I am so mad. My body is getting ready for nourishing another baby and it looks like there will be lots of milk. That's a good thing.
With Amelia I also had a lot of milk. Sadly, that was a bad thing. It came in three or four days after she was born, my breasts were so full, they hurt. I could not contain it. Some advised me to bind my chest really tight, but I couldn't: I had to cry and with a tight chest I was suffocating.
It was traumatizing to have so much milk and no baby to feed, so I really wanted to donate it to babies that could benefit from it. I had everything: milk, pump, bottles, and most of all desire to share, to help.
But many times over I was advised against it: it would be difficult, you have to do blood tests, you have to follow a certain diet, as if you were feeding your own.
I thought they knew better, so I gave up. That was a mistake. I knew better.
All that milk went to waste, with no real purpose I resorted to wine in search of respite. I would have much rather skipped the wine and shared my milk, Amelia's milk. There would have been at least one baby in this world that had something in common with her in that moment, that would have been an immediate positive in all the tragedy. But it scared others, so it wasn't.
Now, I hurt when I feel my breasts swell, my heart aches and my jaws clench. I go back to the moment of no baby to feed and nobody wanting the milk. I don't want to feed this baby this way. I wanted it so much that I resent it now. I was told that when I have another baby I can share my milk then. Hell NO. Not a chance. If I get this baby home, do you really think that I will be wanting to do the blood tests and all the extra pumping and storing and what not when I have my own to feed? No.
Why did you have to say No to me then??? Did you not think it would leave a sad mark on my heart?
Well, it did. No milk for you.
Lilypie Angel and Memorial tickers
I knew I couldn't have been the only grieving mom in history to want to donate milk. When I spoke with the milk bank, they said they'd never worked with someone like me. The person I spoke to was very kind and compassionate, but I could also hear the fear in her voice. My milk came back on Mother's Day (not making that up!) and I thought about donating it but the woman said, "We wouldn't want to put you through that." What she meant was, "We wouldn't want to put OURSELVES through that."Helping the mother of a dead child pump and donate milk. When I told her that I regretted not donating when my son was first born and that it would have been something really meaningful to look back on, she paused and said she hadn't thought of it that way. Baby steps?
ReplyDeleteWishing you peace and comfort, Alena. Comfort in your body and your soul.
Nail right on the head--*They* don't want to have to face a bereaved mother, so *they* impose their own fears upon us. So many examples of this in our day-to-day life. Too many examples.
ReplyDeleteI was breastfeeding Christopher still when he left and I was pregnant with his little sister. I remember so clearly my milk leaking whenever I cry for him and I remember how that just killed me every time I saw it leaking. I also remember how angry I was when my milk finally dried up. It was another blow. Then it came back in before my daughter was born and I felt like that was a betrayal to Christopher somehow. In the end I did breast feed his sister too. It seems like the ripple effects of grief are never ending at times. It just affects everything in your life. I am sure Amelia is watching over her little sibling and doing all she can to help. Wishing you gentle moments.
ReplyDeleteKeta