Lexi Garschagen Moore
Dallas, TX
In 2011, at age 38, I married my husband Ken, who was 44 at the time. We really wanted to have a family, but we couldn't get pregnant naturally. I underwent 3 intrauterine inseminations (a.k.a. IUIs) and none of them took. After my first round of IVF, learned I was pregnant. We were so excited!
We really felt like it took forever to get pregnant, but then we started to pass milestones and felt okay: hearing a heartbeat, making it to 12 weeks, normal test results. Then, around 18 weeks our sonogram showed that our daughter had fluid in her plural cavity, the layers of tissue between her lungs and chest cavity. We were told that sometimes it can be fatal, but some children survive. At our now-weekly sonograms, we would see her fluid levels fluctuate from better to worse, and at one point they were nearly all gone.
The morning of my 30-week appointment I was dressed in old clothes, excited and prepared to birth puppies alongside a friend's dog that was in labor. I went to my doctor's appointment without a bag packed, but then found out that I wouldn't get to birth puppies that day. Instead, my early-morning ultrasound showed that our daughter's condition was critical. She had fluid in her head.
I went into the hospital at 8:45 a.m. to deliver Isabella.
She arrived at 12:41 p.m., weighing 4 lbs. 3 oz. The initial prognosis was positive and I wanted to begin pumping immediately because I knew breastfeeding is good for you and best for the infant, and it is also cheap and what nature intended. I especially wanted her to get my breastmilk while she was in the NICU.
Breastmilk is so precious. I wanted Isabella to have mine.
I began pumping my breastmilk and because Isabella needed so little at each feeding, I froze the rest for her. By day five of her life, Isabella started having trouble with her lungs. On day six, February 2, 2013, she died in our arms. We are grateful for her and glad we got to hold her.
We still don't know the cause of her death and we never will. We just know that her underdeveloped lungs couldn't sustain life.
Within this short time I'd rented a pump from the hospital. Isabella was now gone. I told my husband I didn't want to stop pumping. I'm able to do this, and not a lot of people can. I just couldn't stop. I kept thinking, "I'm supposed to be feeding a baby right now." And, my grandmother who lost two of her five babies was someone I channeled when I pumped. I felt as if she was with me and helped me make sense of all of this.
We bought a freezer so we could store all of the milk. Isabella died on a Saturday and I called the Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas that Monday.
I let the Milk Bank know I was on an antidepressant. They advised that I needed to be off of my antidepressant for the prescribed amount of waiting time before donating milk that would be given to NICU babies. In the coming weeks, I began pumping anywhere from 40 to 60 ounces a day. Ultimately, I was able to donate 83 ounces to NICU babies. The Milk Bank also accepted the additional 272 ounces of milk I'd pumped and it used for onsite research at the Milk Bank including analysis trials, research studies, training purposes, and mock pasteurizations.
Pumping and donating my breastmilk helped keep me going.
Some people asked me why I was 'wasting my time' doing this. This was important to me because if someone doesn't have to lose their baby, then that would be great for that family. I was feeding NICU babies.
My husband has been so supportive. We fear we might not have children and that our lives will be so empty. My body still feels as if it is taking care of an infant, but I'm not holding a baby. The silence is deafening. I have a C-section scar and my breasts don't look like they used to, but we want to have another baby. We will try again. Or, we will adopt.
Throughout this time the act of breastfeeding helped me not feel as depressed. Pumping for two months and donating my breastmilk to the Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas has helped me heal emotionally, psychologically and physically.
|