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Any of the moms out there who adopted: did you discuss the fact that you wanted to bf with your bmom or agency before placement? If so, to what extent? How did they respond? Trying to decide how much, if any of my plans to disclose. We wouldn't discuss bottlefeeding, so why would I need to discuss BF???? Any input would be great!!!

Thanks!

Hi!
I was kind of warned by our SW that maybe disclosing ALL of my breastfeeding plans might scare our birthmother...since it is so "different". I don't mind being "different" and had faith that God would connect us with a like-minded birthfamily. He sure did! Our birthmother was more curious about it than anything. She and her mother were like, "...we didn't even know that that was possible!". I am sure that they had no idea how committed to it I was. My husband was quietly supportive and that probably mellowed out my excitement and need to "tell them all about it". I just kind of presented it and then answered any questions they had but mostly tried not to be pushy.

When our son was born, I had over 120 oz in the freezer. Our birthmother said that she wanted to be able to enjoy her time at the hospital with the baby without breastfeeding interruptions. She was willing however to bottlefeed our baby with my breastmilk. She was so amazing, not only did she do that...she wanted me to be the very first to feed our baby and I did when he was just a couple hours old. I got to feed him a bottle of my breastmilk. There was a mean nurse there that felt put out at having to walk ALL THE WAY to the NICU freezer to get my milk...so she told our birthmother and her mom that I had no milk there. Our birthmother had the guts to call me at 5am and ask me to bring more milk. My DH and I were there within 20 minutes. After we got our DS's bottle fixed, I went off in search of my milk. And where did I find it?!?!?!?! Exactly where it was supposed to be! So, from then on, we kept a little cooler in the room and I kept it stocked and ready for her to thaw under warm water in her room.

6 weeks later when we went to see our birthmother, she and her mom and her girl cousin and her grandmother all sat in the room while I nursed. They all loved it. Now, 21 months later, they still ask me, "So, are you still nursing?!?!?" They love me for being "different" because it shows how much I love the baby that they loved enough to give to us!

You can read our adoption story here:
http://frunchymama.com/content/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=28&topic=2338.0;topicseen

Follow your instincts and have faith the He will give you the best birthfamily in the world for you! He will!

Ahhhh, Jalx~ I think that would make a difference for us, too. We are about to begin the foster-to-adopt program in August (I think) and I am having mixed emotions on telling or not telling.

"To Tell or Not To Tell"...that should be the title of this thread!

I know that I probably won't BF a baby that would only be with us for a week or so. Well, not exclusively anyway. Because, when it would be time to give the baby back, I would want to make sure that the baby could and would be willing to accept a bottle. I will have to seriously consider whether or not I will feed the baby formula or my pumped milk.... Seems like such a waste not to but I understand that the birthparents may have a say so. Can someone way in on this?

Sorry to hijack this thread... We could start a new one...

I discussed it with our birthmom, she didn't really care one way or the other... at least thats what she told us.

We told our agency and the social worker who did our homestudy. We didn't decide ahead of time whether or not we'd tell the birthmom, because it would depend on her personality and what the agency thought about telling her.
As it turned out, our son's birthmom didn't want to meet us or know anything about us (because then it would be harder for her to stick to her decision) so we didn't tell her, obviously.

Kalli,
I caution you to be careful about bf'ing a foster child. Most counties will not allow it at all. And if they do allow it, you have to get your caseworker's permission, the parents' permission, and probably a million other redtape-type things. We tried to get permission to b'feed infants in our care, but everyone we asked just said "eeeew. weird." and that was that.
In retrospect, it would be VERY difficult to b'feed a baby and then have it go home. As hard as it was to see our fosterbabies go home, it would have been much harder for THEM if they had to go from bf'ing with us to bottlefeeding with their parents.
If there's any chance that your foster child will go home, I suggest that you think very hard about bf'ing. Pumping and bottlefeeding, on the other hand, is a great idea. As long as you mix it with formula so that their systems don't get messed up if they go back home to 100% formula.