If you're a Mom and especially a new Mom, you know that breastmilk can only be categorized as liquid gold. First, you agonize over having enough milk to feed your baby then you agonize over having enough milk to leave the house and then finally, you agonize over having enough milk in your freezer to go back to work. It can really drive a girl crazy and that’s putting it lightly. One of my mama friends said if she could add up all the time she spent pumping and get even half that time back she would be relaxing on a beach with a pina colada. And it’s true. Figuring out how to have time to pump when you’re baby always wants to eat can really be a challenge. So, after weeks of trying to keep enough milk in the fridge to be able to go to the gym, when I actually started putting milk in the freezer I felt like a god damn rockstar. By month 3 I had gotten into a groove, I would pump after I fed Kennedy in the morning and then again after I put her to bed at night and so I did… every. single. day. And I built up quite the stash, almost 100 bags to be exact, enough to make me feel okay that I would be away from my baby and know that she would be able to get fed (what I felt) was the best thing for her. Then I somehow talked my husband into letting me start my own business and quit my day job (I know I’m one lucky lady) but I kept that milk in the freezer because I worked and sweated HARD for that milk. Fast forward a few months and we started defrosting the gold… and it smelled HORRIBLE. So I threw out the March bags, it couldn’t all be bad right? And it wasn’t ALL bad but the majority of it was (March, April and even some of the May bags). I don’t know if I had waited too long to put it in the freezer (I had been keeping it in the fridge first) or if my milk wasn’t good frozen but today… after almost 9 months of hoarding that milk I threw out half of it.
And it was hard. And it hurt. And I felt guilty. I felt guilty for throwing out milk when I know that Mom’s work SO hard to keep their production up and they pump in broom closets and bathrooms and carry that liquid gold home in backpacks and suitcases to their babies and here I am just dumping it. But I did, because just like back when my baby was only on milk and that freezer space needed to be used for it now that she’s on solids, this Mama needs to be able to fill that freezer with a new kind of gold, freezer meals.
And it was hard. And it hurt. And I felt guilty. I felt guilty for throwing out milk when I know that Mom’s work SO hard to keep their production up and they pump in broom closets and bathrooms and carry that liquid gold home in backpacks and suitcases to their babies and here I am just dumping it. But I did, because just like back when my baby was only on milk and that freezer space needed to be used for it now that she’s on solids, this Mama needs to be able to fill that freezer with a new kind of gold, freezer meals.
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