THE mother of a five-month-old baby was followed and questioned by police and security guards after she used a parents’ room at Westfield Marion to express breast milk, earlier this month.
Sharleen Salmon, who works at Marion, said she felt harassed and was embarrassed after a woman and a female cleaner at the shopping centre complained to police and centre security about her using the room during her half-hour lunch break.
The young mum, who has recently returned to work in the hair and beauty industry, to support her family, said “I was in a private area (in the parents room) behind the curtain and this cleaner just walked in on me and watched what I was doing.
“She told me the parents room was for parents and breastfeeding only – and that I wasn’t allowed to eat lunch in there.’’
Ms Salmon said she was using a standard breast pump to express milk to feed her baby daughter Justice, who was being cared for by her father.
She said the cleaner made her feel as though “I wasn’t allowed to be in there. I was doing something very personal and for her to stand there and watch me was embarrassing.’’
Ms Salmon, who expresses milk once a day, said she was followed back to work by a security guard and a police officer, who said a formal complaint had been made to centre management.
This is absolutely pathetic! What on earth is this damn world coming too??!!
I found this story at http://guardian-messenger.whereilive.com.au after reading a post in the BubHub forums I frequent.
It made me feel angry about the treatment of this young mother & makes me wonder what kind of treatment I may receive in the future if placed in this situation.
Breastfeeding is vital to sustaining life to an infant whether it’s thru immediate contact feeding or expressing milk for later use. There is so much negativity existing already about public feeding, however when a mother cannot even express in a private area without being harrassed, then socety has gone way too far out of line.
The Security and especially the Cleaner should have approached the woman with respect & credibility. I believe that Ms. Salmon has every ground to make an uproar against Westfield Marion in South Australia & the Cleaner involved. This woman should be removed from her position as she had no right in speaking to Ms. Salmon in the manner she did. Who did she think she was???? Sounds like shoot now ask questions later syndrome.
SHAME ON YOU WESTFIELD MARION!
That’s Life! Magazine is once again offering the Great Aussie Pie Contest.
My very best friend & her partner owns a store down the South Coast on the Princes Hwy called East Lynne Store. They have been involved in award winning pie making since taking ownership several years ago & have continued on the legacy. It’s is a busy little stop where you can get Everyday Necessities, Pies & Cakes, Hot Coffee, Newspapers, Local Wares, Ice Creams & Ice etc as well as a Liquor Store & Petrol.
Friendly faces & good conversation with locals. We stop in every trip to Mum’s on our way home for a quick catch up & to refill with supplies & we ALWAYS buy Family Pies for dinner. Tonight we are enjoying a Steak & Onion & a Chicken, Bacon & Leek pie followed by Lemon Meringue Pie… MMMMM! All Homemade by Michelle & her lovely staff on the premises.
These guys are often woken at ungodly hours by petrol-stranded or broken down tourists passing by or with grim news of Car accidents along the road. They look after the locals by ensuring fresh supplies of bread & milk etc is available each & every day to save the trip into the nearest town which is just over 20kms away. Passerbys are also well looked after with their service, groceries & knowledge & information available of the local area.
They have 2 very young children, which are also my Godchildren hehe. So I am of course giving them my vote as not only do I believe their pies deserve the fame, but so do they!
So here’s to Michelle & Colin at East Lynne Store… Good Luck to you guys!
If you love their pies & agree or just feel like joining me in this competition, please vote for them by SMS. Send the code 007 to 19710179. Alternatively you can call 1900 955 031.
Did I mention each & every vote you place enters you into a Draw with That’s life! for the chance to win $500??!! Get voting!
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It’s always good watching the world come together as one. The 2008 Beijing Olympics is no exception.
The medals have begun to be won in several events. All of them no doubt deserving to the respective winners.
It was a satisfying feeling watching Australia collect it’s first Gold Medal today at the swimming. Not only this, but Stephanie Rice earned herself a new World Record in the water finishing the Women’s 400m Individual Medley at 4:29:45. IMPRESSIVE!
Australia also became proud to bear a Bronze Medal later in the Women’s 4×100m Freestyle Relay.
Congratulations to the 4 girls Cate Campbell, Alice Mills, Melanie Schlanger & Libby Trickett.
Silver was won by the United States & Gold went to the Netherlands.
Congratulations to you all for your efforts so far. You’ve done yourselves & your Nations proud.
I have added a Beijing Olympics 2008 Medal Tally widget to my sidebar where I can keep track of the medals at a glance when needed. You can get yours here too.
SK & I just saw a hilarious new Four’n Twenty Pie advert. Right in the middle of an Olympics ad break on channel 7.
Have a look yourself at the website where you can view the ad if you haven’t seen it yourself. What I find hilarious is that you can actually purchase the said plate! Funny stuff!
