Madelyn’s Milk….

I’ve talked about breastfeeding and how fortunate I’ve felt to be able to breastfeed Madelyn since the beginning.  Being able to breastfeed was something I didn’t get to experience with Noah, although I was able to build a pretty intimate relationship with the hospital pump loaned to me for the first 12 days of his life. There is so much said, discussed and shared about breastfeeding when you’re pregnant.  They talk about it like it’s the only way to go… how you shouldn’t even think a second about NOT doing it.  And then when the baby comes and your trying to recover from birthing a live human out of your nether regions, you then have the baby thrust upon you in another one of your regions that hasn’t yet been ripped apart.  Okay, I’m getting a bit graphic here, but let me continue a moment.  As if you haven’t experience enough trauma yet, unleashing a new round of “how sore can I be”, a baby is given to your loving arms and God willing they begin the beautiful act of breastfeeding.  Kind of cool that it is a natural instinctive response for some babies.  And that first time, when you have no clue what you’re doing, you think “Wow, she really knows how to suck.”  And then there’s the second day of life when she wants nothing more than to suck on your body part for almost 24 hours straight.  Keep in mind, you’re trying to recover from birthing a live human out of your nether regions.  Let’s not forget that major incident that happened a few hours prior.  Back to the issues in hand…

Breastfeeding at the beginning was NOT easy, there were tears, there were cracks, there was blood and there was some serious second guessing if I could do it.  At Madelyn’s newborn photo shoot, we couldn’t get her to sleep and she was fussy so I fed her and with each latch I wanted to scream “OOOOOOUUUUCHHHH” for the entire neighborhood to hear.  I mean SERIOUSLY SO PAINFUL.  As our wonderful friend Ashley, an amazing photographer waited patiently in our living room for me to feed Madelyn, I turned to her and asked if she breastfed and how she got past the pain part.  She smiled and said, “Give yourself 2 weeks, by then it will be better.”  I thought to myself, I don’t know if I can handle feeding this kid for the rest of this day, a whole other week? I held onto Ashley’s words and I told myself each time Madelyn nursed around the clock for the next 7 days that my light at the end of the tunnel was coming.  And boy am I glad I persevered. 

Ashley was right and I did make it til the end of the next week, and through a few rounds of getting Mastitis (another unpleasant experience), but I continued to nurse Madelyn and she’s grown so well, she surpassed growth charts in every category.  As much as I loved saving money on not having to buy formula (and I think formula is great-  seriously however our children get fed is great, the fact is their tummies are full), I think what I enjoyed most was the time that getting to fed Madelyn gave to me.  We’ve had uninterrupted mommy and baby time since day 1 and while most feedings ended up being interrupted, it was time that I got to spent holding my baby.  I also think, as private as we are about what happens to our bodies and how I feed her, knowing that I was feeding Madelyn from a part of me was good for the rest of the family to see (or not see- if you get my point) too.  I think the boys and Isabelle saw that breastfeeding isn’t weird or strange but that it’s just a part of life. 

In the last 14 months of Madelyn’s life I’ve been fortunate that my body has been able to produce enough milk for her and others.  When Noah was in the NICU he received donor milk when mine hadn’t yet come in, and I thought about how grateful I was for another stranger to share their milk to help my baby.  Recently there was this story shared on the Today show and I couldn’t help but reflect and think back on our time in the NICU with Noah. Some woman donated her nutritious milk for my baby and I knew, God willing, if I was able to have enough milk for Madelyn, that I wanted to give any extra I could to a milk back to help NICU babies.  And I thought, perhaps I could donate some milk in memory of Noah, my own act of kindness to share with other strangers in memory of my baby boy.

I was blessed.  My milk came in, in abundant supply.  Some told me it was because I had two babies back to back that my milk supply was great.  I’m not sure, but I am sure that I was so thankful it did.  I was very religious about pumping, waking up every night in the middle of the night to not only feed Madelyn but then pump afterwards. First I pumped to have enough milk on hand to feed Maddie when I went back to work.  Soon our freezer was full.  I felt comfortable I could return to work and have enough to get her started.  And then I went back to work and Madelyn never really took to the bottle.  In fact she despised it. Soon I had filled my parents freezer, their deep freezer and I was running out of room.  I continued to pump because I thought, what if my milk dries up, then we need to have extra.  We purchased a large deep freezer ourselves and when I was able to fill that within a few weeks, I knew, we had more than enough milk.  It was time to start sharing.

I contacted the Rocky Mountain Milk Bank and began a long series of background checks, interviews, physical screenings, blood draws… a process almost as long as becoming a certified adoptive parent.  With each step, another piece of paper, another form for my physician to sign, I told myself, it’s all to make sure the tiny babies are safe.  I reminded myself someone, some ones had gone through the same process for my little boy about 18 months prior.  That motivated me to become a donor even more.  I developed a friendship with the lady at the milk bank, having had to give my history to them, they knew about Noah and she’d remind me with each step, how grateful they were for my donations and how I knew firsthand how much the donated milk would mean to some family.

