Bumps on the Road- The Event (part 2)

This is part 2 from my earlier post "Bumps on the Road- A woman's story"

Here is an open letter than I sent to my friends and family to help me fundraise for "Bumps on the Road 9K Walk for Pregnancy". At this point in my life it's very hard for me to separate my personal life with my professional one. The work that I do is so relevant, and some would say that it is that passion that drives me to love my job!

2012 BOTR Walk- Mayor Jim Watson, Me at 24 weeks
and Councillor David Chernushenko (Old Ottawa South)

Dear friends and family, 
As you know every year I organize the CFWH Bumps on the Road 9K Walk, it's an event that is very close to my heart.
Some of you may already know that I had a miscarriage almost 2 years ago. This walk was inspired by that tragic event and was created to support the issues that pregnant women can face.
Last year, it was bitter sweet, as I was pregnant with Victor and going through so much from pelvic pain, to swelling and even pre-eclampsia in the last couple of weeks. 

This year, I will have Victor by my side and will support the walk to help other women who may not have been as lucky as I was during my labour. 

I hope you can all join me on October 20th and walk not only for me, but for your children, your mother and you!
Please visit our website at www.bumpsontheroad.ca to make a donation or sign up for the event!
Don't forget to share this with your friends too and help us achieve our 9K for 9K goal!
Thank you in advance for your support and I hope to see you all there! Chantal 

If you would like to read more about how this event came to be, check out my in depth interview in 2011 with Local Tourist Ottawa here.

 

Nostalgia setting in

Gawd, I look awful. I wish I had some nice
candid artistic shots done.

I am feeling a bit nostalgic these days watching Little V growing up so quickly. I try to hold him in my arms and force him to fall asleep like he used to when he was a small nugget. Now, he just wants to look around and play... I call him "Bajiggity". And inside I'm like... SLEEP and CUDDLE with me!!!! hahaha

I try to squeeze him in my favourite clothes of his that I don't want to let go, and lately I just can't stop taking pictures of him! As a friend said, "I'm trying to memorize his little face"... I couldn't have said it better myself.

The first three months for me was tough. Breastfeeding was a challenging nightmare, little man used to wake up every 1.5 hours to be fed at night and I was just plain scared and tired all the time. At three months, we developed a routine and now at 7 months, I can finally say that I know who my son is.

It's such a strange adjustment to have a piece of you living in the outside world. I have to say, at first I just wanted to run away and be alone. I did not have post partum depression, but I was struggling with myself. I knew that I loved my son unconditionally, I just wanted to be selfish. I wanted my arms to myself. I didn't want to hold anything, lug anything, push anything, clean anything... I just wanted to be the old me. I think it takes a lot of courage to openly speak your mind, because you feel like you are being judged if you don't "fall in love" with your baby immediately. I also struggled with attachment issues, I felt like I didn't HAVE to be with him 24/7, I was more than happy to leave him with grandma and go run some errands.

Mind you, running errands when you are a new mom consists of slapping lipstick on to go to Walmart and do a quick one stop shop grocery. Thank goodness for their new produce section!
"Diapers, maybe a new t-shirt for me, get milk, check if the formula is on sale... wait I have coupons and flyers for price matching!" This was me for the first few months. What a nerd!

Little V, now at 7 months

You know how in Twilight the werewolves imprint themselves on the vampires... well this sounds dorky, but I think something like that happened to me and V recently. I just can't get enough of his little face. I think now that we have a routine and I am not sleep deprived, I have more time to enjoy him. I think it helps that he laughs with me, he eats my face (and drools all over), gives me squeezes (while pulling my hair) and pets my arm hair (hahaha). I think I needed that reciprocal interaction with him to compensate for the lack of bonding we missed out on since I did not breastfeed.

Just a little heads up that the next few posts will be dedicated to remembering things that I used to do with V, so one day, on the eve of his wedding I can look back and remember my little blue eyed monkey.

Happy 7 month b-day V! Mama love you bunny rabbit xox

Why fundraising for women's health is hard

You're probably thinking that I am crazy for making such a bold statement, but yes, it is extremely hard to fundraise for women's health! I have been working for a women's health organization for five years now, and specifically fundraising for 3 years for the Canadian Foundation for Women's Health, a national charity that raises money for research in women's sexual and reproductive health. Although one might think that this is an easy job, trust me when I tell you fundraising here comes with its challenges.

Successful fundraising equation
For fundraising to work, you must use this simple equation:

Cause/Problem + Passion = Support

In this equation "cause" is the reason you are raising funds for, the "Passion" is the person/business that is either affected by your cause or has a solution for the cause and "Support" is either monetary or in-kind.

What's Hindering the Support
Here are the factors that make it difficult to fundraise for women's health:

• "Isn't breast cancer women's health?", "I already support breast cancer", "I'm wearing pink today"
• Women's health is such a broad topic, specifically I am referring to women's sexual and reproductive health, the rest of our health is pretty much the same as men.
• Research that is needed for such things as "Pregnancy" don't come with a medication that can "cure" it. Therefore fundraising for it is less obvious. In fact, because we limit the use of medication during pregnancy, this makes it even more difficult.
• Remember when we talked about Passion, well in this case it's actually too broad of a spectrum. One can argue that Women's Health affects every single person on this planet. Why? Because we all came from our mother's womb. 
• Anyone that has taken a marketing class knows that you can't just advertise to "everyone" you need a target market. Well, in this case, if we narrow it down, one of our target audience is new moms raising a family on her maternity leave budget and that are struggling to make it by, or a young family that is spending every last dime on fertility treatments. Wow, we should be able to raise tons for research this way.
• Back to the Cause, what's so terrible about "Women's Health" that we need to raise money for? Well, obviously if you are asking yourself this question you have no clue what's either coming to you or you are a man. Women go through so many changes during different stages in their lives. As soon as a woman hits puberty, she is destined to encounter a plethora of unique "challenges' with her body. She will become a mother, or perhaps suffer infertility. She may have specific diseases such as Endometriosis, Fibroids or Vulvodynia. And later in life she may have uncontrollable symptoms of menopause and suffer from problems like incontinence. Dare I also mention that throughout this entire time a woman will be dodging the "C" word and try to protect all her organs; from het skin, to her ovaries, to her cervix and breasts.

Fashion, Heels and Cosmetics are NOT related to Women's Health
Why don't you just throw pink cocktail party and a fashion show to raise money for women's health? Contradictory to popular belief, high heels, fashion and cosmetics are not really related to women's health. In fact, many of these things are ironically bad for women. Heels destroy your feet, our fashion world makes it beautiful to have an eating disorder and cosmetics have made us more shallow, hate our natural selves, question our beauty and have been linked to cancer. Yes, women like these things (and trust me, so do I!). But this is a way to attract women and make fundraising "trendy". I am not sure how much the participants are doing it for the "Passion".


Fundraising is a difficult, yet rewarding job. When you have managed to convince someone that they should support you, because they already believe in your cause, you can rest assure knowing that you have instilled passion in one person. The nice thing about passion is that it is highly contagious!

The intention of my post is not for the readers to feel sorry for me and give to the charity that I represent, but more for you to find a cause and match it with your passion.

Good luck!