Episode 368

Her Bio:

Lisa, I am 35 years old. I am married to my husband Cesar. We have two girls Breanna 14 and Gaby 8, we also have a dog and we live in Oregon. I am a 2 time gestational surrogate and am currently pumping and donating to the preemie milk bank.

How becoming a surrogate came about:

Her husband said: It’s your body, do what you want. Now, Lisa does think he may have been thinking she was joking at first. But, he has always been fully supportive through the surrogacy process. Her kids who were 9 and 4 at the time were also fine. She explained to her kids that she was going to get pregnant because she wanted to help someone else have a baby. Both kids were okay with it all and they loved rubbing her belly. Lisa also said that she never heard a single negative comment. Her parents, friends and co-workers were all aware, interested and supportive.

Most common question asked:

How are you going to be able to give up your baby? Lori shares about the first surrogate that she knew who did receive a lot of flack from family and friends. Now she finds that as the number of surrogates have increased, people may still ask the question, but they are also more accepting of this. Lisa states that this has been her experience also as she has not received any negative comments. When asked this question though, she does say that “this is not her baby so she is not giving anything back.”

Surrogacy timeline:

Match meetings – end of 2013 few months later suppose to do a transfer but that didn’t work out.
Transferred in June 2014 – I feel like it happened pretty quick.
Embryos were ready and they were ready to go.
Became pregnant with first transfer in June 2014
and he was born March 2015
This was a fairly smooth process for Lisa.

First Surrogate Family – The intended family:

It was important for her to have a good connection with family. She wanted to be able to see pictures and talk and communicate during pregnancy and thereafter. The intended family have been great. The family attended the birth. We get pictures all the time and have visited with the family.

Providing expressed milk for the baby –

While pumping for the baby was not something Lisa had planned on, she immediately said yes to the request from the intended family to pump milk. She started pumping in the hospital and continued pumping for his first year. Lisa had so much milk that about the 6 month mark, she continued pumping for the baby as well as donating her excess milk to the milk bank.

What was pumping like and how long did you pump for?

Lisa had exclusive breastfed her babies, so exclusive pumping was new to her. It was quite a bit harder then she thought it would be – Lisa said: “I had no idea how hard it would be.” She realized that it takes quite a bit of time. It was like a job to her and there were times when it was painful. At first she was pumping every 2-3 hours and for 20-30 minutes each time. Then she would pump an hour at a time as she felt that was how long it took to get all the milk out.

When I asked about using a hands free bra, she said she had one, but did not use it much because she always felt the need to massage her breasts while the pump was running and the bra gets in the way. Since she could not always wear the bra, pumping felt so much like work as she could not multi-task. Although she did enjoy watching her Netflix!

Did you ever feel like in the early days – geeze – I don’t feel like doing this?

In answer to this question, Lisa said: “Yes, almost every day I thought of quitting.” There was the lack of sleep, still getting up in the middle of the night, and yet, she states that it was all well worth it to her, so she kept pumping. She is grateful to her family who pitched into help in many ways. Her husband helped a lot with kids and household, so she could keep pumping.

Tell us the process of donating your milk –

For her first surrogacy and pumping experience, the family lived in Seattle, not too far from her. A friend of the family would come by and pick up the milk every couple of weeks. There were times when Lisa would go and visit the baby and bring the milk to them.

Lisa planned on becoming a surrogate once more, so she weaned from pumping at 20 months and gave herself some time in between pregnancies. By August she was no longer pumping and by March of the following year, she conceived. Her first family were not ready for another baby yet, so Lisa became a surrogate for another family. In this case, the process was fairly easy. This time around, she brought up the idea of pumping. The family thought this would be a good idea and were happy for Lisa to do so. Lisa got pregnant in early 2017 and the baby was born in December. After having had a vaginal birth with her first 3 babies, Lisa needed a c/sec because this new baby decided to present breech and was pretty adamant in not turning.

After the birth, Lisa started pumping about 4 hours later. She is happy to report that she did not suffer with engorgement as she did with first baby. This time around she shortened her pumping time and again volume is not an issue as she is getting even more milk than the first pumping experience.

Just how much milk did Lisa make?

Well, I am going to tell you the same thing twice – It is highly unusual to make this much milk. The average women of a 6 week old or older baby, makes between 3 and 5 oz in a 15-20 minute pumping session. So we might say an average of 30-35 oz per day. Lisa makes about 100 ounces, every single day. Yup, I did say average mom 30-35, average Lisa day 100 oz. She recorded her pumping volume and says that she has donated 20,000 oz of milk so far. I close my eyes and try and picture what this would look like? How many freezers she could fill with all her milk?

Where did she donate all this milk to?

Since her surrogate baby was not going to be able to drink all of this milk, Lisa lovingly donated her milk to Prolacta Milk Bank. She did this with both babies. An untold hundreds or maybe thousands of babies have benefited from her donated milk. Prolacta is a company that produces specialty nutritional formulations made exclusively from human milk for critically ill premature infants.

Lisa had her own pumping accessories, but for moms who want to donate but don’t have a pump, the milk bank will provide you with all the necessary items to pump, store and package up the milk for transfer. Lisa used the coolers they sent to her, packed up her milk and sent it to the bank on a regular basis. She also donated about 2000 ounces to a local mom for her baby.

While pumping was hard work, Lisa carried on because she wanted to provide human milk for both babies she carried. She also felt that pumping has helped her heal from the pregnancies, both physically and emotionally. Along the way, she feels good about contributing to the health of the babies she carried.

She receives pictures of them and sees how well they are growing. Lisa can see pictures of other babies that were 1# or less at birth and is able to see their growth into toddlerhood. This is living proof of how well these babies are benefiting from the milk she is donating.

Second pumping experience – How long will she pump?

Lisa says that she has now been pumping for 7 months. Her first goal was to pump for 6 months. Now She is taking it day by day. While she does have a routine down, pumping definitely is limiting. No spontaneous – let’s go out, let’s go to the beach. You have to plan it around pumping time.

There are times when she does want to quit and other times when she just wants to keep going. Lisa says that she will just keep pumping until the day when she just does not feel like doing it anymore. She laughs thinking – what will she do with all the time she has in her day when she stops pumping? She remembers that stage with her other pumping experience. It is like she just found many more hours to her day!

Advise for donation

Donating your milk should not cost you money. If you can get you pump through insurance, great. If you cannot, the milk bank will provide one. They will also provide storage bags and everything you need to ship them your milk. Other advise: figure out a routine and ask for support from family and friends as you will need their help.

Contact Lisa at:

Lisa_perez83 instagram

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=683997857

Prolacta:

http://www.prolacta.com/find-a-milk-bank

Surrogacy Center:

https://nwsurrogacycenter.com/become-a-surrogate-mother/