Prayers

So sorry to have two serious posts in a row, but such is life.

I have recently found myself the victim of a person suffering from Munchausen syndrome (http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/chronic/faking.html) This person assumed the identity of a mother of a 25 week preemie infant. They stole pictures from a web journal of the real family. They accepted money and gifts from honest caring people. We are all attempting to heal from this enormous breach of trust.

The following was written by a friend. with her permission I am sharing it here because she says so eloquently what I feel.

"Prayers and good vibes transcend time, space, and human intention. Prayer is a connection with the infinite, where time in not linear. Prayers offered in 2007 can help a deathly ill baby in 2005, and maybe they did. The intentions in prayers also transcend intent and human knowledge and understanding. Prayers offered for a person in one kind of distress can help a person in another kind of distress. People who commit massive frauds are usually in great pain and they need a lot of help and understanding to learn how to express themselves in a healthy way. Prayers offered on their behalf can help them, even when the help they need is of a different kind than what was intended by the offeror of the prayer. Prayers also help the world and the offeror in general. Sometimes we can slip too easily into a selfish desire to see a hard situation resolve as we want it to. When that situation does not actually exist, it may be that the prayer or intention is all the purer for it simply goes to make the world and the offeror greater, wiser, better, with no hope any longer of seeing the desired outcome. The discovery that the cause of one's prayers was false is a kind of death. How good it is to know that one's prayers and hopes already resolved, two years before their offering, into a good outcome! I'm so glad we prayed. A baby is well and happy and turning two. A mother is well and happy and hoping for another child. A woman received help and support and an outpouring of love, even though she was not able to tell us why she needed it."

"Forgiveness is like letting someone out of prison - and then finding out that person was you." - Brother of a Columbine gun violence victim.

Discrimination and a Weak Law

Statue of Mary Feeding Jesus

Argentina, In front of a local Catholic church

Picture taken by my brother while traveling South and Central America

Many states have a law protecting a publicly breastfeeding mother. Unfortunately some of these laws are weak and riddled with loopholes. For example, Texas.

Chapter 165. Breast-Feeding Subchapter A. Breast-Feeding Rights and Policies Sec. 165.001. Legislative Finding The legislature finds that breast-feeding a baby is an important and basic act of nurture that must be encouraged in the interests of maternal and child health and family values. In compliance with the breast-feeding promotion program established under the Federal Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (42 U.S.C. section 1771 et seq.), the Legislature recognizes breast-feeding as the best method of infant nutrition. Sec. 165.002. Right to Breast-Feed A mother is entitled to breast-feed her baby in any location in which the mother is authorized to be.

The loophole - authorization can be denied thereby eliminating the right of a mother to breastfeed her infant or child.

A Ronald McDonald House in Houston, Texas has decided to exploit this loophole and their victims are a mother and an aunt of a 17 month old boy recovering from brain surgery. Here is her story, shared with her permission.

"My sister and I are staying in the Ronald McDonald House in Houston because one of her 17 month old twins had to have brain surgery to remove a tumor last week. The RMH has been great and we have felt so blessed to find such a safe and homey place to take care of her other two children and my daughter while we are here for T's recovery. However yesterday my sister, who is nursing the twins, was asked to stop nursing in the communal area of the Ronald McDonald House and to take it up to her room. She was shocked! After his surgery her son will basically only drink breast milk and it is the only thing that eases the constant pain and anxiety he feels.

She told them that it was illegal, according the Texas state law, to ask a breastfeeding mother to stop nursing in any public or private place. She also tried to explain to them how inconvenient it would be for her to take all her children up 3 floors to their room every time her sick child needs to nurse. Unfortunately after 30 minutes of arguing, and being threatened with being kicked out, she was in tears and they weren't backing down. So I headed down there to talk to the administrator because I am also nursing my three year old daughter. I even pulled up the state law on my laptop and after a lengthy discussion the administrator acted as if she was going to examine the law so she understood it and move on. I thought that was the end of it. Today I find out they may be kicking us out of the RMH because we refused to comply with what they call their "interpretation of the law". Their interpretation is that if they provide somewhere else for us to nurse they don't have to let us nurse in public places.
Since when do laws get to be personally tailored to an organizations needs? This is a ridiculous and terrible situation for all of us, I am not sure what else we will do if we can't stay here but we can't just not nurse our children. The Ronald McDonald is such a great resource, why do they have to discriminate against nursing moms?

