Early in my pregnancy, I resolved to do everything in my power to exclusively feed Mio breast milk. The first week after she was born was heartbreaking for me because despite my determination, my milk was not coming in and I had to supplement with formula in order to ensure that she didn’t starve. When my milk finally came in, I still faced nursing issues because Mio had difficulty latching, would often fall asleep while breastfeeding, and then I suffered from clogged ducts and the problem of foremilk and hindmilk imbalance — I felt like once I was over one hurdle, there was yet another one waiting. Still, I kept at it and at times when breastfeeding got too difficult, I pumped and bottle-fed Mio my expressed breast milk, because I knew that nothing could beat the benefits that breast milk had to offer. The antibodies contained in a mother’s milk help fight diseases and viruses, as well protect the baby from short and long-term health problems. While a mother should never feel guilty for having to turn to formula to feed their baby, breast milk will always be superior and better for the baby.  I admit it’s not easy being bound to either the baby or the breast pump every day and having to pump during my lunch hour at work, but I choose this path because I really think it is the best thing I can do for Mio at this stage in her life.

In the past, I had heard that to many mothers, breast milk is called “liquid gold” because it is so precious for the aforementioned reasons, and every drop is critical when you are just barely able to produce enough or need to depend on other sources to feed your little one. I recently met a wonderful fellow new mother, and as we were sharing our nursing woes from our first few weeks as mothers, she told me that it was then that the phrase “crying over spilt milk” took on a whole new meaning for her. I, too, cried every day for my first few days as a mother, when I wasn’t able to give Mio enough milk on my own — although it was a short period of time, I will never forget the overwhelming feeling of helplessness that consumed me during that time. I felt like I had already failed as mother from the outset, even though it was a situation that was beyond my control.

About a month after Mio was born, though, I faced an unforeseen opposite problem of an oversupply — a “problem” that I suppose some mothers would envy. I dared not complain, because there are several mothers out there (including my own mother) who could never produce enough milk to feed their baby and were forced to supplement with formula. I feel very fortunate that despite the initial obstacles, I’ve been able to produce enough that I have been able to feed Mio only breast milk since she was two weeks old, and have never had to open the can of formula since. I continued to pump whatever excess Mio was not drinking to freeze for the times that I would be apart from her as well as for when I returned to work, so that she could continue to drink breast milk and be fed by Dan, my mother-in-law, or whoever else was taking care of her. I have been back at work for four weeks, however, and we had barely touched this “emergency supply,” and I had over fifty bags of milk just taking over our freezer space. Mio drinks a normal amount and is growing big and healthy; her demand has just never been able to catch up to my supply.

I admit that my initial thought was to see if I could sell my breast milk to alleviate the space in my freezer, as I had heard of mothers being able to turn a significant profit by selling their excess milk, at as much as $3 an ounce. But during my research, I quickly found that it is illegal to sell breast milk in the states of California and New York, and although from the listings I see on Craigslist, some people still try to sell their milk, I decided it would be much safer to remain a law-abiding citizen.

It was then I started to seriously consider breast milk donation. There are some milk banks out there that accept your frozen milk as long as you take screening tests to ensure that you are healthy and that your milk is safe for infant consumption. I was wary, however, because I read in several places that many of these banks will often sell the milk that they’d received as donations at ridiculous prices to hospitals and research laboratories, instead of making it readily available to mothers unable to lactate and their babies — the ones that really need it. If I was going to have to go through a rigorous screening process, I wanted to make sure I knew exactly where my milk was going and that it was really going to benefit an actual family. While I understand that hospitals and laboratories need to get their milk from somewhere too, if it’s my milk, I want to have a say in where it would go.

I was dealing with this dilemma and still on the fence about donating to a milk bank, when I saw a message come through in my email inbox from Berkeley Parents Network, a parent-to-parent email network for the community of parents in the San Francisco Bay Area. There are thousands of members who subscribe to this mailing list, and it is a great resource for advice, recommendations, donations, and list items to buy/sell for babies, children, and the home. They have weekly mailings on a variety of topics, and I’ve already learned so much just from passively reading some of the advice that parents have to share for each other. I was skimming yet another email last week when a certain post caught my eye.

The post was by a mother of twins who were born eight weeks early last year, one of whom was a baby girl born at only one pound 13 ounces. She has never been able to breastfeed nutritively and has had difficulty with formula. Although her parents have been trying to transition her to solids, she has yet to take to them, and so the family heavily depends on donations of breast milk from healthy, unmedicated mothers to help their baby’s growth. My heart immediately went out to this family. It had been difficult enough for me in the first few days following Mio’s birth when I was uncertain of whether I would ever be able to produce enough milk to give Mio a healthy start in life; I couldn’t imagine what this family had been going through over the past several months, struggling every day to ensure that their baby was getting the nutrition she needed to survive and fortify her health.

I immediately emailed the woman and asked her if she was still in need of donations, and that if she was, she was more than welcome to my freezer “stash,” as her baby girl would make much better use of it than we would. I assured her that I ate a healthy diet consisting of a lot or organic foods, that I was continuing to take my prenatal vitamins for nursing, am not on medication, and that I am neither a smoker nor a drinker. She responded with such gratitude and sincerity, and we made an arrangement so that I was able to pass off my contribution to the family’s doula later that week.

Shortly after I parted with the majority of the milk I had saved up, I saw yet another posting by a mother who had adopted a baby boy who had been exposed to crystal meth and alcohol while he was in utero. The parents have been trying to do what they can by feeding him the most natural food they can find for him, which is donated breast milk. It was heartbreaking for me to read about their situation as well, and I’m considering donating what little is left of my emergency supply to this family, and perhaps become an ongoing donor for this baby in need.

I have been so incredibly fortunate that Mio was born healthy and with relatively little complications, and that I have been able to nurse and provide enough nutrition for her to grow and thrive so healthily, and still have a lot of milk left over to share. For mothers who are unable to produce enough milk but have otherwise healthy babies, formula is a viable alternative to breast milk. However, in cases of babies who were born very premature, or who had a rough start due to their mother’s alcoholism or drug use, breast milk is really the best — and in some respects the only — option. The nutrition and antibodies contained in human milk is critical in ensuring their survival and helps get them on the road to a healthier life. Seeing and hearing about these families has really opened my eyes to how much I take for granted in caring for Mio. Sure, motherhood has been at times challenging in these first four months, but those moments must be nothing compared to what these families have had to endure. Some people look at breast milk donation and the rising popularity of “milksharing” with disgust, thinking that it’s a whole new level of weird when we even consider that milk from one woman’s breast can feed another’s baby. But when you are confronted with the question of whether to feed your baby milk from another human or milk from another species, I feel like the answer is a no-brainer. (Of course, it’s always important to be cautious about the source and screen the mother who is supplying the milk to ensure that it will be safe for your baby.)

Donating breast milk may make some people squeamish, but if you think about it, it is similar to donating blood — both save lives. A clinical coordinator of milksharing is quoted as saying, “the heroes are the mothers of healthy babies who have an abundance of milk.” I don’t consider myself a hero in the least. I am simply a mother that knows how it feels to want to do everything in my power to ensure my child’s wellbeing.