Kris found a way to use her oversupply of breast milk as a gift to babies who needed it most. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she shipped her milk multiple times a month to Austin to save many lives right from her home. We here at MMBA couldn’t be more appreciative for her time and generosity to all those infants in need.
Kris’ Milk Donor Story
After years of infertility struggles, modern medicine made it possible for us to have this perfect little miracle boy. We were blessed that Rory was born a big ole healthy boy (9.1 lbs & 10 days early ), and I have been able to produce more than enough milk to keep him growing and trending in the 80th percentile in height & weight.
Much to my surprise, I turned out to be a breast milk-producing machine! I was filling up my freezer and my parent’s extra freezer too! I had no more room, and it broke my heart, but I began dumping a ridiculous amount of milk every day. Wishing there was something I could do with the excess milk or a way to donate it to babies in need, I turned to the trusty Internet to see what I could do. Once I read about the possibility of donating my extra milk to a nonprofit milk bank (I wanted to help and not turn my excess breast milk as a profit!), I knew this was something I needed to do.
I was hesitant to start donating in the middle of a pandemic, but then I learned there was a high demand for breast milk due to access restrictions for moms with babies in NICUs across the country. So many mothers were not being allowed to nurse their babies at the beginning of the pandemic. I can’t imagine what that would be like, but hopefully, those mommies can have a bit of solace in these hard times with donated milk.
As I mentioned before, my son was born with the help of modern medicine; my husband and I were the perfect storms of infertility if you will. After years of the BFN (Big-Fat-Negative) pregnancy test, we turned to hormone injections, and finally, sperm donation. An anonymous individual donated with the hope of helping build families for those who couldn’t on their own. Without that donation, a piece of my heart would still be missing today! It didn’t take me long to realize that donating my milk would be the least I could do to pay it forward!
For an entire year, I pumped no less than 40 oz a day, sometimes more! This meant pumping every three hours, every single day, while my family slept I was up pumping— while on road trips I was in the backseat pumping—while working from home I was emailing and pumping. Every minute was worth it.
In addition to milk bank donations, I was able to supply my nephew, who is only five weeks older than my son, with breast milk when my sister’s supply ran out.
Many women struggle to produce breast milk for their own child, and I have no idea why I was able to produce so much, but I was incredibly grateful to pay it forward in such a dark year!
As my donation journey comes to an end, I will be forever grateful to the Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin for giving me a chance to pay my good fortunes forward! I was able to donate just shy of 8,453 oz of liquid gold to save so many babies!
