We were 2 relatively new mom’s who were also teaching prenatal and mommy & me yoga at a very popular studio in Los Angeles.  I’d had a spontaneous and completely unplanned homebirth (more on that some other day) and after the doula and midwife team left, and we waited for my cousin (aka the Calvary) to fly in from Phoenix, it became clear, that I just didn’t know enough about how to care for this newborn.  In all my preparation, I was embarrassingly unprepared and feeling dreadfully incompetent. I, was also exhausted, hormonal, you name it. But I wanted to reach out and touch someone who knew more, and that desire never left during those first few years.

Anna and I realized as we taught and attended Mommy and Me and our local R.I.E. classes, that the yearning to connect to other women who had the wisdom of parenting, the experience of holding breastfeeding infants, and introducing food to toddlers was intense.  And it seemed to be a universal magnetism.  Women seemed to attend mommy and me classes for the Q & A period at the end, or the tea and cookie time afterwards.

Anna created her own resources and links list from her Internet searching, connecting her to more and more via the world wide web, and sharing her growing reading list must haves with me and others around her.  I created grassroots collaboratives with fellow new mom’s from the prenatal classes I attended.  At one point there were 21 families from that class doing a monthly progressive potluck lunch, and we continued as a group until the kids were two.

One day Anna asked how we could create an awareness month focused on pregnancy and parenting.  And we found out how:  say it, live it, create it, do it.  We thank you for joining our 5^th Annual Campaign of Pregnancy Awareness Month®, which is the month of May each year.

Be well, live simply, enjoy every minute,

Alisa Donner,
MSW, LCSW

Co-Founder, Pregnancy Awareness Month®

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