Having been born on an island (Puerto Rico) there's a higher-than-most likelihood that a mass emergency would be a part of my story, and it is. One of the reasons my family ended up in Texas was the result of flooding from a major tropical storm in 1980. Despite me being barely two years old, I remember the flood, and remember being carried to my grandparent's home, in a trash bag. This early experience with adrenaline and near-total loss I'm sure in some part contributed to me generally being calm under pressure, and being a need-meeter, instead of a need-creator. And interestingly, while growing up I joined the Police Explorers in high school knowing I wanted to eventually enter into the mass-emergency world, then later in my mid 20s decided to live this out by changing my school major to Emergency Management...and I did that exactly two months before Hurricanes Rita and Katrina hit.

But what does all of that background have to do with me being a lactation consultant now? How did I go from working for FEMA as a disaster reservist to helping moms with breastfeeding?

Because nothing feels more like a disaster or emergency than a mother desperate to breastfeed her child...

Helping moms troubleshoot their breastfeeding scratched the same exact itch that helping families recover from major disasters scratched: I was able to help someone overcome.

Now that I'm on the breastfeeding side of it, one can see where meeting the needs of families with babies during emergencies would be high on my list of passions.

Because of that, being available to support the needs of evacuating-families with infants and making sure they have the resources they need is important to me. Families evacuating to SA and needing assistance with technical or logistical help with finding pump-parts, etc. will be able to count on Breastfeeding Housecalls.

In a random pondering all of the different things we as parents have "invested" in during the birth and breastfeeding season, I really, really, really want to know about the things you regret so, please answer the questions below:

But first...

Be nice--if it's for a service, please do not include the service provider or company names, I just want to know the *types* of equipment and services regretted and why.

Here goes, two questions:

1. What are the top things you regret having spent money on during your pregnancy and right after birth, and how much did you spend on them (in both money and time). i.e. Fancy schmancy equipment, services, etc.

2. What is one unplanned expense that you wish you would've known about surrounding your pregnancy and birth season?

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