The other night I opened our deep freezer looking for a bag of frozen broccoli. Before I could get to the broccoli I had to dig through six- one gallon ziplock bags each containing approximately 50 ounces of breast milk.
I opened our freezer door this afternoon only to have a frozen bag of breast milk land right on my big toe. After that bag fell, it was like a milk slide, a lactavalanche, as bags of frozen milk pelted me like I was in some kind of perverted nightmarish snowstorm. Our kitchen freezer, much like our deep freezer, is also FULL of breast milk.
Our neighbor down the street is storing a couple hundred ounces of breast milk for us in her deep freezer.
We have a friend in Broad Ripple that is also keeping a few hundred ounces of breast milk for us.
Multiple sets of grandparents (in two different states!) are also housing our “liquid gold” in their freezers.
It all seems a little crazy doesn’t it?
Since I’m not the milk maker around here, I pretty much have no say in any of this. It may sound like I’m complaining about all this milk being produced, but I know my wife is fortunate to produce this much milk. I am not trying to make light of the fact that some moms are unable to produce enough milk, but seriously, what are we going to do with it all?
I have been told there is a demand for human breast milk on the black market. At a dollar an ounce we could have ourselves a Swaggerwagon in no time! Going underground to sell breast milk seems pretty creepy. I’m sure most of the people buying it are well meaning moms that want it for their babies. But, I’m just as sure there are also some freaky people out there who like to mix it with their coffee or put it in their Fruit Loops each morning.
There has been one saving grace in all of this. The Indiana Mother’s Milk Bank. According to the Indiana Mother’s Milk Bank website (IMMB.org), “In 2005, Indiana Mothers’ Milk Bank, Inc., was established to improve health outcomes for premature and ill infants, foster better health for Indiana’s children and decrease health care expenditures. The milk bank receives human milk from carefully screened donors, pasteurizes, freezes and distributes it throughout Indiana and the Midwest. As a non-profit, community-supported entity, IMMB is the first and only donor human milk bank in Indiana.”
My amazing wife has donated a couple of thousand ounces of breast milk to this organization, and will most likely donate thousands more before it is all over with.
If she decides to hang on to the rest of the milk instead of donate it, we will soon be starring in our own reality TV show: Hoarders- Breast Milk Edition!