I did it. I survived yesterday.

At the end of the workday, I stopped at Trader Joe’s to pick up some dried mangoes, and the cashier asked me if I had any fun plans for the rest of the day. I was able to honestly answer, “I’m going to go pick up my kid from daycare, which is always the best part of my day!”

What a shift from the morning “good riddance” drop-off!

I also lifted my spirits by donating all of my freezer breastmilk to a mama in need. She put out a call for donor milk on one of the Facebook mama groups I’m in, and I thought, “gee… she needs it. Lewis doesn’t. And I had a crappy day and doing something nice for someone else will make me feel better.”

This woman has a premature baby in the NICU. The little angel was born at 4.5 lbs, and dropped to 3 lbs. He’s on his way back up now, but she felt strongly that she wanted to give him breastmilk instead of formula, and her body isn’t producing well since she doesn’t have real-life baby sucks to stimulate her. Sometimes the pump just doesn’t cut it! Anyway… off I went with my cooler full of breastmilk. It wasn’t much. Maybe 60 oz or so? But that will get her started, and it sounded like another mama of a newborn was going to be her ongoing supplier.

What an amazing sisterhood. The shared experience of motherhood means you aren’t strangers, really. If a fellow mama needs help, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know each other, because you know each other.

In the end, it worked. I felt much better after dropping off my milk. It was soul cleansing and rewarding. And since I made it the whole day without pumping yesterday (wooo!) and also got rid of my storage, Lewis went to school today with cups of cow milk (mooo!). What a grown up!