Thank You

D-MER is going to be an ongoing project for me. There is still so much to do, be learned and fine tuned. There is a massive amount of awareness to be raised through writing, speaking and networking. But I was taking a moment to really realize how far we have come in such a short time and I felt thankful to so many people and I wanted to share about it.

Thank you to my 100% supportive husband. Not only has he nurtured me through D-MER and offered so much understanding and patience, but he has not balked at the uncompensated hundred of hours and hundreds of dollars that I have poured into D-MER and its greater cause, even though it has taken me away from my family and home responsibilities.

Thank you to wonderful wonderful "D." She has not minded that I used her at times for her name and status in order to get answers from the better known professionals. She never doubted me even when at times I doubted myself. She countless time talked me away from "the ledge" when I was ready to give up or blow a gasket out of general frustration or discouragement. She poured her emotion into my experiencing, resonating with my pain and celebrating with me when it was lifted. She used her amazing counseling skills every minute of the way. She herself has pour hundreds of hours into D-MER and it's greater cause and humbly continues to try and give me all the "credit" for the work that has been done, even though without her, it never would have come this far.

Thank you to "N" for giving telling us to stop looking at oxytocin and for giving us the word dopamine, even if at first she thought I should just cognitively readjust. But then again, so did most people, and all and all she came around, saw it was physiological and gave us dopamine, and I am ever thankful for that.

Thank you to "dooney" on MDC for having the courage to post the thread "only when nursing" in the PPD forum. If I hadn't opened that post, none of this would have come to fruition. I wish I had been able to get a hold of her personally to thank her, but we never did get in touch. I always wondered how things worked out for her.

Thank you to my dad for answering all the medical jargon and terminology questions he could for me, even though he didn't have all the answers, he's still the smartest man I know.

Thank you to my palm pilot for crashing on April 7th 3008. If that hadn't happened I would not have stumbled upon the web page that convinced me to call D and ask for her help.

Thank you to my oldest two children for not feeling resentful for the hours I have spent on the computer immersed in research. Especially thank you to my older daughter, who understands D-MER just enough to say "Mommy, I am sorry you feel sad when your feed Ellie" and who understands that I am helping lots of other mommies and that that is important work.

Thank you to all the mamas of TBW and MDC for their active parts in the D-MER threads. They provided valuable quotes and information. They participated in the earliest research and spoke of their personal experiences with D-MER when nobody else was.

Thank you to my mum who never once doubted what I said to her about my feelings with D-MER, for supporting me in my work of bringing D-MER into the light and for acknowledging how important it all was. Thank you for reminding me, when it got thankless and time consuming, of how many countless mothers I was really helping. Really most of all, and the silliest of all really, thank you for not watching me when I nursed while we were together, for not watching my face for flickers of negative emotions, and for rambling on in conversation to keep me distracted and to keep me from having to form a coherent thought in the midst of D-MER....doing this all out of instinct for what I needed.

Thank you to my little baby girl, for seeing me through all of this. You were my perfect homebirthed baby, with whom I expected to also have a perfect breastfeeding experience and relationship with. You will never fully understand the impact that breastfeeding you had on the field of lactation. I feel like I missed out on the most important times of your first year of life. You are turning a year old this week and I have nursed you more than 4,927 times since the day you were born. I have spent at least 410 hours of that precious first year in a state of D-MER, loving you every minute of it, but doing my best to pretend you weren't even there. It wasn't fair. To either of us. It wasn't what I wanted for you and it wasn't what I wanted, planned or expected for us. But we have persevered through this seemingly never ending battled of emotional warfare. Now I will spend the next year or more breastfeeding you day in and day out, but this year will be different, this year I will look into your eyes, I will love having you in my arms, I will feel good when I nurse you. Because baby, you and I, we cured D-MER.