If you would like to send a letter(s) we would appreciate it. Arlene Whatley is The Director of Operations of The Holcombe location of the RMH where we are staying and one of the people who J spoke to about this. It is Arlene that seems to be making the decision here. Her email is awhatley@rmhhouston.org and her phone is (713) 795-3570. Also her higher ups, The Executive Director can be emailed at nscott@rmhhouston.org and the Director of Administration is srichard@rmhhouston.org. This message may also be shared and reposted as you see fit. Thank you all for your support."

"**Update** As of Saturday Afternoon(4/14) we are still being asked not to nurse anywhere but our rooms and Arlene, who I spoke to today by phone, has informed me that she will be contacting the Executive Director and their attorneys on Monday about the situation before any other decisions will be made. I have been told by Arlene that she will do what she needs to do and that I am to "be very careful" about what I decide to do. We are being told that we are not being asked to leave right now and that they never meant that we should have to...despite the fact that Arlene told my sister in front of another RMH employee on speaker phone that families who could not acclimate to the environment at RMH should find somewhere else to stay. She admitted this to me on the phone today, that yes she did tell J that...but that did not mean we actually had to leave. Also the day after she was asked to stop nursing(yesterday) J's social worker was contacted by RMH and was apparently told that she may need to help us make other accommodations. The RMH actually contacted my sister's social worker who handles T's case while he is in the hospital and got her involved...because J was nursing and they are not ok with that? I guess nursing means not acclimating to their environment and she was just trying to intimidate J into stopping the nursing of her sick son. I do want to say that aside from Arlene, and the original employee who asked my sister to stop nursing, we have been treated very well here and want to say that the RMH has great employees as well as the ones bullying us.

I just spoke to Naomi Scott, the Executive Director of the RMH Houston, and we(Me, J, Arlene and Naomi) have a meeting this afternoon (tentatively) at 4pm. She came back from her vacation early to handle the situation. Naomi needs to speak to some people before the meeting she said.

Unlike Arlene, Naomi was very pleasant on the phone but she told me that although they are not kicking us out right now that it is a guideline(an oral one) to ask all breastfeeding mothers to go to their rooms to nurse. This is the first I have heard of any oral guideline from anyone. It was never mentioned before. She told me this was because they had multicultural residents here and that they need to protects all the residents from feeling uncomfortable. Because of this they are not changing their stance on us breastfeeding downstairs. She also said that she has received calls from corporate but that each RMH is run independently. They have also received calls from national donors and she said that was uncomfortable and that all of our emails crashed their server(although they have fixed it now) which was costing them money.This is all I know for now but I will be contacting the LLL about representaion of some sort at the meeting and I am going to try and get ahold of corporate myself right now. Thank you all for your continued support..and please keep the pressure coming, we will need it now MORE THAN EVER to make sure all moms have the right to breastfeed at the RMH.

Ok here is the outcome of the meeting. We got out about and hour ago and I have been trying to find time to post here after returning some phone calls. The meeting was about 2 hours long and included myself and my sister, a representative from the LLL, and a doctor from the area who is responsible for some big research on breastfeeding. I will not mention their names as I have not asked them for permission to do that but we thank them both for their support! We could not have handled the meeting without them. I contacted the suggested LLL person in Texas(again no names) and she sent them right out. She was great as well and worked tirelessly for us today. From the RMH Arlene, the Director of Operations, as well as Naomi, the Executive Director, attended as well as a couple of their board members.
After a very lengthy conversion with many twists and turns the RMH is allowing us to stay. We are from now on allowed to breastfeeding in the communal areas if we follow some rules they have set forth and not too many people complain about it. They said if just one person complains they will tell them they support breastfeeding and discuss with them why they are concerned. If many people were to complain they will have to deal with that as it comes up, they could not say how as they have not encountered the situation.

