Milk Experiment

My last 10oz of pumped stash is finally gone! The 2 bags of breast milk came out of the freezer this morning. I didn't know what I'd do with them then. I wasn't prepared to just dump all of it into the drain. Looking at them brought back memories of those tightly scheduled 3x a day pumping sessions, the fluorescent lit pumping room at SLF and all the washing I had to do daily with all the breast pump parts. Those were some busy times and I'm glad it was only for 5 months. Many mothers have had to do it MUCH longer.

So after coming home from dinner this evening, I thought to have Emil try the milk out before his bedtime. After all, I pumped those for him right before I quit my job. They were prepared to him anyway. Sure, it was in the freezer for 11 months, definitely not the freshest. But it wasn't unsafe.

The milk tasted okay to me. Although much different from cow milk, sweeter and milkier (not sure how to describe the taste). I warmed the milk, gave the cup to him, awaiting a reaction. He took a sip, then another small sip, did a double look at the cup then put it down. Without saying anything! I suppose he honestly prefers cow's milk now, which is a good thing! He drank the replacement cup of warm cow milk in one take, so clearly he didn't like the breast milk that much.

Even though I had weaned Emil back in December, getting rid of the last bit of the stash was the ultimate end to our breastfeeding relationship. We had a great run, my little man!

The Blue Curtain of Cringe

I've been back on FaceBook for almost a year now, and my feeds are pretty full on most days. With many friends from college, grad school and work having kids, I get a fairly good amount of birth news.

Usually it's stuff like "First Name Last Name, xx lbs xx oz, xx inches long, born at xxx hospital at xxx time this morning!" It's very cool to see new babies being acknowledged in the cyber space in almost real time. Not to mention sometimes I haven't been in touch with the parents for a long time and it's nice to share a part of their lives.

Along with the newborn stats, there are often birth photos. You probably have guessed it by the title of this post, some those photos contain the Blue Curtain that I often dread seeing. It's the surgical blue curtain drawn above the mother's chest from a caesarean birth. Mother is smiling in her surgical cap, while the father dressed in a blue surgical gown, holding the baby to her face.

Yeah, so I'm seeing more of those photos than I would like. There are situations where a c-section is necessary to save lives, like breech births and other complications. In the US today, that's probably not the reason why most c-sections are carried out. I won't get into the specifics of the debate because you can read it on your own or just watch The Business of Being Born. I mainly just feel sad seeing those photos because the mothers are my friends. They are all college educated, professional women who are generally healthy and below the age of 35. I just don't understand why this is happening to them so often. More over, I just wish something could be done so this wouldn't happen to another woman I know.

You can't really walk into a baby shower and tell the expectant mom "hey, do you know the c-section rate in this country? Before you open up another wrapped onesie gift, please switch from your OB to a midwife and write up a birth plan!" That just won't work well. Expectant moms want and should hear the warm and fuzzy. With friends that I know well and really care about, I suppose I wouldn't shy away from giving such advice if I think they haven't heard it already.

Earthquake, Libya, global warming, the US budget, too many things to fix in this world, ain't it. But I wouldn't mind if the Blue Curtain of Cringe is eliminated though. Seems like it'd be more easily done than the other things aforementioned.