A reunion...

A dinner was arranged to gather together the women who were part of the local Nursing Mother's Group dating back some 30 years. I went along to catch up with those from my involvement 20 odd years ago.

We built our house when Callum was a baby and moved in to celebrate his first birthday just 4 weeks later. I remember that time as being a busy one. Dealing with a new baby, working part time, caring for Hayley, building the house and making regular trips up the highway to check its progress.

When we moved in we had Chris' brother Vince living with us and we set out to settle in to this country town.  We still travelled back to the city to work, I took Hayley to her Kinder for the remainder of the year and often dropped both of the children to Mum's to babysit overnight when I was working night duty. Hayley can remember stopping the car mid way home so I could close my eyes for a few minutes, the fatigue being too much to get home safely.

One of the first things I did to meet people in our new town was to attend  a Nursing Mother's meeting. I was still breast feeding Callum but not in the position to join a 'New Mums Group' and when I saw the notice in the local paper I called the Leader and pursued it.

I remember Joy picking me up and taking us all to the Coffee Morning. From there I met and made friends, the kids met and played with children that have become life long friends for them too. Soon those women became an important part of my life and I was reminded of that on Thursday night. We shared stories from that time 20 or 30 years ago and laughed about the commonality of it. Trying to cope with new babies and toddlers and learning that we were all in very similar situations.

The  group faded away and closed some years after I was no longer involved. The name changed from NMAA to Australian Breastfeeding Association to more accurately reflect its purpose so it is sad that it is not a resource for local new mums any more. Our children attended local Kindergarten and schools, and after 6 years I was able to get work locally so stopped driving down that damn highway. I made many friends in town from a few different sources but still value that first contact as an important step.

We  have gone in a lot of different directions. Many of them are grandmothers and proudly showed off photos and stories of their grandbabies. Some of them have had loss and sadness, travel and change but all have loads of proud moments with the children that caused us to all come together in the first place

It certainly triggered some memories for me, I haven't thought about that time when our children were small for a long time....I should get out the albums and remember again.