I've noticed very little talk of pumping milk on the blogs of other preemie moms. This seems odd to me given that pumping has been the dominant activity in my life for the past 13.5 weeks. Based on my conversations with other NICU moms who are pumping, my experience is not unique. Of course, not all NICU moms are lactating, but quite a few are. So why the silence? Perhaps posts on pumping are just buried in the annals of these blogs, and I have overlooked them. Or maybe it's not considered a polite topic of conversation. Certainly, I hesitate to bring it up in a forum that might be read by all manner of people. Nevertheless, pumping has been such a huge part of my existence over the past few months that I would be completely misrepresenting this whole NICU journey if I did not at least try to convey what an awesome responsibility it has been. After all, I spend 4-5 hours a day doing it. I plan my days around it. It must be done every 2-3 hours, except for one 5-hour stretch during the night, because human milk operates under a positive feedback system. The more milk the body is asked to deliver, the more it will produce. Ask (pump/nurse) too little, and the supply dwindles. Once it dwindles, it's damned hard to get back, especialy if you don't have a real live baby to do the sucking. The pump is a poor stand-in for a baby. That could be due in part to the fact that it hurts-especially these hospital-grade pumps-and pain is not conducive to relaxation, which is essential to letting down milk. Fortunately, my body steams right on past all that. Pain? Fine. 30 ounces a day? No problem. Who ever would have thought my body-all underdeveloped in certain...ahem...feminine areas-could be such a milk producing dynamo?
Whatever my body's capabilities, Seycha cannot come close to consuming all that I produce on a daily basis. Right now, she's on 50% human milk and 50% formula because the doctor wasn't satisfied with her weight gain on human milk alone. Total, she gets less than 2 ounces per feed. Yet, I have to keep pumping 8-9 times per day in order to keep up my milk supply lest I have too little to feed her when she's ready. That's just how it works.
So what to do with all that excess milk? By mid-February, the milk techs at the hospital were telling me there was no more room in their freezer to store my milk. My side-by-side freezer/fridge at home was already full, so we bought a little deep freezer that we thought would keep us in good stead until Seycha was released. That freezer was full within a week or two. So then what? Milk donation! There are milk banks around the country that process milk donated by nursing mothers and distribute it mostly to sick and premature babies, but also to some healthy babies, and children and adults with cancer and immune disorders. I read that the milk banks want the milk of preemie moms in particular because preemie milk is loaded with nutrients not found in full-term milk; it's the best milk for preemie babies, yet hard to come by.
I was advised to hold off on donating because women who are exclusively pumping for their babies often have a drop in supply and find themselve with too little to feed their baby. I held off for a couple more weeks but got to the point where there was really nowhere else to store milk. Call me cocky, but I felt less concerned about the likelihood of a dwindling supply than about having to throw away any of the milk I had diligently pumped. So I went through the process for getting accepted as a donor at WakeMed Mother's Milk Bank. That took a few weeks, and I was bummed that I ended up having to throw away quite a bit of milk before it was over. But, since then, I've sent them three coolers. My freezer is, finally, not filled to the rim. It's getting there, though. I see another shipment in my near future. It's a little gratifying to know that all of this exertion can help some other babies, perhaps babies of mothers who wanted desperately to provide their own milk but were unable.
