February 27, 2013

Milkin It

Last week I took an inventory of my breast milk. Wait, let's back up to why I did that.

Last week I had a consultation for LASIK. I've had glasses/contacts since I was in 3rd grade and I have 20/400 vision. That means what I see at 20 feet from an object someone with 20/20 vision would see the same quality 4 football fields (400') behind me. Both of my parents had it done a few years ago and they said it was life changing. I finally made the decision to do it and got all the way through the appointment and ready to schedule surgery when they asked me if I happened to be pregnant or breast feeding. I was struck down, I had no idea how your hormones could mess with your eyesight. So now I will have to wait until I've been done nursing for 6 weeks.
 
So that, coupled with my recurring mastitis made me think about when I planned on being done breastfeeding.  I decided to sort and take inventory of my frozen milk to see how long it would last.
Sadly, this 1,059 ounces would only last Adler about 5 weeks.  So I made the decision to keep going until he was as close to a year old as possible.  Dr Austman told me that she was very happy I had made it this long and if I really felt the need due to the mastitis that it was OK.  I'm glad I have a Dr that totally understands the emotional side of breastfeeding!  Well the very next day I was hit with I believe my 11th round of mastitis.  If you've ever had it you are cringing right now.  I've you've never had it I'll just tell you I'd rather recover from a c-section again.
 
I'm getting off topic!  OK so some people on Facebook asked how I got to have such a big stash.  With Asher I was seriously lucky to have 6 ounces frozen at one time.  With Adler the SMARTEST thing I did is when he started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks I set my alarm and got up at 2 AM every single night and pumped.  This all came from my middle of the night pumpings - about 3 months worth.  It solved a couple of problems.  I was waking up in the morning terribly engorged so it relieved that and also gave me milk that he didn't need to stockpile.  I totally recommend everyone do this.  When you're used to getting up in the middle of the night anyway it really isn't that big of a deal.  I would get up and either read or check Facebook while I pumped and got anywhere between 8-16 ounces a day.
 
I can't tell you how proud I am of my milk.  Sometimes I have to go open up the deep freeze and just look at it.  :)

2 comments:

Andrew Gerber said...

This makes me smile! So proud of you girl!! That is awesome!

Andrew Gerber said...

And this is clearly Carlee, but apparently my husband doesn't know how to sign out of his google account! :)