Why Buy the Cow When You Can Get the Milk for Free?

My Grandmother, Elena’s Great-Grandmother, whom she’ll call GiGi lives with us. She was born in 1918 on a small farm in New Brunswick & when I say, “on a farm” I mean she was born in the farm house. She grew up on said farm with few luxuries, she had to be frugal & couldn’t be wasteful. She married & had 6 children…money was always tight & she had to make it stretch between a family of 8.

To this day, she will cut mold off cheese & eat the rest of the brick, she’ll make a sandwich with stale bread (including the ends) before she’d even think of throwing it away. She keeps napkins that, “weren’t used much” for a second go. She has bought at least 3 new winter coats since moving in with me but she refuses to get rid of the old ones…because you never know. She has practically every dress she’s ever worn to various family weddings, events, etc & she always resists when one of her daughters insist she get a new outfit saying, “I can just wear what I wore to so & so’s wedding/birthday/retirement.

I believe that her upbringing & adulthood molded her into this frugal, prudent women & having lived thru periods of hand-to-mouth has made her reluctant, nay loath to take anything for granted…even though she’s financially comfortable now she still wouldn’t think of being even the slightest bit wasteful…because you never know.

With everything Elena & I went thru when she was born, her losing so much weight & my milk taking almost a week to come in, I believe it’s made me a little bit of a breast milk hoarder. I have obsessively pumped at least once a day…at first I pumped to encourage my milk to come in, then I pumped to build up my production & then to build a stash & aside from a bag or 2, I haven’t used any…if I was going to be away for a feeding, I’d pump a fresh bottle rather than dip into my stash.

Now that Elena is almost nine months old, a bunch of the bags will expire being older than 6 months. I’m having trouble dealing with having to throw them out…it’s silly, I know! Aside from the bags, it has cost me nothing to collect this milk, yet the thought of throwing any out makes me feel so wasteful.

So I have officially stopped pumping…it was a difficult decision…thoughts of, “what if I run out?!?!” & the more irrational thoughts of, “Elena’s going to STARVE if I stop pumping!!!!” I know it is the right thing though…I have to go back to work soon & I never planned to pump then so it’s better to stop now than spend my 1^st day back at work engorged & uncomfortable. Soon enough I’ll have to wean Elena from her 2 afternoon feeds. Once I’m back to work, I’ll still nurse her in the morning & at night until I dry up & switch her to cow’s milk. It was just a little scary getting here.

We’ll cover the emotions over weaning in another post ;)