Looks like in tomorrow’s shopping we will buy some pies just for the plate… LOL
Four’n Twenty pie. “Have a lunch that’s edible on a plate that’s credible!”
Circumcision is a very volitile discussion topic.
I came across this vid whilst perusing the BubHub forums, where a member posted it to try to “enlighten” the discussion.
I’d love to know your thoughts…
SK & I spent some time out in the garden today. Unfortunately it started raining so we tried our best to get evrything done without getting too wet! However by the time we did come in & not too wet I may add, we just could not warm up! It became so cold! Plumeting to just under 10c by 4pm. EEEeeeek!
Anyway, we managed to transplant some beetroot, it looks small but strong. Don’t know how it will fair up. We also seperated & spread out the Rolli Polli Carrots. We ditched some plants not looking so well as we haven’t been giving the garden the TLC it has been needing & without offering that level of care, there was no use trying to salvage what had already been almost spent.
We planted 6 new Broad Bean seedlings that are quite strong into a tub with a downpipe trellis & a few thin stakes. 4 new Tomatoes were planted into 2 long tubs & incased into a warm Tomato Wrap LOL. If my memory serves me correctly we have a Sweet Bite Cherry Tomato, Acid Free Roma, Black Russian & a Yellow Zebra, I am looking forward to these fruiting when they do! A new strawberry plant was placed into a fountain tower to match the one we already have growing. Then we transplanted SK’s Green Tea Tree & The Eggplant into bigger pots.
All in all we did a few other things like place slug pellets, drain the worm farm & rotate some soil etc so we were kept pretty busy for the short amount of time we were outside. I enjoy the time we spend in the Garden & wish we had more days together to do it.
On another note, we will be heading down to mum’s at Batemans Bay in 2 weeks time for a night or 2. It will be nice seeing mum again however we are taking down a new oven & rangehood we purchased on behalf of my Bro K & his wife D. I know they will be looking forward to getting it installed as the stove in the kitchen currently is almost kaput!
Tenpin Bowling has kept us busy as we have recently joined a 2nd League. Sunday nights at 6pm SK, M-I-L & myself are the Channel Surfers in a Doubles League called The Good Times League. Therefore each Sunday only 2 out of the 3 of us bow. We still bowl in Tuesday night League however there is hardly ever more than 4 teams turn up on any given night. SK got some new gear for his bday which he loves using & has pretty much broken everything in. So we are enjoying our Leagues each week & meeting new people on the Sunday night.
PCOS video created by Mindi Piasecki.
My Blog has recently become a little dormant. I do apologies for not updating as much.
The reason being that atm, basically I can’t focus on much else but our infertility & trying to conceive a baby.
I begin my day as normal, however am finding that I can’t even do house chores without stopping & running to my laptop to look up something else or even watch a video on YouTube. Therefore I would only be blogging multiple posts on my thoughts or what I may have found. I’m sure it would bore most of you!
I have however started a TTC Diary which can be found on the BubHub Forums. I’ve linked to this so if anyone is actually interested in having a read, they can do it away from my blog. I warn you, you’ll need a cuppa! LOL
I have found & learnt from a lot of information from other people on this forum, by reading tonnes of threads. Mostly these are people that all share a common factor – Parenthood or the want of. Personal stories, advice & support can be sought from this site & hopefully you may find it useful for your own use. I can’t speak highly enough of this forum & what it offers.
On a different note, Duff is in Perth for the week & the house is quite different without her here! She will be coming back on a 6am flight arriving in Sydney at midday. I am not realy looking forward to this trip due to WYD events, but I do hope the airport & surrounding roads will be calm on Saturday, long enough for us to get in & get out!
We had a Rental Inspection of the house yesterday & was curious to learn that the Agent from our Real Estate doing the inspection is new & she actually took photos of inside our house as she wondered through it, telling my Mother-In-Law to go & continue what she was doing so she could wonder about alone. I am unsure why this happened & didn’t ask as I was actually showering when she was here & I did not meet her. But it irks me a little that she did take photos, not that we have anything to hide as we look after the property as expected, however the R.E has photos of the property in great detail from just before us moving in. Why do they need photos now? No photos were taken last time anyone did an inspection here nor did we receive any information that this was going to occurr. I would assume if any photos were needed that it would have been on something needing a repair? Especially considering they already have photos as mentioned before. I am left scratching my head.
I pose this question; Does this invade our privacy as tenants? ‘Cos it sure feels like it!
We are at the end of the first week of school holidays in NSW & I have noticed since living here that during the school holidays; the traffic doesn’t seem to increase too badly, the shops can be busier however not too mind-numbing & life just generally continues at a nice calm & steady pace. At least it seems that way!
My niece L arrived here Tuesday evening & my niece H arrived on Thursday evening. They enjoyed a relaxing stay with us & went home Saturday evening. I always enjoy having them stay with us & they are such good girls. The love we have for them is immense & they are always welcome to come spend time with us.
