From Barbara:
This is an update to what has been going on in my life with my businesses. An interesting story! Enjoy!
A few summers my sister’s fiancee and I were talking about my career and how I got to where I was now with my work and career. He asked with confusion on his face, “Did you plan to end up where you have???” The answer was a resounding no. My career has been very much evolving over a 39 year period in ways that only make sense looking back.
When I was younger I knew three things: I loved teaching, I wanted to have children, and I wanted to stay home with them until they were old enough for elementary school. Fortunately, my husband agreed with this plan. I had a Master’s degree in curriculum development, finished, whew, right before my first son was born. I put that degree on hold as I became a parent, devoting my time to my kids. Like many of you, I struggled with nursing my first baby so I became involved in a peer to peer support group, became a leader of those groups, starting teaching prenatal breast/chestfeeding classes to parents, and then became an IBCLC the year my youngest went off to kindergarten.
I slowly started to build my private practice and then in 2008 I opened The Breastfeeding Center of Ann Arbor (BFCAA), a place for all of families nursing needs. We had weekly support groups, consults, classes for families, a human milk depot, and some retail. I had hoped to do this with a colleague but that fell through so I did it alone. I had this business near my kid’s school. It was perfect!
In 2012 I started offering more professional lactation trainings under BFCAA. I was able to combine my two greatest professional loves, education and lactation. I was lucky enough to be joined later on by Jessica Beemsterboer who has a Master’s degree in adult education. The two of us were having such fun! Jessica started as my intern, quickly began teaching with me, and became an IBCLC herself.
In 2020 everything went from in person to virtual. Because Jessica and I were using the flipped class room model of having students do preparatory work using an online education system, we were ready to embrace the best (and worst) of Zoom and go virtual. Our work expanded world wide and it was clear the Breastfeeding Center of Ann Arbor did not represent what I was doing. I was also started to apply not only for lactation CERPs but Nursing Contact Hours. To remain conflict free I needed to stop selling any retail. I needed a new business that was devoted to my professional lactation trainings and so LactaLearning was born in 2022. I added my co-founder Nancy Mohrbacher and we took off! Owning both businesses was a lot, too much, so in the summer of 2024 I have now passed on the running to BFCAA to Jessica and Veronica, both IBCLCs I have trained and am spending most of my time on professional lactation education.
It has been a journey!
As I sit in my new home office I know how lucky I am to have followed my gut and had the resources to slowly grow my business. I never imaged I would be so successful but with the help of a lot of people, here I am! I hope you enjoy my story!
If you work with breast/chestfeeding families and who is passionate about lactation support OR a and you want to turn your passion for nursing into professional practice, check out LactaLearning.com and consider following us on social media!
Instagram @lacta.learning
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