I previously mentioned donating my frozen breastmilk.
I went through the entire process to be screened. The milk bank provides everything: they send a packet with DNA swabs, with vials for a blood draw, with forms for my doctor and Sebastien’s doctor to complete. A lab contacted me and someone came to our house to draw the blood; they then test to ensure that I don’t have any diseases. The lab technician send that in while I send in the saliva swabs and send back the paperwork. Once everything has been checked out, a freezer kit arrives and I have to verify my freezer temperature settings.
After I became an approved donor, Prolacta asked to estimate how much milk I was sending in. Well, it’s hard to know an exact amount since I never wrote down the amounts. But I did count the bags: 180 bags, each containing between 3-8 ounces of milk. So, a lot. And this amount didn’t include the milk that I couldn’t send in: milk that wasn’t after the 90 day incubation period of the Rhogam shot, or any milk from when I was on antibiotics. And doesn’t include any of the tons of milk I simply tossed when we didn’t have the chest freezer yet and so had no room for it, or any of the milk I tossed when I learned about the lipase.
Right before the holidays my two freezer boxes arrived and I packed them full with my milk to send off.
I know some people are totally weirded out by milk donation. And I probably would be as well. But Samuel received Prolacta for a week; countless other babies will now get the same benefit.
Amazing! Just amazing – what a wonderful, wonderful gift!
This is a great gift to others. Awesome job. I wish I had had that option. I threw so much of that liquid gold away it hurt.
Wow! I did not even know moms could do this, what a wonderful gift!
That’s wonderful! I wish I could have made that much milk, my one regret with Sophie is that I didn’t breastfeed longer.