The day the first ice cooler chest arrived, I was a bit nervous.  I know silly right.  I went through each bag that had been marked and I wrote down all the extra information that needed to be on the bag.  My hands were frostbit by the time I was done and I had written my donor number 11186 on more than 300 bags of milk. I wrote a letter to Patricia, the lady who helped me become a donor and I told her why this act was so important to me.  I shared information about Noah’s Kindness Project and I said, it was my hope this small act of kindness could help others.  I sealed up the enveloped and put it in one of the boxes.   Jarrett helped me to seal up all four large coolers, to label them correctly and to get them on our door step for the FedEx man to pick them up before being shipped overnight to their destination.  I watched as the driver picking them up grunted with each box he grabbed, that much milk wasn’t light.  It sounds silly but as the milk drove away in the van I wondered where the milk would go.  How many babies would it go to help?  What would be their stories?  How many of them would be able to find nourishment and grow as a result of something small I did.  Thinking about it, made my heart feel happy.  I prayed for the babies, I prayed for their parents, their families and I smiled with the hope that just maybe I had done something to help.

A week later I received an email from Patricia at the milk bank. Her email below…

Good afternoon Angela,

We’ve received your donation and it is being processed so it can get out there to help                babies!  We could not do anything without the gift of your milk, and I want you to                   know how deeply we appreciate the effort and time and emotion that your gift entails.

I just wanted to let you know how much your note and card/picture of Noah means to me.  Rothie brought it up from the back where he found it in a box of your milk.  I had no idea what it might be, and when I opened it and read your story, I got tears in my eyes.  Not only for your kind words, but also for Noah.  You see, I used to be a NICU nurse, and have cared for countless babies just like Noah.  Tiny, fragile and fighting little soldiers and I have more admiration for Noah than I can ever express.  You captured his story so beautifully, and now you are donating in his honor to tiny babies just like him. 

I looked up your milk log in your file, and it shows that you’ve donated an amazing 1,808 ounces of precious milk!  What a remarkable woman you are, Angela!  To give and give of yourself and your time so that babies can have better lives.  Thank you on behalf of all those tiny ones whose lives you’ve touched. 

I will try to do extra acts of kindness every day in honor of Noah – and his family who love him so dearly. 

Kindly,

Patricia

Her note brought tears to my eyes and I felt, another moment of healing had occurred.  I always want to do things to honor and remember him, and this act had made me feel like I had been able to do just that. 

Madelyn continued to grow like a weed and my body, thankfully continued to produce excess milk.  I was able to stop the middle of the night pumping and yet I was still able to fill up more and more bags of excess milk.  Over the course of the past year, I saved, labeled and shipped 17 coolers full of milk to the milk bank and was able to donate some milk to a friend here who had a baby and needed some extra supplement.  In June before we closed on the sale of our home, I emptied out the last of the milk in our stand up freezer and I boxed it up to send off.  I knew that the chapter of donating milk was coming to a close but I was honored to be able to participate.  Again without Noah, I would have never known or even considered such an act of kindness.  With each bag I pumped I hoped some miracle in some NICU across the country would find benefit from it.  All those hours sitting connected to a machine was worth it. 

This past week I received an email from the Director of the Milk Bank.  It was out of the blue, my last donation sent many months before.  Her email was to thank me for my contribution to their bank.  That she was so grateful for the dedication and commitment to help tiny babies.  Within her email she shared with me that I had donated more than 4,700 ounces of milk.  That’s almost 37.  gallons of milk.* (Thanks Eric for the math correction, teaches me for writing a post on no sleep in the middle of the night).  I was surprised.  I had no idea it had been that much.

In getting to have Noah and then losing him 12 days later, I’ve learned so much.  I’ve learned nothing can be taken for granted.   It’s not easy to get pregnant.  It’s not easy to carry a baby to full term.  It’s not always a guarantee that when you see the two pink lines on your test that you get to take a health baby home.  Some babies don’t get their first breath of air.  Some babies spend months in a hospital, hooked up to monitors, to breathing machines and their first chance to be held isn’t for many weeks.   So much in life is out of our control and yet within the uncertainty are things we can do to make a difference.  I’ll never meet the babies that hopefully received my milk.  But those babies have been prayed for, have been thought of and I hope showered in kindness.

Breastfeeding isn’t easy, it isn’t painless.  But when I think of what those babies are going through, the burden of worry those parents carry each day their most precious baby fights for strength to keep going, I quiet my complaints and I give thanks for the gift that getting to breastfeed a healthy baby is.  Sharing milk to help tiny miracles fighting for their lives was healing for me.  And it is my hope that the milk shared was healing for the miracles unfolding each day in the NICU.

And to think it all happened because of this little miracle.

Until next time,

Angie