Nursing update

9 months later, we're still at it. I feel like that's quite an accomplishment, seeing as I've never made enough milk for her. 

We've basically run out of donor milk at this point. I haven't been able to find anyone new to donate, probably because most people want to donate to younger babies. It makes sense, they need the milk more than a 9 month old who's doing well eating solids. However, she still needs to be taking in quite a bit more milk than I make. 

I'd been saying that I was going to get her on raw goat's milk after we ran out of donor breast milk, but our local farmers are in the process of drying off their herd so they can breed them for the spring. They didn't have any milk available. I did a little research and came up with this recipe for goat's milk formula made from dry goat's milk powder. I ordered a bunch of the ingredients from amazon and while I was waiting for them to show up, I put her back on powdered formula; the expensive organic Earth's Best kind. We had the same congestion issue that we had when she was just a tiny squee (the first time she was on it). I had hoped that she would have grown out of it, but apparently not. She got all snotty after a few days of formula instead of breast milk. We used the formula while we were down in California for Christmas and she did ok (not too snotty), but still more snuffly than I like my tiny squee to be.

Now that we're back home and I have all the ingredients for the goat's milk formula, we're feeding a combination of goat's milk formula and Earth's Best canned formula. I've been making up 16oz of goat's milk formula most days and then we supplement with Earth's Best when we go out (it's much easier to transport) or when we've used up all the goat's milk formula and need a bottle in a hurry (like the middle of the night). We've been doing a good portion of the feeding through the Lact-aid, although both goat's milk formula and powdered formula are a lot more irritating to use with it than breast milk was. The goat's milk formula has a bunch of added oil (coconut and olive), which solidifies when it cools down. If the Lact-aid is too cold, the oils clog the tiny sucking tube and TS can't get any liquid out. The powdered formula has a tiny little strainer that has to be used inside the funnel when the formula is poured into the bags. Otherwise, the undissolved formula gets stuck in the tiny tube as well. 

I'm still planning on changing her over to raw goat's milk once it's available. That'll probably be about the same time she turns one, which is when she's supposed to be able to start drinking plain dairy products as a beverage. Since I've got all the stuff to make the formula, I'll probably keep it up until I use some of it up, but it's nice to know that we've almost made it to the point where she can drink plain cow milk. 

My current plan is to keep nursing with the Lact-aid until she self-weans. However, I keep waffling on that decision. It's sometimes hard to rationalize all the trouble that I go through to produce a few ounces of milk. I have decided that I'm going to stop taking all the herbal supplements when she turns one, though. Then she can nurse whatever milk there is there and have a Lact-aid when she wants more (before naps and at bedtime, possibly). I keep hearing stories of babies who abruptly stop nursing and never go back to it, so maybe that'll happen to us. Or maybe she'll want to keep nursing forever (I hope not). At a minimum, I'm committed to continuing to take my supplements until her birthday, then letting her nurse through the summer. I'm torn about keeping it up through next school year - it'd be nice to not have to worry about pumping while I'm at work. That's a long time away in the life of a tiny squee, though. She'll be a totally different, much larger, person by then.

World Milksharing Week

It was World Milksharing Week last week. I meant to post earlier, but somehow was busy, what with it being the first week back at work and all.  Before I had Sterling, I didn't know that milksharing was a thing, much less that there was a whole week where one could celebrate it. If you look closely at the picture of the two nursing women, one of them is using an at-breast supplementing system similar to what I use with Sterling. I really like the fact that the two babies are holding hands. If we assume that the two babies are both getting milk from the blue mother, that makes them "milk siblings". That's not really a thing in our culture, but it still is in many cultures where infant formula isn't readily available and having a wetnurse or milk from another mother can really be the difference between life and death for a baby.

Wikipedia (my favorite source of information) says that "In Islam those who are fed in this way become siblings to the biological children of their wetnurse, provided that they are less than 2 years old. Islamic law (shariah) codifies the relationship between these people, and certain specified relatives, as rada'a; given that a child is breastfed five fulfilling (satisfactory to him) times, once they are adult, they are mahram, meaning that they are not allowed to marry each other, and the rules of modesty known as purdah are relaxed, as with other family members. But, laws of inheritance do not apply in the case of milk siblings." I think that's a pretty neat idea. If we were to follow that, Sterling would have a huge family. Let's count them up.

