The Perfect Solution - Final Chapter
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: This will be the final segment. While there is a lot more to tell, I'm finding it more difficult to write about this than I thought it would be. Fiction stories are easy for me, but writing about a real-life event such as this is not. So I will give you a very condensed summary in this chapter. If you have specific questions I'll answer them as best I can.)
At the dinner that evening they were talking about how Michelle at first had been breastfeeding Susan. She said when Susan nursed on her she suc-ked so hard that it was really hurting her nipples a lot. So she had started pumping her breasts and was now just feeding her with her stored milk. She also said the pumping was causing her to produce a lot of milk and that she was even having problems with leaking much of the time. Seems a lot of her milk was just going down the drain.
Now for the 'Perfect Solution' part. Julie somehow had a spontaneous 'ah-ha' moment and casually said, "well maybe you could give Pat (that's me) some of it." Of course both Michelle and Joyce were surprised and didn't understand. So Julie said, "Pat's doctor just had a baby a few months ago and has been breastfeeding her. She's also my doctor and I was in the room when this was being discussed. We both really like Dr. R so it was not surprising that we were asking about her baby, etc. Of course Dr. R knows about how much Pat has been through with his health problems...going to many specialists, having countless diagnostic tests, trying many different medications. And nothing was really helping him. She sort of jokingly said that maybe he should try breastmilk because of it's nutritional value. We thought she was just kidding but she said, well nothing else has worked and you never know."
What is true about what she said is that Dr. R did have a baby girl a few months ago and she is breastfeeding her, but the rest of the story was made up. Wow! Unreal that Julie came up with that story as quickly as she did. And even more unreal to me is that she actually told that to Michelle & Joyce. Anyway, Michelle just took it in stride and said OK. She didn't think it weird or strange. She is a sweet person and is doing it as a gesture of her caring so much for me.
That was about 5 weeks ago and I have been drinking Michelle's breast milk ever since then. She pumps her milk directly into milk storage bags, for both me and Susan. Of course I don't get as much as Susan but it is quite an experience for me. Not sure it has helped my physical health, but it has sure allowed me to live out what I've been curious about for a long time. And it is delicious as well!
I've attached a photo of one of the storage bags that has about 4 ounces of milk left in it. She usually pumps it almost full, which is about 8 ounces. I get 3 or 4 bags a week and usually drink 4 ounces everyday at lunch. While the milk is actually sort of watery in texture, it is very rich and nutricious, and 4 ounces is quite filling. No wonder 'us' babies grow up so fast when breastfed. :)