A Very Personal Gift

This Christmas I gave someone the greatest gift I've ever given anyone. A gift that; boosts the immune system, protects children from sudden infant death syndrome, lowers a child's risk of developing asthma, diabetes, and food allergies later in life, and is great for bones, skin and teeth, to name just a few awesome facts about this gift. I gave a mother and baby my breast milk

A couple of years ago I became part of a community of homebirthers. It started in my local city, a handful of mothers who knew homebirth was the superior birthing option, and became a dynamic online community with members from a number of countries around the world. I've made many friends through my involvement with this community, and got to know many mothers I may never get to meet in real life. One of these mothers is BB.

BB lives in another capital city in Australia, over 1370 kilometres from me. When I was preparing for the birth of my child I drew a lot of strength and inspiration from BB. I was anxious about the breastfeeding journey that lay ahead of me, but BB had graciously shared her own breastfeeding story online and she made me realise that with the right attitude and commitment (and support) anyone could breastfeed.

There were rough moments for my baby and I as we established our breastfeeding relationship, but deep down I knew that I would be able to feed my child, because BB had and she had overcome such greater trials than my own. During this time she was pregnant with her third child, and she was diagnosed with hypoplastic tubular breasts. Hypoplastic breasts are breasts which have underdeveloped milk glands, as the 007B website explains: "they simply don't have enough milk producing cells", which can lead to milk supply issues.

BB discovered that if she wanted to exclusively breastfeed her child she would need the help of other lactating mothers to ensure that her baby got enough milk every day. Rather than give up on giving her child the best start to life and instead supplementing her own milk with artificial milk, BB created a community of lactation donors in her local city.

In a world where it is so easy to buy inferior, fake milk in cans, it is nothing short of awe-inspiring to know of BB. To be honest, I don't know that I would have had the intelligence and depths of mothers' love as she did to ask a group of women to donate their expressed breast milk to me and my baby on a regular basis, had I not known BB first.

Thanks to this private milk donation arrangement between BB and her local lactating friends her third born child made it to six months of age exclusively breast milk fed!

It was around this time that the holiday season was approaching and BB became concerned about the amount of frozen breast milk in her freezer and the availability of her lactating friends during Christmas and The New Year. So she appealed to the online homebirth community I belong to.

When BB first sought out local lactating women I wished I lived near her to be a part of such a special group and contribute to someone else's life in such a meaningful and important way. That a second appeal should be made did not feel coincidental to me, and again my heart jumped into my throat and I wanted to donate my milk. But I talked myself out of responding to BB's request. I lived too far away, my milk probably wouldn't be good enough for her baby, I wouldn't be able to express if I wanted to anyway, I thought sadly to myself (for my own breastfeeding journey read here). I didn't respond to her and figured that someone better at expressing, with better milk and better breasts than me would come to her aid. But the responses were few and far between and everyone seemed to think they lived too far away to help.

Then another woman told of how you could pack frozen expressed breast milk with dry ice and send it pretty much anywhere remaining frozen for mother and baby. My excitement rose, one less excuse! So this time, when BB made her third appeal I jumped at it and said she could have all the milk I could express as soon as I figured out how to send it across the country. Thankfully others saw my response and before we knew it BB's lactating donor club had become nation wide (well, women from at least two more cities and one regional town were in - I would love to see a map of Australia with dots representing every milk donor and her city of residence!). Like the other donors, I just had to get a blood test to make sure I had no diseases that might pass into my milk and onto BB's baby.

Learning how to express was no easy feat for me. I still haven't figured out how to hand express my milk, I almost cried from the pain when attempting to use an electric pump, and most of the time I can only manage to get 15-30mls from my manual pump in a sitting. But of course I persevered and got better at it, and most days I manage between 80 and 120mls a day! (In addition to breastfeeding my almost one year old whenever she wants, wherever she wants).

Before I learned of BB's situation I had hoped never to have to try expressing. I had only expressed to relieve engorgement or to get 5 to 10mls worth of my milk to relive my child's conjunctivitis, blocked ears or runny nose (which I administered using a dropper). I found it painful and laborious. I am happy to report that thanks to the experience I gained at expressing for BB I no longer find it painful.

Throughout December and January I kept my breast pump handy. Whenever I was feeling relaxed I would put it to my breast and start squeezing the handle. At first I had to learn to not get anxious about the process or work my hand too much because both those things could prevent my "let-down".

Like birth, breastfeeding causes the mother's body to release oxytocin, a hormone which elicits ejection reflexes such as the foetal ejection reflex that occurs during second stage labour, the ejection reflex women can sometimes experience during orgasm and of course the breasts' milk ejection. But for oxytocin levels to rise and cause these ejections, a woman must have a comfortable environment where she feels safe, has privacy and is able to relax. Knowing this, whenever I sat down to pump for BB and her baby I would try to get into the right frame of mind, focusing my thoughts on feelings of love, sex, rock and roll, England? Whatever it would take!

Other milk donor mums let me in on their secrets to successful expressing. These tips included pumping first thing in the morning and while your baby suckled at the other breast. Both tips helped a lot. Something else that helped was my own child's growing interest in the world beyond my bust. When in the company of others she became too excited to want to be still and feed, so the stretches between feeds over the holiday season became longer, and the milk was eager to flow!

