places i've pumped

We just got back from Pampanga yesterday after conducting a two-day training session on Communication and Design Thinking for our public school principals for Excel. Running it meant being away from Audrey for 8 straight hours, which happens rarely because I bring her to work on regular days and I haven't been out on a social trip that lasted 8 hours.

Eight hours without baby means I absolutely have to pump milk. For the benefit of non-lactating people, breastfeeding mothers need to pump when away from the baby so that:

1. our milk supply does not drop. Milk supply is dependent on demand, so if there is no action to extract milk from the breast, the body thinks you no longer need milk and consequently reduces supply. Pumping removes milk when mom and baby are not together so the body continues to produce milk.

2. we avoid getting infections. When the breasts get engorged with milk and it is not expressed, it can lead to plugged milk ducts, which can lead to a painful condition known as mastitis, an infection of the breast tissue. Mastitis may require surgery if not treated right away. Pumping relieves engorgement and therefore reduces our risk of getting plugged ducts.

3. if ever we need to be apart again, baby still has food because mama pumped milk and has several bags of milk ready in the fridge.

I once spilled milk right after pumping and almost had a heart attack.

Because I would be away for 8 hours, I planned on pumping three times throughout the day. Thankfully, during the first module of our training program, the DepEd Superintendent, Sir Ding, allowed me to pump in the anteroom of his office. So I knew that at least I'll have a private place to pump milk.

I've pumped in more random places. I've also read about Bianca Gonzales-Intal who pumped in her seat under a shirt while watching an NBA game live. Also a mom who pumped while watching Les Miserables in Solaire. I mostly pump milk at my office and a few times in legit breastfeeding stations. Other than that, so far, I've pumped milk at/in:

1. the car, on the way to wherever we have to go (several times; car tints are lifesavers)
2. the car, while parked (several times as well--in parking lots outside a restaurant, across the US Embassy, outside DepEd Pampanga)
3. Funeraria Paz (not their restroom, but at the actual room of the wake. Thankfully it was 8 in the morning so there were no other visitors but my high school friends and me)
3. The waiting area beside the ladies' restroom at CCP
4. DepEd Division of Pampanga Superintendent's office's anteroom
5. At a corner of the Teachers' Training Center in DepEd Pampanga

At the DepEd Pampanga Superintendent's office

I once wondered if I could pump while watching a show in CCP. But I use an electric pump and it's not exactly the quietest machine in the world.

Indeed, you never truly realize the needs of other people (especially the marginalized) until you experience their life for yourself. I never once thought about breastfeeding stations even when I knew a lot of breastfeeding mothers. Now that I am one, I'm beginning to see which places here are really mother- and baby-friendly. There's a law mandating companies to provide lactation rooms and lactation breaks for working and nursing moms, but I feel we still have a long way to go before breastfeeding and pumping mothers are given the space they need to feed their children.

training preps

Have not been able to update this blog for over a week. The Excel team has been busy preparing for the second module of our Leadership Development Program for school heads in Pampanga tomorrow until Friday. We will be tackling communication and design thinking/innovation for these principals. My staff--all two of them--are new hires, so we have been inserting transition and turnover stuff in the midst of our preps. I myself have been reviewing and getting ready to conduct a design thinking crash course for the second day of our seminar. Thank God for nonprofits like IDEO and schools like Stanford that provide free resources for budget-constrained organizations like us. Thank God as well that I took that design thinking course at Penn. I'm actually quite excited and anxious at the same time.

My supplies arsenal

I'm hoping to be able to squeeze out our Fellows' creative juices enough that they are able to come up with innovative solutions for some of their schools' problems. Our goal really is to support them in improving the quality of education in their respective schools, which benefits not only the students, but everyone in the community as well. When they begin to communicate well and think in innovative ways, who knows what leaps the school can make with regard to improvements.

Great schools produce great (and happy) students!

We travel to Pampanga today. Of course, the baby goes with us, so the house goes with us as well.

Did we forget anything?

Internet is slow where will be, so updates on our training will have to wait. In the meantime, let me get back to reviewing.

happy 5th month audrey!

Yesterday we celebrated our daughter's 5th month with a small handaan. We've been marking her "monthsaries" since her first month. Before I became a mother, I had this belief that celebrating monthsaries for a baby was a little too much. Motherhood does indeed change you in more ways than one.  I've come to the conclusion that baby celebrations are really for the parents, not for the kid. So it doesn't matter that our daughter won't remember her 5th monthsary cake, because we will (and it was delicious!). And in this age of cameraphones, Audrey will be able to see just how much we loved having her every month.

Cake is always good

Her parties are nothing fancy, though, and we celebrate it with the people in our household. Last night we had spaghetti, barbecue, chicken, and crispy pata. We served spaghetti to everyone in our building for merienda in the afternoon.

The barangay with the Ball

Can't have a picture without Papa!

I can't believe it's been five months since we welcomed Audrey to our family. That means I haven't had a decent night's sleep in five months, but I wouldn't trade our little ball of cuteness and love for all the sleep in the world.

Praying you'll always be a happy baby

Happy 5th month my darling! Mama and Papa love you so much!

NGO Spotlight on Excel PH

Excel Center for Educational Leadership (Excel) is the NGO that I started two years ago to address a gap in the public education sector.

When you think of NGOs addressing education, you think of poor but deserving students. Scholarships. Books. School supplies. Support for underachieving students. These are the usual forms of support that NGOs provide to public schools and their students. All well and good, those students deserve to go to school and receive quality education as much as anybody else.

The school head influences the kind of environment our students learn in.

Which is why Excel focuses on training public school principals on leadership. The principal is the head of the school; his or her decisions and actions impact not only the school but also the community. Under poor leadership by a principal, no matter how much scholarship money the students receive, quality education is just beyond their grasp. We need both student support and teacher support in order for our public education system to improve.

Excel trains new principals and head teachers in the area of personal leadership and community engagement. We aim to complement the Department of Education's own principal training program, through the National Educators Academy of the Philippines (NEAP), which provides the more technical aspects of leadership and management within the structure of the DepEd. Our goal at Excel is that our principals develop their own personal strengths as leaders in order to fully engage their community and think more innovatively.

Excel's second batch of Fellows from Pampanga are ready to hone their leadership skills.

We are inviting you (yes, you, dear reader) to be our partner in strengthening our principals' leadership skills. You can actually "Adopt a Fellow" by donating just P200 to Excel. That P200 will shoulder the food and materials of one of our Fellows for one seminar. Our Leadership Development Program is composed of four modules or four seminars. If you want to adopt one Fellow for the whole duration of the LDP, you can donate P800. If you're feeling particularly generous, you can also sponsor our entire batch of Pampanga Fellows for one seminar--25 Fellows for P4500 for their food and materials. If you're really looking to unload a couple hundred thousand pesos, you can also fund the costs of training a whole batch for the entire LDP, including speakers, transportation,  and accommodation via our corporate sponsorship packages. Our Pampanga batch is now halfway done, but you can opt to sponsor the remaining two seminars OR sponsor our next one.

Several ways to support our principals!

To know more about us or how you can help, you can visit www.excelph.org or shoot us an email at marketing@excelph.org.