A love letter to my boobs

This is a shout out to my boobs. So if that isn't your thing, kindly move along....

I think we can all agree that my journey into motherhood has been anything but smooth sailing, to say the least 🤣

Well, the one thing that has gone right is my boobs. They fully understood the assignment, and for that I am incredibly proud of them. 

For 6 months I have been pumping every few hours to provide my girl with food.  Food filled with antibodies and the nutrition her underdeveloped body so desperately needed. 

I have woken up every night, multiples times a night to pump. I have pumped in parking lots and outside of friends houses, in NICUs bedside and in pumping rooms, while changing diapers and while soothing a cranky baby. I have had clogged ducts and mastitis (landing me in the warzone also known as the ER of Yale New Haven hospital thank you very much). 

And let me tell you, it has all been so worth it.

Being that I am an exclusive pumper- I am extremely fortunate to have an over supply. With this over supply I decided to help out other babies by being a milk donor. So many people have helped Gracie along the way, it only felt fitting to help other babies. 

Becoming an official milk donor I learned wasn't as easy as, "hey I have milk, you want some?". While Gracie was at CHOP, I wanted to exclusively donate to the babies there. This meant that I had to go through a rigorous vetting process which included extensive personal forms about health history and pregnancy, medical release forms from my Dr, medical forms from Gracie's team as well as a blood test for me and bacterial testing of my milk to make sure my pumping parts are santizied correctly. 

I used to joke, becoming a CHOP milk donor was almost as hard as getting pregnant. It felt as if the process was so incredibly complicated (and some days felt like it wasn't worth the hassle).

But...spoiler alert, I passed with flying colors and was able to make two different donations to the CHOP Milk Bank, totally over 600 ounces. 

When we were transfered to Blythedale, I wanted to continue to help other babies and other mommas locally and joined the Facebook group Human Milk for Human Babies. 

To date I have donated to an adopted baby in TN born addicted to drugs, and muliples babies in NY. One mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and can no longer breastfeed due to ongoing treatments. Another struggled through infertility so long she was unable to biologically give birth. One momma who couldn't pump more than an ounce a day no matter how hard she tried, and lastly one whose regular milk donor also underwent treatment for breast cancer. I actually have another mom coming to pick up milk this week. 

Over 2000 oz have been donated and I still have enough to feed Gracie and stock our freezer for her.

I am so proud of my body for being able to not only feed her, but also other babies who needed it.

For the few short weeks Gracie was allowed to go to breast, she was using so much energy to breathe (and on so much respiratory support) we were limited to once a day boobie feeds and she recieved all other feeds through her g tube. 

I am also incredibly thankful that her and I did get to experience breastfeeding together. I wanted so badly for us to have that and my dreams came true when she was able to latch with the help of our angel nurses and lactation. Some patience and a nipple shield also helped! 

She loved it so much she used to throw full fits taking her off. 

When we got to CHOP, her respiratory needs increased and, unfortunately we had to stop and now that she is trached, she has forgotten how to suck all together. 

We now experince non-nutritive breastfeeding to bond, sooth and (bonus) my body can produce any antibodies she might need if she is fighting something off. In order to non-nutritive, I have to pump completely empty and hand express post pumping. Then she can hop on the boob.

This often isn't realistic because of scheduling. I have to make sure I'm completely empty so she doesn't have any risk of aspiration and she gets a ton of services (and often naps). So right now if we get a few session a week in, I'm happy. 

It has been a long journey with a lot of sore nips and a lot of tired days- slept through alarms and pumping on the go, but I am just so incredibly proud of my body. Everything went wrong, but this went right. 

I will continue to wake up in the middle of the night and set daily alarms to pump my heart out to continue to feed her and the other babies that need me. 

And when the day comes that I'm ready to hang up the pump, I will forever look at my saggy baggies with pride!