#normalizebreastfeeding
#freethenipple
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way: I have recently found myself in the bowels of the dark web…. Well, maybe not quite the dark web per se, more like obscure Facebook groups about the breastmilk black market. In the early days of Max’s life, I built up quite a stash of frozen breastmilk because I was pumping like a fiend to “keep my supply up” – something every pregnancy, labor and delivery, and neonatal care professional emphasizes with a twinge of fear in their eyes. I always found it sort of strange how much collective despair and anxiety there is around not being able to produce enough breastmilk – I mean, what even is “enough”? And how do you know what’s enough if your baby isn’t even with you to drink it, if your baby doesn’t even know how to drink yet?
So I dutifully pumped, and Max grew in the NICU, and we eventually learned how to nurse, and when Max came home from the hospital I bought an extra freezer for my garage to store the hundreds of ounces of extra milk I had produced during our time apart. Since being together, it’s been out of sight out of mind. My milk production has regulated thanks to lots of patience, persistence, and good ole’ breastfeeding Max. Now I know I produce enough, because Max is here to define what enough is instead of that being decided by a machine.
That still leaves us with the freezer full of breastmilk. A stash that unfortunately has an expiration date. A stash that we probably couldn’t use up before it goes bad even if we tried. I’ve joked about what to do with it to put it to use: give baggies of breastmilk away at Halloween! Hand them out as favors when people come to visit us! Donate it to an animal shelter to feed orphaned kittens and puppies! (I actually did look into this and it turns out other species don’t drink human breastmilk because it’s too watery for them… the more you know). I could hypothetically use it to make lotions or soaps for Max, but I am not that crunchy, and the idea of just throwing it out pains me – each of the 100 or so bags in there represents at least an hour of my time pumping, cleaning pump parts, measuring, storing, and labeling. As much as I’d like to gift it all to a NICU to pay it forward in honor of the donors who supplied Max with milk in his early days, I ironically don’t qualify because of medications I am on to manage the high blood pressure which put Max in the NICU in the first place.
That is how I ended up on the breastmilk black market. There are Facebook groups of parents out there connecting people who need breastmilk with people who have breastmilk to give. The group I first found is specifically for people in Tennessee. I did some scrolling through old posts to get a sense of what the deal was, and then put myself out there with a post saying I have a stash of breastmilk in the Memphis area to give to someone who needs it.
Within hours, I got multiple direct messages from other moms pleading to be the recipient of my supply. I could sense the desperation in their messages, hoping for some relief from whatever circumstances disabled them from having their own breastmilk to give to their babies. My heart broke for them because I know all too well what it feels like to not be able to give your baby what they need to literally survive. I also felt proud to be among such fierce, dedicated moms – some of whom were willing to drive over 9 hours from the other side of the state just to pick up the milk I had to share. It’s breathtaking to encounter what parents – and in this case, mothers – will do to make things happen when left to their own devices. No official milk bank, no problem; leave it to moms with an internet connection and social media to feed the babies of Tennessee.
However, as I continued fielding inquiries and making arrangements to meet up with some grateful parents, I started to panic. What if we actually DID need all of this breastmilk? What if I stopped being able to produce enough milk for Max like so many of these other women experienced? What had once been a burdensome supply of frozen breastmilk started to feel valuable to me in a whole different way – just because it was now valuable to someone else. Instead of feeling grateful for what I had and what my body is able to do, I took on the pervasive fear and worry rampant in the breastfeeding space. I felt the need to hoard what I had, instead of giving it away to someone who needed it more than me. I immediately recognized this for what it was: scarcity mindset.
I was letting someone else’s sense of need define my own, and frankly it felt gross. It felt like I had given away my power, allowing random strangers on the internet to define my sense of what is valuable to me instead of assigning value based on the context of my actual life circumstances. I never had a supply issue before then; Max has the same number of feedings with the same amount of milk every day; I still have a small stash of milk to keep for myself if something happened to change; I have the time and resources to get help if my milk production happens to go down. Even though the easiest thing for me to do would be to keep the milk for myself, what is easy isn’t always what’s right.
In the coming weeks, I have plans to meet up with four different women who are each getting a portion of my frozen stash. One from Kentucky who is adopting a baby due in February after her own struggle to conceive. One from Nashville who had to stop breastfeeding when she started taking antidepressants because she needed to prioritize her mental health. One from rural Tennessee an hour outside of Memphis who stopped producing milk for her first child because she is newly pregnant with her second. And one whose story I don’t know, because in the end it doesn’t really matter.
In a culture of motherhood and parenting where we so rarely ask for help, it’s vital that we respond with compassion and without judgment when someone does put themself out there – no questions asked. It’s equally as vital that we give what we have when we can because abundance mindset aside, we never know when we’ll be the one who needs it.
One mom’s stash is another mom’s treasure.
Leave a comment