A Thanksgiving Story: Sharing From My Surplus

By Ashley Pichea

A few weeks after my daughter was born, some missionaries came to stay at the camp where we were living and working. The couple had been trying unsuccessfully to have kids for quite some time. Just before arriving at the camp (actually the reason they weren’t overseas at the time), they had been able to adopt a newborn and make him a part of their family.

Wanting to give him the best nutrition possible, the mother had been taking hormones and attempting to breastfeed her new son, using a device that closely resembled the actual nursing process for both the mother and the baby in an attempt to help her body make milk. Unfortunately, the process wasn’t working and the baby was only able to get his nutrition from the formula the mom was using.

There were two moms, myself included, at the camp who were nursing our own infants at the time. We were both using pumps with our babies, and had both built up a surplus of milk supplies in our freezers that our babies would not be needing. So, we shared.

The adoptive mom was not able to give her son milk that she made, but she was able to provide him with “mommy’s milk” during the earliest months of his life. I was able to share my milk with her for a little over a month until we moved to a new location.

I never thought much about sharing my milk. And to be quite honest, if somebody I knew asked me to do it again (or even to be a wet nurse to their child), I’d probably do it in a heartbeat. Nothing is better those first few months of life than “mommy’s milk!”

Ashley Pichea is a wife and mom (2 year old boy and an almost 4 year old girl). In addition to being a mom, Ashley is a blogger, an online student (pursuing an MA in Ministry), and is actively involved in her local church’s various ministries. She home schools her daughter and chronicles the journey at Teaching Jenny. Her blog, AP Freewriting, has become a place of ministry to women with a purpose of encouraging women with the Word of God. Ashley can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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