Donor Stories
"My husband and I were married for almost five years before welcoming our first child, our son Andrew, into our family. Just over three years later we welcomed our daughter, Lily. She will be a year old this week. The biggest obstacle I overcame as a mother was finally getting both my children to nurse. I had taken classes and worked with lactation consultants in the hospital after I gave birth to my son, but he still had trouble with his latch, and my letdown was so strong, it was a little overwhelming for him.
After hours and hours of working with him to nurse, pumping, switching back and forth between the bottle and breast, and feeding via finger/syringe in the hospital, I finally was able to get him to nurse. He was two months old before he finally started nursing well.
All the pumping I had to do caused me to realize I had an over supply, and I had heard mothers could donate their milk, so I started looking into options. I was proud to donate over 2,000 ounces of breast milk while nursing him. When I had my daughter, I was so hopeful that this time nursing wouldn't be the struggle it was with Andrew.
When she was born and I realized she wasn't nursing either, I initially had a good attitude, knowing my plan of action and what I had done to get Andrew to nurse. My good attitude was soon to be tested over and over again as she was even harder to nurse than my son. She fought the bottle as well as the breast, even with a nipple shield, and I did not have as many hours each day to work with her to get her to nurse because I was now caring for a three year old as well.
After four months of blood, sweat, tears, and milk, she finally nursed without help. I had an over supply of milk with her as well, so I started the donation process again. Any time I am able to send out another cooler of milk I feel proud, because it just continues to add to the total ounces of milk I have donated.
For any moms who are looking to donate, I just want to say that you should not feel intimidated by the whole process, because everyone I have worked will has been very helpful, and they all want what you want- to be able to use your excess milk to help others."