Milk Sharing

Today, when talking to my sister, I mentioned the fact that I'm donating my extra breastmilk and her questions reminded me that I wanted to write about it.  It is something foreign to most people, including me not too long ago, but I think it is a great thing!  For this reason, I wanted to write about it to both inform and get the wheels turning in the chance that it can help someone else.

When Kara was born, she ended up getting a pretty bad case of jaundice and because of that, she took a while to be able to nurse at any time, particularly at night.  Jaundice makes you tired and when she was tired she didn't want to nurse...she wanted to sleep!  And nursing is work for itty bitty babies so when given the choice, she would often sleep.  Of course, that is no good for her growing self so I started almost exclusively pumping and then bottle feeding her to make sure she got enough to eat.  I didn't set out to go down this path.  Quite the opposite in fact.  Everything you read says the baby can have problems nursing if you introduce the bottle too early and at less than one week of life, this was deemed WAAY too early.  But alas, things took an unexpected turn and I did what I had to, to ensure she grew and thrived like she needed to do.

Starting to pump, that intensely (every three hours) that early in her life, allowed my milk to come in very good.  I was concerned that I would lose my milk, which can happen when exclusively pumping, so I made sure I didn't miss sessions.  It made for really long feeding sessions since I had to pump before each feeding time and then clean all those parts each and every time.  Ugh.  But. My milk came in really good.  So good that I started to accumulate extra milk that I froze in case I couldn't nurse for some reason.  Then, when I went back to work, I started to accumulate even faster.  Losing space in the freezer encouraged me to start looking for where I could donate the milk.

When I started looking,  I found out there were three different places/ways to donate.  Donating to a milkbank would have the milk go to hospitalized preemies where the milk was first pastuerized. This was a possibility but what other options were there? There was a secocond milkbank of sorts to donate to where a for-profit company turns the milk into a concentrated additive for breastmilk and sells it at very high prices to hospitals.  Not an option for me.


The third option I found sounded like something I was most interested in.  I ended up finding out that there are actually ways to donate to individual women, who for whatever reason can't provide enough milk for their baby.  Reasons, since people are usually curious, vary widely.  Adoption, physical issues and premature babies with mothers who don't provide enough milk yet seem to be three of the most common.  I came across this page: http://www.eatsonfeets.org/ and became very interested.  I then found out that this organization had a facebook page.  I lurked for a couple of weeks watching how things worked and getting an idea of who would be receiving the milk.  When the freezer was about to be overfull, I took the plunge and put out a donation.  I'm really glad I did and find it a blessing to be able to donate! 

I know this isn't for everyone.  However, I'm hoping that the more people that know this is even an option the more people may help and/or be helped.  If nothing else, you've learned something if you stuck with me for the whole writeup :) Feel free to ask me questions or check out the eatsonfeets website.  They have a ton of info about milksharing on their site.

Sunday Baby Fun

Well, no pictures today...I was too busy playing and having fun!  This weekend has been quite a fun weekend with Kara.  Well not that other weekends aren't but she is just learning SOOO much. Yesterday, I put her underneath the baby gym and hung a bunch of toys and then showed her how she could play with them.  I've done this before and she still just kinda looked at them.  But yesterday she actually reached up and started to grab them :)  It's really kinda funny and neat to watch a baby learn hand-eye coordination.  She stares intently at the object and then finally makes the decision to attempt a swipe.  Then, the swipe.  Maybe she gets the prize of a grab, maybe not.  Then, it starts over.  I just sat and watched her for a while yesterday, watching her learn after each attempt.  Fun!!

Today, after I let her practice her grabbing techniques from yesterday, we layed on a blanket and practiced rolling over.  She is getting awefully close!  She had a ball just rolling from her back to her side and then having Mommy push her over to her tummy.  Then rolling from her tummy to her side and having Mommy push her over to her back.  One time, all I did for the whole roll from tummy to back was reposition her hand.  Those darned hands and arms just get in the way when rolling over! 

The other really cool thing about this weekend, or actually more just about how she is evolving, is that the more intense play and learning is giving way to much better naps.  YAY for naps!!!  She has never been a great napper, but here in the last week, she has actually been taking some longer (1-2 hour) naps at her Grandmothers - when I'm at work - and she has been going down easy for a long (2-3 hour) nap at home with me.

Well, it is 4 hours since I started writing this post and now 8 pm.  My how time slips by with a kid.  I know I said no pictures for today but I did download two pictures from this morning that I'll post tonight.

Here is Kara showing off her standing abilities with Daddy's help.

 And here is her 4 month picture with the dancer bear. 

 Here is Kara with the same bear a month and a half ago.  You can tell she is growing!

Four months and counting

Today Kara had her four month checkup.  She got her second round of shots and boy does she take those like a champ!  Daddy held her and talked sweetly to her while the nurses quietly did their duty.  Amazingly, she just let out a small cry and went on with her business....her business being a happy little baby!  It is funny because the nurse about to give the shots said, "I don't mind giving crying babies shots because they are already crying.  But Kara is just so happy I don't want to have to give her a shot and make her cry."  .....We are so lucky to have such a happy baby and we both feel VERY blessed!

Speaking of a happy baby, here she is today laughing while Daddy plays.  He is so good with her!!  I do love watching them play and interact together :)

It is so hard to get a picture of her smiling because every time she sees a camera she sits and stares at it.  But with Mark around to help, I was able to get this picture.  Notice, she is finally starting to get just a little bit of hair!

Kara has started spotting Sylvester (the cat) and she will just sit and watch her. It's kinda funny to watch them both just watching each other sometimes.



 Here is Kara sitting in her bumbo chair with one of her more favorite toys.  I have heard that babies like toys with faces and watching her, I definitely believe that.  She will just stare at this little guy.  Today we gave her this toy while she was in her walker and she just stared at it and started talking to him!  How cute :)

 The other day, it was time to go get milk, so Kara and I took a trip out to the farm. We got out and walked around while I showed her the chickens and the cows and the horses.   I'm sure, in the not too distant future, she will try chasing all the animals, but for now, she just happily listened while Mommy told her what she was seeing :)  While we were there, she got to meet the farmers....they got up from their nap just as we were getting ready to leave but of course, Kara can't pass up a good conversation so she hammed it up for a few minutes with them!

 Just the last couple of weeks, Kara has started picking things up (knowingly) and is beginning to play with them.  She likes to pick things up and study them both by feel and by sight.  She will pick this one up and feel the round end.

 I don't think she could get that bottom lip out any further this particular morning!!

 Kara playing...with her serious face.... (she see's that camera again!)