Mama in the City

This past Wednesday I had the pleasure of jetting out the front door (without making my family dinner) and being part of a panel of Vancouver bloggers talking about....mama blogs. The night was hosted by Modern Mama and was a casual evening filled with glasses of wine, plates of appetizers and lots of talk about blogging. I was so happy to see Jenna from the blog Solo Mama On The Move in the audience! I got to meet other great blogging mamas like Leeanne who blogs over at Mom Paradigm (and just so happens to be my neighbour over the creek!).

Christine Pilkington, publisher of Vancouver Mom, asked some great questions about why we blog and how we found our niche. I've always made my blog a personal place to share moments from my life but it is also my place to write passionately about topics that I love. Like birth and breastfeeding and having babies (and also what my favourite lipstick happens to be).

"When I first started to blog about breastfeeding I wanted my posts to help normalize breastfeeding and also encourage open discussion around the topic."

My very favourite breastfeeding post is from a few years ago when I wrote the post, 'Breastfeeding In Public: 6 Tips To Help You Feel Totally Awesome'. Even though my blog was only about a month old when I published this post, it got a lot of traffic and still does. People were going to their search engines and looking for tips on how to nurse out and about with comfort and found my corner of the blogosphere. I love the feeling of giving virtual support to other mothers or maybe getting readers to think about things in a different way.

Supporting people is what I get paid to do as a nurse and what  I love to do when I'm with a labouring mama or a freshly nursing mother and baby.

"For me, blogging has never been about how much money my blog could make, instead it is about writing posts that might help other women feel supported." 

Another breastfeeding post that had a lot of traffic is from 2011 when I wrote the post, 'How To Show Your Support of Breastfeeding (even if you've never done it yourself). After I published this post I got emails galore from nursing mothers, mothers who didn't nurse, and on. I like the idea of people being supportive of nursing duos (mum and babe) even if nursing is not the thing for them. Which is how I came up with the post topic in the first place.

Christine also asked the panel of bloggers if we feel comfortable sharing photos of our children. Obviously my answer was a big yes as both of my babes have been well documented on this blog and I feel 100% okay with all of the photos that I've posted since 2009. In fact I love my husbands photography so much that I take great delight in being able have his images support my writing. So, I will leave you with a bit of food for thought about blogging and also a few of my past favourite images.

Taking in that newborn smell with Ben at 5 days old, 2008


9 day old Josie lounging in bed with me, 2012


Ben and Maggie the dog in the Rose Garden, Spring 2009


Ben strolling the Yaletown seawall, Winter 2009



Big brother meeting baby sister for the first time, Winter 2012

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