Taking Back My Life By Giving Away My Milk       In the summer
of 2003 I waited alone in the blood bank looking at a five year
old National Geographic.  For six years I anxiously avoided
blood draws because it reminded me of donating blood for my
father a few weeks before he bled to death from complications of
his esophageal cancer.  I skipped the then triple serum screen
because I was young, low-risk, and afraid of needles.  But here
I was, vials of cells drawn from my arm, paperwork submitted to
become a breast milk donor.  I always planned to breastfeed.  I
always planned to have a healthy little baby and a natural child
birth experience.  I always planned period.  Then came the day
that I stopped planning and starting learning harsh lessons.
First, I learned about my son’s life-threatening heart defects,
and our midwife thought he had Downs Syndrome. Then I learned
(after a double puncture amniocentesis) that his chromosomes
were actually normal.   I learned his heart could never be
“fixed” just palliated