My name is Stephanie Casemore. I am a writer and teacher living in a small town in eastern Ontario, Canada with my husband, two children, and two dogs. My first child was born nine weeks premature and breastfeeding was challenging to say the least. Though my son and I made a valiant effort, ultimately breastfeeding didn’t work out as expected and I ended up exclusively pumping (EPing) for just over a year. My son received expressed breast milk by bottle for the first fourteen months of his life, and though this was quite the accomplishment, the regret of not being able to breastfeed, and the fear of what might happen if I was to have another baby, was ever-present. This is when my life as a writer began.

After that year of EPing, I wrote my first book, Exclusively Pumping Breast Milk: A Guide to Providing Expressed Breast Milk for your Baby. It was obvious after my own experience pumping, that information and support simply wasn’t available for mothers who might otherwise be feeding formula. Yet, more and more women were making the effort to EP. Since 2004 when the book was published, the option of exclusively pumping has become more widely known, accepted, and supported; yet many mothers still continue to receive inaccurate information and unsupportive advice regarding this alternative to formula.

Then in 2005, a new baby was on its way and, boy, was I worried. I was worried that I might again develop preeclampsia as I had with my son, but more than anything, I was worried that I would again not be able to breastfeed. How could I possibly go through that experience again? Could I EP again for another baby? Could I EP with a three year-old in the house? I was desperate for things to go differently this time, but sharply aware that, again, it might not happen.

It became clear to me that the challenges and barriers to breastfeeding were intricately tied to society, culture, and my internalization of these cultural lessons. I worked to educate myself prior to my daughter’s birth, take control of my birth experience—and ultimately my breastfeeding experience—and struggled to remove my “brain” from the equation and instead allow my body and my baby to do what nature intended. This is no small feat.

The challenges certainly were there. There were times when I wondered if it was going to work. But this time around, things went much differently. My daughter exclusively nursed for about 6 or 7 months and self-weaned two months after her third birthday. It was a wonderful experience and the vast differences between the experiences with my son and my daughter proved to me just how valuable the breastfeeding experience can be—and how emotional it is.

Having the opportunity to communicate with many women who have challenging breastfeeding experiences, I realized that the trepidation I felt approaching the birth of my second child is not unique. Breastfeeding is an emotional experience, one that is grounded in biology, and one that is often challenged by societal influences. I realized that in breastfeeding literature, we were a group of women that were not being recognized. Just as there were few resources available for exclusively pumping mothers, there are today no resources available specifically directed at women who have had challenges breastfeeding their first child and who are facing the prospects of breastfeeding a new baby.

Breastfeeding, Take Two will fill in this gap and aims to speak to the specific experiences of women, like myself, who want to breastfeed after a difficult past breastfeeding experience.

I welcome your thoughts, comments, and questions.