What in the world am I rambling about?
Our paper did a story about me...or rather, something Evie and I did. And not just any story, a FRONT PAGE story w/a big weird looking picture of me and Evie (remember how I said I'm over my own vanity - it's true, but it's also true that it's a weird looking picture, except for cute Evie!).
Click here if you would like to read the article from their site, or here if that link doesn't work: http://www.gothenburgtimes.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2009/03/27/49cb7feff0fa9?in_archive=1
or if that doesn't work: http://www.gothenburgtimes.com/ and search for me and it should come up.
Or none of those work, you might have to open up a seperate browser and do the search yourself. Stinky blogger won't work for me!
My side of the story is this. When Evie was about 5 months old, she had stopped nursing for her late evening feedings which was right before Terry and I went to bed. I had a decision to make. I could either just completely drop that feeding or I could pump. I wanted to keep my milk supply as healthy as possible to save money and therefore, it would be advantageous to keep that feeding going. Also, this was the same time that Evie started on cereal and I wanted to be able to mix the cereal with real milk. So I made the decision to pump for that feeding while Evie slept.
Then I remembered an interesting link I had seen on my friend Megan's blog which had always been in the back of my mind: http://www.breastmilkproject.org/. I was intrigued and emailed her for more information. If you check out that site you'll see that it is for donated breast milk. Donated what? Yeah, you heard me. Most people, myself included, had never ever heard of such a thing. Lots of people (mostly sex crazed Americans) probably think this concept is absolutely crazy but I think it's amazing and awesomely great. So I signed up. And that's what the article is about.
When I finally finished the process of becoming a qualified donor in February, which is all detailed in the article, I sent huge box full to their center where it is all tested and pasteurized and formulated, etc. I'm not sure how much I sent b/c I didn't measure, but probably somewhere between 100 to maybe 200 ounces.
After they received my shipment (which they paid for, they paid for EVERYthing), they sent me an article that I could forward on to my local newspaper if I wished people to know what a cool thing I had done. I immediately thought "no way," but then remembered that all of my friends I had visited about what I was doing were interested. They were interested and surprised b/c they had never heard of anything like this before. So I reconsidered the article they sent me and forwarded it on to our paper with a prerequisite - that I didn't want the article to be all about me.
It's a good article b/c it's not all about me. The huge picture is just a little deceiving. Oh, and my excuse of how silly I look is that I totally thought the reporter / photographer was taking a picture of Evie so I wasn't even paying attention. I was cool with Evie's face being in the paper, 
but I not so much mine. My name was alright but my face??? I just didn't want people to think I'd done it for personal glory. I did it b/c I wanted other women to know that this really sweet cause exists. So many mothers have extra milk and then their babies grow up and they have nothing to do with it. It's liquid gold. You don't want to throw it away, you feel bad doing that. The article didn't say this, but breast milk has over 100,000 compounds in it that they can't even begin to imitate. It's truly what God intended for a babies diet to be. So why not pass that on to women who can't give it to their own children - like premature babies in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (75% of milk goes there) and poor sick babies in Africa (the other 25%).
So, I'm proud to have helped. I will do it again if and when we have another child. =)
Wow! Very interesting to read. Melissa Faye Greene also wrote a book, There is No Me Without You and it is a great story about Ethiopia, AIDS and adoption. I HIGHLY recommend it.
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