The rules we are to follow are that we are to be discreet, this is at our discretion, meaning we choose what discreet means but they said they will obviously know if we are not being discreet if people are complaining that they are uncomfortable with us nursing. We are also being asked to inform the people around us before we begin nursing if we think there is anybody that may be uncomfortable with it. We are to tell them nicely that we are going to breastfeed, in case they want to leave or look away.There was alot of discussion about what discreet meant, but after some pretty silly possibilities for discretion they decided it would be up to us as to what that meant. They said they would not bother us about nursing again unless many people complained, which nobody felt was likely to happen.

The RMH wanted us to tell everybody that the RMH supports breastfeeding moms...they were VERY adamant about it. You can decide for yourself if that is true, I am only passing on what they said to us.

Now, at this point, this only applies to us. When asked how other nursing moms would be treated they said they cannot make any changes right in the room but that they will be examining the practice, or oral guidelines, of asking breastfeeding moms to stop. They said they did not have the power to make policy change, it had to go to the board; which they said they would seriously discuss doing. Obviously alot more was said in 2 hours but this is the gist of the situation. If they really do examine their guideline this could be a really good thing but we will have to follow up to make sure that happened. Please if you decide to write anymore letters(and they received ALOT of letters) please do so to encourage them to reexamine thier guidelines and to thank them for considering it.

Although they were not apologetic to us they have agreed to reexamine their stance and this could be really good for alot of nursing moms. If we handle this correctly this could mean national change for the RMH. We will be waiting to find out how this plays out in the following days and will will update as needed. Lots of media have contacted us from all kinds of large outlets and I am still not sure who, if anyone, I will talk to at this point. We are trying to decide how to best help ALL moms.We want this to benefit moms across the board so me and J will be working to change their guidelines as we go. And the LLL says they will continue to offer us support. We are not giving up on a full scale policy protecting moms, but we will have to wait for a board decision on that. This will take time but I am confident that we can make this happen.

THANK YOU ALL FOR OUR SUPPORT!!!!! Above all if you all had not done what you have done I suspect we would not have had the outcome we did or even had that meeting. Thank you."

This is an extrememly unsatisfactory response to say the least. Their treatment of the situation and people involved is inexcusable. Sad isn't it, the lengths people will go to discriminate against others. The RMH policy must undergo a nationwide revision and we have the power to precipitate this change.

What you can do. Call or email Naomi Scott at 713.795.3560 or nscott@rmhhouston.org

Call or fax corporate if you feel you can as well. Corporate RMH: Phone: 630-623-7048, Fax: 630-623-7488 Let them know that their apparent "oral guideline" as Naomi put it, of directing employees and volunteers to ask mothers to nurse only in their rooms is not acceptable and that every nursing mother should be able to nurse anywhere they are allowed to be at RMH. Especially since bottle-feeding is perfectly acceptable in these same communal areas as there was a woman in the common area feeding a bottle last night with no repercussions.

The state of Texas also needs to know that the nation is watching them and an unfavorable precedent must not and will not be set with them.

To contact the Attorney General of Texas. email: greg.abbott@oag.state.tx.us phone:1-512-463-2100 mailing address: Office of the Attorney General PO Box 12548 Austin, TX 78711-2548fax:512) 475-2994 Make sure you mention that the family was PAYING $15 a night to stay there, that may affect whether or not RMH can use the loophole in the law allowing removal of authorization to be there. If you CALL, make sure you make them take your name and some contact information (an email perhaps) and then ask them for their name. Makes them take you a bit more seriously.

A good sample letter:

Mr. Attorney General,

I am writing to express my outrage and disgust over the illegal harassment at the Ronald McDonald House Houston towards breastfeeding mothers. Breastfeeding mothers have been harassed at this insitution, banned from public areas, and warned that if they do breastfeed in public they must be "discreet" (a loosely interpreted term) and that they must "warn" other people in the room ahead of time before they breastfeed. This harassment is illegal and I implore your office to remedy the situation and demand that RMH Houston establish a legal breastfeeding policy allowing a woman to breastfeed in any place she is allowed to be, without any illegal conditions being placed upon her or her nursing child.

Sincerely,

xxxx