Mama Fresh

Andy working in the garden isn't the only way we've been producing over here--Jess has been producing breastmilk all summer!

Since Theodore was a preemie, they started me on a pumping regimen in the hospital (many preemies don't suck strongly enough to keep up the mother's milk supply, so they have you pump after every feeding to keep up your supply)--over the weeks and months since then, I've been weaning back the pumping, with a few hiccups along the way (plugged ducts, mastitis = no fun!). All that pumping early on filled our freezer fast, so I decided to donate it. I had looked into donation with Simon, but never had pumped enough (most milk banks require a minimum of 100 or 150 ounces to donate). I always thought if I had another baby, I'd pump more, sooner, so that I could donate--and now I had pumped WAY more, WAY sooner than I ever expected, so it seemed like the natural thing to do with our surplus.

It was a bit of a process getting approved, but once I did, the cooler arrived and I filled it up and sent it on. It felt good to be doing something useful with all the milk--we had run out of freezer space and if we didn't clear some out I would have had to start dumping what I pumped, which would have been a real waste! All told, I donated 401 ounces of breastmilk to the Mother's Milk Bank.

Thanks for sharing your supply, little Theodore! Some babies out there in California will be better off because of it :-).