Sharing, photo by Harold Davis.

It’s good to learn sharing early. When Katie Rose was in the NICU, Phyllis pumped large quantities of breast milk for her. The inventory far outstripped what our tiny preemie needed, so Phyllis donated the extra supply to the Mother’s Milk Bank of San Jose.

This was no casual donation, because breast milk is treated as a “blood product”. Phyllis had to have blood work done, and we had to arrange for a freezer-to-freezer transport with the nurse from the milk bank.

Over a period of time, Phyllis donated about 700 ounces of breast milk (about 5 1/2 gallons). Milk expressed for a preemie is specially formulated with benefits for premature babies, so Phyllis’s donated milk, pumped for Katie Rose, has been used to help other premature babes. And Katie Rose is now a milk sister to these infants.

Phyllis stopped pumping a couple of months ago, and Katie Rose is now ploughing through our “library” of breast milk bottles archived in the freezer (see photo below). We supplement Katie’s diet with the Similac Neosure product.

Looking at the frozen bottles of breast milk, Phyllis and I think they make a kind of diary. The date on each one brings us memories of what was going on over the summer in the NICU as they were pumped. The story of a great deal of stress and joy is written in milk.