#Map Your Journey . . . Helen

I have been with HealthConnect One for twenty-one years and my story started a long time ago, but the journey I am currently on began 3 years ago.

Once upon a time, we were a small non-profit. You wear many hats and step in wherever you’re needed in a small non-profit. I began as a data enterer. Now I am a program coordinator. I am also a trainer. I do presentations, and whatever my agency calls on me to do.

I also facilitate a support group for mothers who have babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Many of the images HealthConnect One shares of moms holding babies are women I was blessed to know, women who came through HC One programs. When I was doing the breastfeeding training and support, I felt connected. I didn’t breastfeed as long as many of the moms I work with. If I had the information they got, I probably would’ve breastfed all my children for three years. This work was like a light that went off in me. You don’t put a bushel over a light — you want to share with everyone. Witnessing and seeing moms empowered by what they alone could do for their baby was a privilege.

In 2012, about a 2 months into facilitating NICU support groups, one mother was telling me how her arms ached. In that moment, I was flooded with the memory of the same ache I felt in my arms when my baby was transferred to a level 3 NICU at another hospital. I was a NICU mom!

My daughter was not in the NICU for a long period, but we were separated just the same. I held her and put her to my breast before she was taken from me. I never breastfed again. I sat at her side in the nursery with full breasts, aching to hold my baby. No one came to me and educated me about pumping or storing my milk for my daughter. In fact, I was told the opposite: “She’s doing well on formula. Don’t breastfeed her.” I took my baby home with plenty of samples of formula and a deep sadness in my heart because I could not breastfeed her.

She is a grown woman with daughters of her own now. She has breastfed all 3 babies successfully (still nursing the youngest — she even tandem nursed!). She is my breastfeeding champion.

I do this work for the young mom I was a long time ago. I want moms to know they have options. I want them to make informed decisions. I will support whatever mom decides. It’s not often a mother flat out refuses to pump or do skin-to-skin for her baby. All moms, no matter their zip code, want to be good moms. When a new mom realizes she has the power to grow her baby by providing her own milk and holding her baby skin-to-skin, she chooses to do just that. She knows there is no medicine or therapy in the hospital that will compare to her milk and holding that little one skin to skin.

As I approach the crossroads of my life, when I should be thinking and talking about retirement, I know that my journey is not over. I know which direction to continue walking. Towards the intersection of Power and Community.

Peace.

 ~ Helen Dimas, HealthConnect One Program Coordinator

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