Pumping for BB on Christmas morning

I discovered that expressing breast milk and trying to reach a certain numerical goal can pose a threat to a mother's breastfeeding confidence. Before expressing for BB I did not realise how the milk drips out of the breast, and watching it slowly drip into the pump made it seem like so little milk comes out. I also didn't realise how hard it was to draw milk out of my breasts using a pump. Of course a baby is much more efficient at suckling milk from a breast and mother and baby's bodies work together to create optimum conditions for let-down, very different to pumping breast tissue with a piece of plastic. Still, there have been times during this expressing journey when I have thought to myself "oh my God, does my baby get any milk out of me?", "what's wrong with my breasts?", "all that work for so little payoff!"

I remember being so proud of myself when I reached 30mls for the first time. I was so proud that I posted a photo of my jar of milk in an online photo album not realising that to most people it is a jar that is 70% empty, not 30% full. I was quite upset when this was pointed out to me. The support and positivity of my lactating friends and my partner have been wondrous during those doubtful times.

The flip side, however, was looking at a jar full of milk that I produced inside me, and expressed by my efforts, which was very affirming. "Look at all that milk!", "I made every last drop", "My child lives on nothing but this!", "BB's baby will live on this (for a short time)". The thrill of watching my jar become more and more full was fun.

I also got to see the magic of fore and hind breast milk. At the beginning of a feed/expressing breast milk is clear and watery. This is ideal for when the child needs to quench thirst but isn't up for a big meal. As the child stays at the breast the breast begins to let down thicker, white, fatty milk known as the hind milk. This is a gradual change from the clear to white milk (sort of like the same graduation from cold to hot water when turning on the hot tap at a kitchen sink). When first expressed all the milk blends in together, but when left in the fridge in a jar, undisturbed, it begins to separate. The thick white hind milk sits at the top, like skin forming on a soup, and the watery fore milk stays below.

Everytime I added more milk to my jar I swirled it around so that the fore and hind milk mixed together. I did this because otherwise the hind milk would stick stubbornly to the sides of the jar, and I didn't want that important milk to stay on my jar when it could be making it to BB's baby's tummy!

The jar I stored my milk in was an old mustard jar which had been sterilised. At the end of a sitting with my pump I emptied my expressed gold into the old mustard jar and kept it cool at the back of the fridge. Here it would keep for three days (ABA - Expressing and Storing Breast Milk). When the jar was full or close to full (or when the milk had been in the fridge for two days) I would pour the milk into a zip lock bag, seal it and place it in my freezer. Before using the zip lock bag I would label it with my name, the date the milk was expressed and the date it was frozen. In my freezer the milk was safe for BB's baby for three months if need be (ABA - Expressing and Storing Breast Milk).

Meanwhile April (you may remember her from such freebirths as Sunny's) was also expressing her breast milk for BB. But she was doing much better than I. April was making sure to express 100mls a day and doing it all by hand! April lives in a regional area of our state, so she decided to bring her frozen bags of breast milk in an ice filled esky to my house when she visited over New Years'. With April's litre of expressed breast milk added to my frozen bags we had over two litres to send to BB.

Two women's milk in the freezer.

BB sent me an esky and recommended stacking the breast milk in the esky with a bag of ice usually brought from convenience stores for parties (turned out dry ice was not considered safe for couriering). She arranged to have a local courier come to my house and pack the esky for delivery.

I admire BB so very much for what she is doing for her child. Paying a company to fly an esky full of ice and frozen breast milk over 1370 kilometres is no cheap feat!

The courier arrived on the morning we had arranged. I walked him into the kitchen and began removing the bags of frozen milk from the freezer into the ice filled esky. We sealed the esky shut and then the delivery man began taping up the esky, wrapping it in bubble wrap, putting it inside a garbage bag and taping itagain.

Frozen breast milk on the rocks

I had wondered what a delivery man might think about border-hopping breast milk, it's not a concept most people have considered. But this was no ordinary delivery man. This was a family man and the father of a breastfed son. He and his wife both felt it was an honour to be delivering something so precious from one family to another. As he packed the esky we talked about the wonder of breast milk, the potential for his wife to re-lactate and continue feeding their weaned two year old, and the amzing situation we found ourselves in thanks to BB and her son. We both took photos of our special delivery before I farewelled my milk.

The following morning I received an email from BB thanking April and I for our gift. Our milk had arrived safely. Aside from two partially thawed bags, the milk remained frozen and safe to keep in her freezer for another couple of months. The two less frozen bags were moved to the fridge to finish thawing out before becoming BB's baby's first meal from my (or April's) breast.

In a few months time April, myself and another friend named Clare, plan to have 9litres between the three of us to send to BB and her baby.

Thanks to BB and her precious babe for giving us such a wondrous honour. There is nothing quite like the feeling of knowing we were able to give you both a gift that means so much, and that can do so much for the heatlh and well-being of another person. We look forward to our little milk sibling children meeting one another in the future.


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