Got milk?

The following is a tale of breastfeeding. All male readers of my blog, you are dismissed and will not be penalized for not reading this post.

As a stay-at-home mother for the past 3 months, it has been my full time job to produce milk, meet the baby’s current hunger needs, and extract and manage milk reserves for when I go back to work (which if you’ve forgotten is this MONDAY).
I was fortunate that I was able to produce lots and lots of milk; many breastfeeding mothers have the opposite dilemma on their hands. After each feeding of baby Caleb I would use my breast pump to extract another 4 or 5 ounces of milk for storage; I had done this since our first week home from the hospital. Sure it doubled the time of our feeding sessions and caused much more work than was necessary, but I was delighted to be saving milk for baby Caleb.
Well it had gotten to the point where I was running out of space in our deep freezer to store the precious frozen bags of milk. Aside from the storage issue, I was also in a good deal of physical pain. I was producing so much milk that I was causing my breasts to be constantly engorged and highly susceptible to clogged milk ducts, which were excruciatingly painful for me.
After assessing the milk in the freezer and realizing that I had enough to feed a baby for 2 and 1/2 months, I finally convinced my crazy, overeager self that I had enough milk stored up and that it was time to decrease my milk supply. It took a month of breast milk management, of adjusting the laws of supply and demand, but eventually my supply dwindled down to perfectly meet baby Caleb’s needs. I was no longer overproducing milk – what a relief!
So isn’t it ironic that all of my hard work would go to ruin just a few days before returning to the job and just after decreasing my supply, rendering it impossible to store any extra milk.
I walked out to the freezer yesterday evening to assess my stockpile. Friends had joked that I should document my absurd surplus of milk for posterity. I opened the freezer door, camera in hand. The door, I noticed, opened a little too easily and perhaps was left opened overnight just a crack.
There in front of my face was one of my biggest fears realized – a freezer full of freezer burn and melting bags of milk. I was in disbelief. Then panic set in. Then the tears came flooding forth.
The rule is that once frozen breast milk has been thawed, it is only usable for 24 hours. It cannot be refrozen and must be gotten rid of. I spent my final Thursday evening before returning to work pouring 370 bags of breast milk down the kitchen sink. It was about 1,850 ounces of healthy, rich, nourishing liquid gold down the drain. It would have fed a baby for 2 months.
I was able to salvage about 70 bags of milk, bags that showed no signs of defrosting.
I’m sure this story has bored most of you to no end (and I’m certain I lost a lot of readers at the first sentence). But for anyone who has had the pleasure of breastfeeding, I bet you feel my pain.

Contents of deep freezer, before removing any milk.


I had to act quickly if I wanted to salvage any of the milk. I was launching bags of milk into this giant cooler and giant tupperware container – anything that appeared even remotely thawed. I knew I needed to empty the freezer quickly, so that whatever milk was still frozen would be kept frozen more efficiently.

And here's what is left, 4 shoeboxes full of milk. It is about 70 bags. Honestly, I should be happy with that. Some people aren't even blessed enough to collect that much milk.