Day 15 in quarantine, and only the second day of working out. In the spirit of today's prompt, I want to acknowledge that as a proud moment. I am proud of myself for finally being able to get out of that bed and start working out before "going to work" . I have been wanting to get back to working out for my health for a while now, and finally I was able to do so. It is something to be proud of, yes, but that is not my proudest moment.

For today's prompt:

What are you most proud of? How can you create more moments of pride?

I have a handful of moments in my life where I felt so much pride. Graduating from High School, then College. Finding my first job, and moments of saying no to peer pressure that shaped me to become the person I am today. But I would have to say that my proudest moment was carrying my kids for 9 months and going through Cesarean surgery to give birth.

I did write a post about the birth of my first child, and I revealed the painful experience of what I went through, for me at least. Some have beautiful experiences, but not me. They say that women in Africa or Ethiopia who give birth have one foot inside the grave when they get pregnant, but I think that applies to all. There is a lot of uncertainty from the time you conceive, up to the time you give birth. God and your doctor are really where you put your faith i when giving birth.

The second proudest moment would have to be my successful breastfeeding journey with my daughter. Having failed to breastfeed my first born, it really put a lot of guilt and doubt as a mother. So when my daughter was conceived, I promised myself that I was going to do whatever it took to breastfeed for at least 6 months. #challengeaccepted.

With the coaching and the guidance of my sister who successfully breastfed all her 4 children, I was more than successful. I was making as little as 10ml extra of breast milk the first 2 weeks, but with a lot of tears, frustrations, and encouragement, gradually my milk increased with each week that went by. I peaked at producing 2 liters per day at about 4 months, and was able to fill up a whole 5.2 cu ft chest freezer. I was able to feed 3 NICU newborns, a 2 month old with a heart problem (may God rest her soul), and a set of triplets. I was only donating milk to mothers whose newborns are in NICU, and women who had multiple births. I started weaning from pumping when my daughter was 11 months old, and stopped pumping when she turned 1 year old. She was still on breast milk until she was a year and 3 months.

Reflecting on this, and not relating to raising my kids, I feel that succeeding and climbing up in my job is my next BIG project for myself. I would like to succeed in my job and feel proud again. I have been having small wins along the way, and I know that I can have that moment of pride again.