1. We got fresh (unfrozen) milk for several months from a wonderful woman with a baby girl only 3 weeks older than Sterling. It was really neat to watch the baby grow. It was like a preview of what Sterling would be doing in a few weeks. I saw them twice a week for several months and we spent a lot of time talking. It was nice to establish a relationship beyond just picking up milk. 
2. We picked up milk twice from a woman in Eugene with a baby boy a couple of months older than Sterling. She was the first person to agree with me that S had at tongue and lip tie (she'd had the same issue with her baby). That agreement led me to seek help from one more person, my wonderful Lactation Consultant Melissa Cole.
3. One of my colleagues from work was pregnant at the same time I was with a baby boy. We got into a discussion one day about nursing: I mentioned that I wasn't producing a lot of milk and she mentioned that the last time she was pregnant, she produced way more milk than she needed. When I decided to try donated milk, she was one of the first people I emailed. She's been pumping 4oz of milk for us a day for months now. She and I have gotten to know each other much better since our original discussion and we have a lot in common. I really enjoy getting together with her. 
4. We got milk from someone who lives very nearby and has a baby boy several months older than S. She pumps and donates to different mothers every time she collects about 100oz extra. When I walked into her house with S, her son was sitting in his Bumbo chair eating sweet potatoes and had them all over himself.
5. I picked up a whole bunch of milk from a woman in Vancouver. She was so sweet - we were meeting at Starbucks and I had the wrong one because I'm not familiar with Vancouver. It was about a thousand degrees that day and she drove to meet me (out of her way) at a second Starbucks to give me two full grocery bags full of frozen milk.
6. A woman who is hoping to adopt a baby has given me milk twice. She's induced lactation by taking medication and by pumping extensively. She's worked up from pumping a few drops to pumping about 13oz a day. Her plan is to continue pumping until they call her to tell her that they have a baby for her to adopt. It could be tomorrow or it could be a year from now. That's dedication. She always says she's happy that the milk can be used: she called a milk bank and they wouldn't take it because of the medication she has to take to induce lactation. 
7. When we were in Virginia, we got milk from three different people. The first was a friend who has a baby girl about a year old. I've gotten to see the baby grow up through picture on facebook, but haven't ever met her in person.
8. A work colleague of my mother-in-law's gave us milk before we got there and while we were there, when we started running low. She has a very healthy baby boy a few months older than Sterling. When we went to pick up emergency milk the second time, she was holding him and he looked at us very seriously.
9. I found someone in Sterling, VA through Human Milk 4 Human Babies - Virginia. I don't know whether she has a boy or a girl, but she was willing to share her milk with a baby that she'll never meet.
10. Another friend of mine from work brought over a 5oz bottle of milk that she had pumped (she exclusively pumps and then feeds her baby via a bottle because he finds nursing to be frustrating). It was an amazing gift because up until that point, she hadn't been pumping enough to fully cover his needs and she'd had to supplement with formula. That bottle was one of the first times that she'd produced over his needs for the day. Since then, she's gotten her supply up past his milk needs for the day and has offered to share the excess with Sterling.

This is what breastfeeding looks like for us.

All of these women are fabulous and I appreciate their generosity every day when I'm able to feed my baby on exclusively human milk. She's growing up happy and healthy and amazing. How could she not, when she's getting love from all of these amazing mamas?

Donor milk!

Mike just finished a major milk organization freezer project, which pushed his tetris abilities to the maximum. I'm very proud of him. We now have milk in the freezer from 4 different women and milk in the refrigerator from a fifth. Since babies get antibodies through breastmilk, I'm anticipating that Sterling will be immune to every disease known to man. 

I was getting a little concerned because our main donor (who we get the unfrozen milk from) had seen a drop-off in milk supply. We were burning through our freezer stash faster than I was comfortable with. 100 oz of milk *sounds* like a lot, but we use up to 15 oz a day, which means we could burn through that much in a week. 

I think it's sort of like wanting to have your cupboards filled if you've ever had a period of your life when you've been hungry. I want to know what I have plenty of milk so that my tiny squee won't have to go back on formula. The new goal is to keep her exclusively on breastmilk until she's 6 months old... longer would be great, but apparently their gut has matured to the point where formula isn't quite as bad by the time they're 6 months. That's about when I think she'll probably be starting solids, too.

These days, we're mostly bottle feeding with an occasional use of the Lactaid. The little tube is just so fiddly to keep in her mouth, since she's gotten a lot more active when she nurses. I haven't seen a huge decrease in supply since stopping the Lactaid, but there has been some decrease. I keep telling myself I am going to start using it full-time again, but the bottle is just so much easier. She's learning to hold it herself, too. We got her some handles to make it easier. 

Milk Storage

One of my milk donors and I were having a conversation about how long you could keep breast milk under various conditions. I came home and googled it and then she forwarded me this very helpful link from the Dr Sears website.

Based on this info, we decided that we're going to try non-frozen, refrigerated milk. Since she's very close by, I can drop by and pick milk up every couple of days. We have 8 days to use non-frozen milk, which should be fine. Sterling can drink as much as the donor can pump in a day. Non-frozen milk is healthier and has more immunological benefits, etc.

Milk Report

Supplementing with donor milk instead of formula is going really well. Sterling hasn't had a problem with congestion since she started drinking mostly milk instead of mostly formula. We haven't had to suction her nose out at all, in fact I put away the Snotsucker.

This morning she was up to 10 lbs 14 oz, so obviously the milk is working out for her growth as well. I'm going to go pick up another 50 oz today.

Milk Donation

At this point, I think nursing is about as good as it's going to get, which is to say, not very good. During the past week, Sterling has had roughly 15 oz of supplementation per day. One day she only had 11 oz, two days she had 17. 

Just before we left for Granny's I decided that I wanted to look for milk donors. This was a big step for me... it involved sharing the fact that I don't make enough milk with people that I don't know. I know it's not my fault (as in something that I've done), but I still feel inadequate for not being able to nurse my baby. Deciding to look for milk donors involved the heartache of actually admitting to myself that I'm never going to make enough milk for her. And it involves admitting that same thing to other people; people that I don't know at all.

Before we left for Granny's, I emailed the mom's group that I'm a part of. I also emailed a pregnant friend of mine who I know made a lot of milk with her first child. I found the Human Milk 4 Human Babies facebook group and posted there. I posted on milkshare.com. I looked at Eats on Feets (also on facebook).

Within 24 hours of posting on HM4HM, two different women had contacted me offering to donate their milk. Since then, I've picked up milk from both of them and my freezer now has probably close to 100 oz of breast milk in it. Well, it had that much anyhow. Sterling has been drinking it for the past few days, so there's quite a bit less now. 

The generosity of these women is amazing. They're taking time out of their lives to pump milk for someone that they really don't know and don't care about. In doing so, they're providing something for my baby that most people can't. They're giving her a chance to experience all the health benefits that come from breast milk and not from formula. I'm extremely grateful, but at the same time it makes me feel a little bit sad every time I make her up a bottle filled with milk that's not mine.