Don't Cry Over Spilt Milk

Do you know that expression?  The one in the title?  Well, we didn't follow that this week.  We had an accident at the Laney household.  Before I dive into this story, let me say up front that we are not mad, whatsoever.  It's not the end of the world and it was obviously unintentional.  Here we go:

Wednesday night, July 7, 2010, Josh (Rebecca's brother), Nicole (our amazing sister-in-law), and Rylee (the smartest little kid in the world) came over for dinner.  BBQ Chicken, baked beans, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and rolls were served.  It was amazing.  On top of that, Josh and Nicole brought over a dessert I have been craving ever since I laid eyes on it (Reesie's Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake from Dairy Queen).  We ate some, but it was so huge, we had to re-freeze the rest of it.  Rebecca cut half of it for Josh and Nicole to take home and put it in our freezer.  We put the box with the rest in the "breastmilk freezer".  When they left, Nicole remembered that they had forgotten their piece of the cake.  She checked the breastmilk freezer, but their part was in the kitchen freezer.  Rebecca got their piece and they left.

The next morning, I leave for work at normal time (6:15 AM) and as I am walking to my car, I notice a trail of milk leading from the freezer.  Before I touched the door handle, I knew that the door had not been sealed.  You always have to push extra hard against it to get it to close properly.  I opened it up to survey the damage, and it is bad.  Real bad!  Thankfully, heat rises.  The milk on the top shelf is room temperature.  The milk on the second shelf is slightly chilled, but the rest of it is almost fully frozen. 

I thought about going back in and telling Rebecca, but I knew there was nothing she could do and I wanted to let her sleep.  I drove to work, and texted Rebecca to call me as soon as she woke up.  When she called, I said "I have some very bad news".  As I explained my findings from earlier that morning, she broke down crying. 

You see, it wasn't the milk Rebecca was crying for; it was the struggle to get that supply built up.  Taylor was born so premature (10 weeks), Rebecca's body just wasn't ready to produce milk.  Every couple of hours, we would be overjoyed if she could produce 3 cc's.  We didn't want Taylor to go on formula if she didn't have to and for a while, production just barely kept up with Taylor's feeds in the hospital.  Since Taylor had to stay at UAB for 5 weeks, Rebecca wasn't able to nurse her directly for a while.  She was forced to pump.  She even put a picture of Taylor up and looked at it while pumping to increase production.  Every time she would get just a little more than Taylor needed at each feed, the doctors would increase the feed amounts.  It was a never ending battle.  When the milk came in full swing, we started storing it as we had always done with any excess milk.  Theoretically we would use it to fill up her bottles, but she doesn't take one.  We do use it to mix with oatmeal and cereal each day and night.  The supply had dwindled very slowly.  Until the accident that is. . .

We went from this:

To this:

I know, it is still a lot of milk.  It's not like we are going to run out anytime soon. . .

It's not the end of the world.  It just symbolized the struggle of Taylor's early days at UAB.  Maybe it was good for us to let go of that attachment since Taylor is 8.5 months old now!