My Jouney to Becoming a Milk Donor - Part II

Please read Part I of this series of posts before reading this one!



It was just me and my sweet boy that day at home. I had sat a days supply of breast milk out from the deep freezer so that it could defrost overnight, as instructed from my breastfeeding class. I warmed the milk before Caleb's first bottle and settled in for the first meal where my "girls" were free! The excitement I felt at this very moment was indescribable! Now I could just pack a diaper bag with as many packages of my milk as Caleb needed and head out into the world and become a part of society once again! Traveling to see family would now become so much easier because I didn't have to stop along the way to pump, no more sterilizing the (what seemed like thousands) breast pump equipment, no more packing the breast pump on our trips, no more crying baby while I pumped. Today was the day!



As I turned the bottle up for my little darling to drink, I realized all of my hard work had finally paid off. Until he refused to drink it. "Huh," I thought. "Maybe he's just not hungry right now." I dump the bottle and try to comfort my crying child. I don't know why he's upset! He has a clean diaper, he's had a nap, he doesn't seem to be hungry. I guess he's teething. I don't know.



Feeding hour comes around again and I get the second pouch of breast milk out and ready for Caleb. He acts like he's starving! He grabs the bottle, yanks it to his mouth and as soon as the milk hits his tongue he screams bloody murder and won't have anything to do with it! Now, I know it's not the bottle. Caleb had been getting my breast milk through bottle feeding for quite some time now. So what was it? The nipple wasn't clogged, the milk was warm, he was hungry....what was going on? I decided to make sure the milk wasn't ruined. It shouldn't be though. I followed all of the milk pumping and storage guidelines down to a T. I unscrewed the nipple from the bottle and took a big sniff. Oh my goodness. It smelt rancid! What was wrong with my milk?!? As any great and wonderful mom would do.......I tasted it. Yes, I tasted it. Don't judge me. It tasted like soapy, metallic-like, and just pure disgusting. No wonder Caleb didn't want it! Oh well, I must have just messed up that package of milk somehow.....right?



I go and get another bag. Open it, smell it......same thing. I do this again and again. All of the milk smells ruined. I panic. What now? What's going on? Why is this happening? What did I do wrong? I can't tell you how many questions I had popping into my head at that moment. I did have formula at the house because Caleb drank one bottle of formula at night to help his hunger during the night, so I just fixed a bottle of formula and Caleb drank it like he was starving to death! I called Jason. I told him something was wrong with my milk and I didn't know what. That night we did some research and this is what we found out.



I have what's called, Excess Lipase. After getting home, Jason got on the computer (and if any of you know Jason, he can find ANYTHING on the Internet!) and did some research. He found several things, but this blog called Simply Rebekah was the most helpful. Rebekah had the same issue as me! After reading several of her posts, I had a better understanding of exactly what was going on. Basically, I produced too much Lipase causing my milk to smell soured after 24 hours (even if it's frozen), even though it's still nutritionally acceptable.

Read more about her explanation of Lipase HERE.



On this mom's blog, she had several posts about her milk and how she ended up donating it to a milk bank because her daughter wouldn't drink it. While I was reading these posts by Rebekah, my heart sank. It hit me in those moments, that Caleb wouldn't be receiving the benefit of all of my hard work. I know that sentence is short, but the impact it had on me was tremendous. You can't understand until you've gone through it, but let me try and help you out. My heart was ripped out of my chest. Tears welled up in my eyes and once I started I couldn't stop. MONTHS OF HARD WORK! Months of listening to my newborn cry for his mommy but she was pumping because she loved him. I told him this over and over while I was pumping, both for his benefit to hearing my voice, but also for my benefit of reassuring myself I was doing the right thing. It felt like a death in the family. I had spent God knows how much money on pumping supplies, a deep freezer, and not to mention time spent away from society and my family! I had given up everything to provide for my son and it was taken away from me in one single blow. All the benefits I had learned about a baby receiving breast milk for the first year were running through my mind. Now he wasn't going to have those benefits. What the heck was I supposed to do now? All I could do was cry. And cry I did. A lot.

Please read about Rebekah's experience HERE. She explains it really well also.



After reading Rebekah's post (above), it got implanted in my brain about becoming a milk donor. But how does one start this process? I have so much milk! I told Jason that I would never throw all of that milk away. If it came down to it, he would have to because the thought of just throwing it away made me want to throw up. I'm not kidding. So, I started doing some research the next day. My heart was broken.



To be continued...

R