Because of our current financial situation we could not afford to take them out to do the typical school holiday stuff. However we did take them Tenpin Bowling again which is an activity they realy enjoy being involved in with us. This opportunity also allowed me to have a throw, which was my first since the surgery. I believe I bowled ok & I had no pain or after-effects so I was quite happy with that. I shall be back playing League as of this week.
After dropping the girls home, we went to Bunnings to pick up Duff from work & take her to the airport. She flew out to Perth for a one week holiday where she will catch up with Dad & her friends. In particular & the main reason this holiday has been scheduled for several months is that her Best Friend K had a baby girl 5 weeks ago. We hope Duff takes many photos while there so we can “Oooh” & “Ahhh” at her piccies since we can’t be there ourselves for a cuddle. Not sure if one week will be enough for Duff to catch up with everyone, however we know she will make the most of it!
On the homefront, I have started documenting our TTC on FertilityFriend.com . I have such irregular cycles & I cannot predict my cycle lengths. I need to track everything so closely now & it isn’t always so easy when your body simply doesn’t do what is expected. Because of my PCOS I have trouble ovulating. To stimulate this I am taking Metformin XR 500mg (slow release) x3 per night to reduce my insulin levels & encourage Ovulation. I have been taking Metformin XR for several months now however I am realy bad at remembering to take my meds & often miss a night or 3. Since the surgery & the good news about my tubes, I have been taking them religiously & look at our situation in a refreshingly new manner.
Friday I started using an Ovulation Test Kit.
Result = Neg.
Saturday’s result = Pos!
A positive result means my FSH levels show I should be ready to Ovulate within the next 24-36 hours. I am very excited & as you can probably guess…. ShadowKnight & I are focused only on Baby Making! LOL
I am trying not to get my hopes up too much as I have shown signs of Ovulating before (my PCOS only tends to allow me to ovulate 2-3 times per year give or take) with no success afterwards. I now put this down to the fact that my tubes were blocked previously, therefore… when I could supply the Gas I could not get it to the Oven!
Send us as much Baby Dust/ Good Vibes/Magic as possible & hopefully within the near future we can have a “Bun in the Oven baking nicely” 
This past week I had to go to Sydney to have surgery due to ongoing infertility issues. We have been working on becoming pregnant for over 3 years now with no success. During this time we have however found out other underlying medical issues that have assisted the infertility process which we are busily working on reversing.
I went into Royal Hospital for Women Randwick Tuesday for 2 procedures, Laparoscopy & Hysteroscopy.
All the staff at the hospital were wonderful & very accomodating. I actually enjoyed my stay even though I wasn’t near home & had no visitors except for ShadowKnight. The food was also very nice, with far too much of it on the tray!
Anyway, I was scheduled to have 90 minutes of surgery & spent a mere 30 mins in surgery. Straight away this means well!
They went in looking for reasons for infertility including the blocked tubes which showed at the last Hy-Co-Sy test & looking for any Endometriosis, PCOS & any other factors leading to Infertility, even though I was diagnosed with PCOS a year ago.
They had no probs getting into the areas needed & immediately detected my ovaries were enlarged, consistant with PCOS. Both Tubes had fluid passed through them which resulted in clear tubes & spilling over the ovaries….. Which is awesome news, as during the last test (Hy-Co-Sy) this did not occur! I believe one tube has small issues, but should result in clear ovulation when needed. Therefore they will need to keep an eye on this tube for eptopic pregnancies etc.
No Endometriosis or adhesions were detected & my uterus & my upper abdomen areas were normal.
I stayed overnight Tuesday night as I was terribly ill from the anaesthetic. Throwing up everywhere afterwards! However SK stayed by my side the whole day after emerging from Recovery, no matter how groggy & how much I dozed on & off, till they basically kicked him out!
He was about to leave at 8pm when the Lady sharing my room received new visitors.. Which sent SK whirling on his heels back to my side till the nurse came in & said… Time to leave folks! He was fantastic & when we got the news that evening from the Dr’s who operated on me, we were both so excited & I have not seen SK so happy since we first met.
Wednesday morning the Dr’s paid me another visit to allow me to go home later in the day & retold me the news etc. Dr Abbott who was in charge of the actual Surgery told me he has his fingers crossed that with future Clomid Treatment, we should be well underway of growing a healthy baby by Christmas. This was definitely great news to hear, but won’t be believed till it actually happens. It is however more believable now than ever before.
Therefore I am seeing Prof Eden again soon (August 6th) to hopefully begin or at least discuss treatment of Chlomid & possibility of being managed by IVF in Wollongong to save on the trips to Syd all the time for appointments. I won’t be 100% sure of this until I actually do see him.
As for now I am home & happy, a little sore but not needing any drugs for pain management.
Will keep everyone updated as things progress.