Ask & Ye Shall Recieve: Eats on Feets Addition

So, back in January, I was lamenting that I didn't make any substantial milky mama matches yet & was getting very frustrated--on the verge of giving up looking for donor milk for Noah.  We had been looking without successful matches for 3 months and I was growing weary of getting excited at a potential donor, only for the match to fizzle out.  Well, about a week later, I got onto Eats on Feets again & read the "have available" discussion posts & low and behold, there was milk available.  Not only was it available, it was local!  I was excited, since it felt different this time around & it was!  We finally made some matches!  Not just 1 or 2, but 4 of them and a potential 5th (and to be fair, we had 1 other donor with about 40oz last fall, so Noah's had 5+ milky mamas give him their liquid gold)!  And a few of the mamas are going to continue pumping to supply us with constant milk!!

I hold a special place in my heart for them & have made some new friends in the process.  Some mamas even baby wear & cloth diaper!  Woo hoo!  I screen my donors carefully & a requirement I make is I must know who they are on their facebook page beforehand & lemme tell you that I am an excellent facebook page stalker!  I probably know more about my milky mamas then some of their friends do. lol!  But now it's SO neat having one of them comment on my status or comment on a picture (and I do the same obviously).  I love these unique friendships which are so personal and meaningful because of a selfless act--a total stranger pumped her breastmilk and wanted to share some with another baby (or 2 or 3) who needs it.  I am in total awe of them! <3

The one mama I meet now regularly lives about 10 minutes away & has an overactive supply in that she's pumping a liter of milk a day at work just to relieve engorgement & is feeding 2 other babies as well as her son!  She's awesome and we are planning on play dates with her kids and mine (and just asked me about wanting to switch to cloth diapers! Yay!)!!  Another mama I met pumped milk for her triplets through their first birthday!  Another has linked me to new attachment parenting resources.  I just love how amazing these mamas are!  I hold a special place in my heart for them.

So I've been spending these past few months now collecting milk from the different mamas and Noah's only had a handful of artificial milk bottles in between (lets call it what it is--formula is really just artificial breastmilk we feel better feeding to our vulnerable infants by just giving a different name).  He's been a happier baby (and he's even had the pain from 2 teeth come in & an ear infection! He just doesn't fuss much about anything, but that formula made his tummy hurt & fussy) & I feel like I've been making more milk because I'm not stressing about having to give him artificial milk.  I despise that Good Start artificial milk can and it feels GREAT to see it sit there, unopened! :o)

So our current total of donor milk we've received: 1703.75oz!!!!  I'm keeping a tally of all that we're donated & have no doubt in my mind that we'll have milk for Noah until he's 1 year old+ (my new goal). What some awesome mamas out there!!! :o)

**UPDATE** We recieved a total of 3230.25oz total from all of our milky mamas!  What a blessing they all have been!!

Human Milk 4 Human Babies, Eats on Feets, MilkShare, Modern Milk Sharing's facebook page, & Sharemilk on Cafe Mom are all great resources to find local free donor milk or there are milk banks to purchase milk for a premium price. And Modern Milk Sharing is a great resource about milk sharing in general.