Welcome to Friday Favorites! If you’re new to the blog, here’s how to play along. Every Friday I devote my post to showcasing awesome blog posts by other bloggers that I’ve read over the past week or two. I invite you to do the same and link up here, OR just link up directly to those posts you’ve loved this week. This is any easy way to share the love and find great new blogs.

The subject of these posts this week is completely coincidental, but I realized they go in order nicely.

Anyone who has had to name a baby can probably relate to Carina‘s post How to Name a Child. With Baby J, we had his name picked out before I was even pregnant, but picking a name for M was a huuuuge process.

After the naming (for many people anyway) comes the birth of the baby. Gina of The Feminist Breeder gave birth to her daughter Jolene on Thursday. She had the birth documented in real time, complete with a few short videos and some photographs. Yes, I followed along for most of it. If you want to check it out, the TFB Live Birth is archived here. And congratulations to Gina not only on her beautiful baby girl, but on getting the home birth that she wanted.

And finally, there is feeding the baby. Eileen wrote Who Knew I Had to Quit Breastfeeding to Get Closer to My Daughter Part 1 and Part 2. She discusses the difficulty in pumping, feelings of guilt, doing what was right for her and her family, and the need for support instead of condemnation.