This being the final day of World Milksharing Week, I thought I'd collect just a few of the many, many amazing stories of the gift of milk that I've read this week. Of course, there are even more wonderful stories in the blog hop linky at the bottom of this post for you to enjoy! (The linky will stay open until Sunday night, by the way, for any latecomers.)Donor Stories:
I enjoyed this post from peaceful parenting about Sarah, a modern day wet nurse:
"I only nursed her son for a brief while. I squirted milk on his lips so that he would focus and when he smelled the milk, he lunged at my nipple and latched. I relaxed, felt my milk let down, and he sputtered as he hungrily gobbled it down. "It’s okay, little guy," I said."
Among many others this week, I liked Michelle's donation story on The International Breastfeeding Symbol Blog:
"My milksharing journey started when my baby was about 5 months old. I had 2 freezers full of breastmilk, and I started to panic because we weren’t using it. I was continuing to add to it, and quickly running out of room. By December I started throwing milk out because someone told me that after 6 months it was no longer good. After that night and tons of guilt I started googling."
Recipient Stories:
I was happy to read the outcome of that story about the guy who was going on a "breastmilk only" diet to use up his wife's stored milk that they feared was going to go to waste. The couple had been unsuccessful in finding a willing recipient family for the freezer full of milk, so they resorted to the experiment as a last effort. Well, they got hooked up with a recipient family...with quadruplets! You can read more of their story here.
My favorite story by far this week was written by my friend Rachel at Clearly Speaking, who was the recipient of the majority of the milk that I've donated. It was so wonderful to read her side of the story, and to know how much it meant to her and her family. Be fair warned: the story she tells about her sweet Bennett is a tear-jerker!
I had heard most of the story directly from Rachel, and I have my own memories of the events of that day, and of course, the months of pumping (sweet relief!) after. I think maybe the thing that's been difficult for me to communicate is how good it made me feel to be able to help out in that way. It made me feel so good that it's hard to accept thanks for it. There are so many times in life when something challenging is happening to someone I care about and there's nothing I can do to make it easier. But this was exactly the opposite: I had something concrete and tangible I could give to help my friend, and I was happy to do so. I was struggling with oversupply, and pumping relieved my pain. It turned out to be a beneficial arrangement for both of us.
So on that note, happy World Milksharing Week! Thanks to all of you who are participating in the blog hop. Thanks most of all to all you milk donors out there sharing your life-giving milk with babies who need it, and also to recipient families seeking out human milk for your precious little ones.
And please keep on sharing! ♥
Grab the blog hop code for your blog here and link up your posts below!
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Get the blog hop code here!
Thank you, Amy. I suppose you will really have to get comfy with the notion of accepting thanks, because I'm sure my family will continue to offer it for, say, the next decade or so (and then forever after that). :)
ReplyDeleteThis WMW has been my favorite. I just love the idea of women helping each other in this beautiful way. What a miracle it would be if I could donate after my next little one. That would be so incredible.
xoxo