Breast Milk

So some of you are probably looking at this title and wondering why in the world am I blogging about breast milk. Well, as most of you know Addison had a hard time nursing which led to us being a "pump and feed" pair. Then we discovered that Addison has cow's milk protein intolerance and they told me to cut dairy completely out of my diet or stop nursing. Making the decision to stop pumping was not hard, but the fact that Addison was not going to get my milk was very emotional for me. So here we were with 125 bags of frozen breast milk with 6oz or more in each bag in our freezer that Addison could not have and I refused to throw it all in the trash, after all to me breast milk is "liquid gold" and I had put a lot of sweat and tears into it. I had heard when I was nursing Jackson that you could donate breast milk and there were breast milk banks. I did some research on the Internet and found the International Breast Milk Program that accepted previously collected milk. I went through the doctors releases and a blood and genetic screening and was accepted. It took two specialized coolers and an overnight FedEx shipment and it was gone. Now 25% of my milk will be sent to babies in Africa born with AIDS and Hepatitis and the other 75% will stay here in the USA for extremely ill preemies. I was so happy that I was able to do this. It helps to know that even though my baby could not benefit from my milk, some one else's baby who is in dire need may.