So here I am two years from the last time I was returning to work after a maternity leave. Once again my mind is on breast milk, pumping, supply & demand, as well as backup supply. Once again I’ve procrastinated getting my pump out and using it to harvest that liquid gold and peace of mind. I return to work the first week in September and have less then two weeks to get my freezer in order so to speak.
I have no real idea of how many bottles I’ll need or how many ounces in each because I’ve been blissfully feeding on demand without worry all these months and enjoying being a stay at home mom. I love being their mom and always enjoy it to the fullest. However, I’ve been pretending that this day wasn’t looming on the horizon line and that I wouldn’t need to pump, use bottles and most importantly leave my boys with someone else! But no matter how far I stuck my head in the sand, it approached and thankfully I did pop into reality before it was too late to have everything ready.
I have only had three sessions so far but – I have a plan this time! I am pumping in the car for every trip we take. That seems to be my easiest time because they are both in their seats and cannot interrupt a session. I’ll also be pumping directly following each session with Little #2 to collect whatever little milk I can and to boost my current supply. As the deadline approaches I can pump one side and feed the other. More then likely that advanced pumping technique will be saved for Little Man’s nap and bedtime session. It is a lot easier to work a pump when your nursling can hold their own while nursing.
As a back up I’ve been perusing the Internet looking for backup suppliers. If you recall with Little Man, my friend gave me some of her oversupply and I in return later down the road was able to donate my oversupply. Well this time I don’t have a close friend with a magical freezer full of little milky bags, so I’ve been weighing my own feelings about accepting donor milk from an unknown source. I don’t know how I feel about it still. I was more then willing to share my own supply and to receive from a friend but I don’t know about stranger milk. In theory and from first hand experience no one is going to go through all the effort of pumping to hurt a child, nor would they hurt their own child with their milk. I also need bovine protein (milk and beef) free milk which puts my donor pool in a very small group. But I don’t know these women and part of me says that I could be taking milk that another baby needed more then mine.
The other option is milk bank milk but that could end up running me $20 a bottle and again other infants have needs greater then ours. This milk is donated for free by mothers and then is screened and processed by the facility hence the cost. I think it is a terrible thing that most insurance companies do not cover this cost either. The third option is to buy milk online. I’m again torn because I gave my milk away for nothing more then some breast milk storage bags and here are people selling their milk by the ounce again. The classified listings do make it easier to find my perfect donor but I still have hangups.
So in the end how do I get past the whole accepting a donor’s milk? If you received mother-to-mother donations how did you reconcile your societal hangups about strangers, breast milk and your baby? In the end this is a learned fear because we’ve all heard of wet nurses and before there was formula or milk banks, mothers helped each other out and donated milk.
So I’ve just finished a nursing session so now I need to start session four and hopefully I won’t need to find milk come September but in the meantime share your experiences with accepting donor milk.
