The milk works

I have decided to attempt an increase in my milk supply in the hopes of pumping some extra to donate to a little guy on the other side of the state.

I found out about this baby and mama through a mutual Facebook friend. I was reading my friend's profile posts and found a note by someone else entitled "Our Stay at CHOP." I assumed that this meant "Children's Hospital of Philadelphia" and I was correct. Odd for my Canadian friend to be going to CHOP, but it was an online buddy of hers tagging my friend and other friends in the posting regarding their experience at this "world class" hospital. It sounded as though the family was having a similar experience as the one that we had.

Have I ever mentioned that I hate the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia? And, were it not for the actual surgical work performed so successfully on my son, I'd have rued the day we walked in there.

This woman's baby boy is having issues with weight gain and has been "diagnosed" with failure to thrive. That's not a diagnosis--that's like saying it's wet because it's raining. Failure to thrive means that the child isn't gaining enough weight, basically. That could mean ANYTHING. A tongue tie can cause FTT (which was why no one ever suspected Meatball of having it). An allergy can cause it. But FTT is not only not a diagnosis--it is completely unhelpful.

The medical staff didn't remember anything about this woman's child. They said that confused him with another child on the floor, only to discover that there wasn't another little boy like him on the floor and they were just using that to cover up for their stupidity. They basically mocked these parents for using cloth diapers (sound familiar?) and gave them a hard time for wanting to sleep with their baby close to them. Many of the children in that area of the hospital had no parents for most of the time, and the medical staff seemed to be accustomed to making decisions about the children without having to "contend" with the parents.

The doctors prefer easily measurable, which is why they like kids being formula-fed. Doctors also admit to knowing little to nothing about human lactation, and if they do know, it's because they or their spouse or their mother taught them. Doctors also have a hard time understanding that a child who isn't tolerating formula shouldn't be fed more of it.

Incidentally, have you seen this?

So, inspired by my hatred of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and my distaste for baby formula as an automatic solution to feeding problems, I'm making milk for this little guy. I have 3 bags of milk, 3 oz each. One from a few weeks ago and 2 from last night and this morning.

I'll see how much milk I can get, and next week I'll put it all on ice, load it in a cooler, and send it on the Greyhound bus. It's a very quick and very effective shipping method.