me you can just pump breastmilk, let alone made me feel like it was a totally normal and acceptable way to feed my baby. I made it exactly 13 months and 1 week of exclusively pumping for my beautiful girl before I officially hung up my pump. A bittersweet moment for sure. When I look back at those 13 months and remember that she was never once sick and she was growing like a weed, I can't help but be so proud that my body has provided her the majority of the nutrition that she needed for the first year of her life. Its so rewarding and it made every pump worth it.

This is something that took me a few months to get through my own head. I am no less of a breastfeeding mother because I pump. 

If you made if through my incredibly long and drawn out breastfeeding story, I would love to hear yours! Include me a note in your package. Message me. I'm here. 

I bought my own DIY kit on Etsy after seeing how expensive it was to pay for someone else to make me a piece. I had no intentions of starting a business of out this, it never ever crossed my mind. I simply wanted a piece of jewelry for myself, to have a keepsake to show for everything that I have been through on my own breastfeeding journey. My husband was the only one working at the time with an income greatly impacted by COVID, I had just gone on mat leave, money was tight. 

My daughter has health issues and I am very open about them. I was sent home from the hospital with a baby, essentially being told that at any moment she could take a turn for the worse because of her brain condition and if that time ever did come then she would need brain surgery. But no one could tell me if or when this would happen. Needless to say, I've struggled a ton with postpartum anxiety and depression. I didn't want to leave my daughter and for the 18 months of her life I wouldn't let her leave my sight. I had to find a way to provide income for our household without physically leaving the house. I'm not here to become wealthy. I just want to pay my rent so that I can continue to be a stay at home mom since my maternity leave ended. I realized I could make jewelry more affordable at the same exact quality of other companies, do something I like, and stay at home with my daughter. 

So here we are. I am making beautiful, affordable, quality jewelry for other people all around the world now. I get to talk to women and empower other women every day. I get to help grieving loved ones carry there family member just a little bit closer to them. And I absolutely love every single thing about it but the best part is that I get to do it with my beautiful baby girl by my side.