ELIJAH'S MILK
They say it takes a village to raise a child. In our youngest son's case it has taken a village to feed and grow him. Many wonderful women have 'grown' Elijah and many children have shared their mother's milk with him in these first few important months of his life.
So how did we come to this decision and how did we achieve it? Unfortunately I have an illness which means I am unable to breastfeed but both my husband and I wanted to give our son the very best start in life we could so I started researching breast milk donation early on in my pregnancy. We were very keen to give our son all the benefits of breast milk but especially the antibodies and reduced rates of illness. His donors came through a breast milk sharing group and from directly connecting with other mothers. We started collecting milk donations a few weeks in advance of Elijah's birth and luckily had beautiful 'liquid gold' milk from the first weeks of two wonderful little babies’ lives. We never envisaged that we would have been able to feed our son near 100% breast milk and not rely too much on formula for the first few months of his life but as more wonderful women came forward to either donate excess milk that they had stored and didn't need or to become on-going donors, giving up their time to pump and store milk for him, we were able to feed him near exclusively on breast milk for the first 8 months of his life and we’re still going! We have met with some wonderful women, discovered parts of Dubai we didn't know and put many miles on the clock. There have been some really, really touching stories. Women who have suffered loss and those that have suffered the stress of premature baby but during these stressful and very sad times they have remarkably still managed to think of others and donate their milk. Amongst many amazing women Elijah’s donors have also included: tandem feeders, a mummy exclusively pumping for twins, a mother back at work full-time and pumping for her fifth child, a women transporting her donated breast milk from Abu Dhabi and a wonderful mother blessed (for us maybe not for her!) by producing twice as much milk a her son needs. It has been a wonderful journey and we are so pleased we have been able to give Elijah the very best start in life we can. Elijah is still one of the healthiest children we know; we ended up feeding him predominantly breast milk until about 14 months of age. We're stocking up already for our third bambino due September/October. We will always be indebted to Elijah's amazing 'milk mummies' for their generosity and for feeding our wonderful, strong and healthy baby boy. They have given him a gift whose benefits will last a life time. |