I'm a Milkin' Mama :)

Yesterday was a bittersweet day. I haven't shared this with many people, but for a while now I've been in the process of donating all the milk I pumped while Matthew was alive. While he was still with us, I was so faithful in pumping every day because I wanted to give him the best shot at life that I could. Whenever he got a feeding in the hospital (whether through the tube or bottle) it was always my milk. I also wanted still have a full supply when he got home.

Well, that day never came and I arrived home from Charleston with a freezer full of milk that I no longer knew what to do with. It made me mad to look at it and think about all the hours I spent with that stupid breast pump when it was all for nothing. I hated, I repeat, HATED pumping! I felt like a cow and resented that I was hooked up to a machine rather than having my baby in my arms like a regular mother.

I almost threw it all away, but for some reason the idea of donating it popped into my head. I had never heard of anyone else who had done that, but I figured, hey, might as well try. I called MCG and MUSC and neither of those hospitals accepted donated milk. So then I went online and found these twin sisters out in California that have started a breast milk donation site called Milkin' Mamas. The milk they receive is sent to a lab that makes human milk fortifier and is used in NICUs around the country. Most of the babies that benefit from this are premies who have complications due to their small size and underdeveloped organs.

So I started the qualification process about a month ago (lots of questions, blood tests, and genetic screening), was approved, and yesterday I finally packed up all my milk and shipped it out - 425 ounces of it!

I took a picture of Claire with the two boxed-up coolers :)

It sure doesn't make up for missing Matthew, but still, I'm so thankful that I was able donate and maybe, just maybe help prevent another mom from having to go through what I just went through.