This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Lisa. She has carried 4 babies to term. She has 2 biological daughters who live with her and her husband Cesar. She has carried 2 other babies as a surrogate mother. Surrogacy is an arrangement, often supported by a legal agreement, whereby a woman, the surrogate mother, agrees to become pregnant and give birth to a child for another person (s) who is or will become the parent (s) of the child.
Sometimes a family member or a friend offers to be a surrogate. Lisa worked with a Surrogacy Agency that matches the intended parents to surrogates. There are qualifications to meet and contracts to sign and to me this feels overwhelming. However, Lisa said this process was fairly smooth.
Surrogacy has raised some moral and philosophical concerns, however, Lisa has worked through all of these and her family has been very supportive. We did discuss the most common question asked of a surrogate mother? In general, people worry that she will become too attached to the baby before it’s born and not wish to give it to the intended parents. Lisa said that when asked this question she responds by saying: The baby is not hers to begin with so she does not see it as “giving anything back.”20,000 ounces of milk!!!
Where does that number even come from? I would think it comes from a group of moms who decide to pump and donate for a year, recorded their combined volume for a year and came up with the number 20,000 ounces donated for a years worth of pumping. This is not the case with Lisa. She has donated 20,000 ounces of her expressed milk to donor bank and over 2,000 to a local mom and baby.
How did she get started pumping?
When meeting the intended parents during her first surrogacy experience, they asked if she would be willing to pump and send them milk for their baby. Since Lisa had exclusively breastfed her first 2 babies, pumping was not even something she thought about. However, when asked, her immediate response was absolutely! While Lisa was happy to pump for 20 months for the first baby, she does admit that it was not easy at times. There were times when she was in pain and so tired of interrupted nights and admits to a longing to finally sleep through the night again. Exclusively pumping is a long term commitment and one that Lisa feels happy and satisfied to have accomplished.
The second time she was a surrogate mother, she was the one who asked the intended parents if they would like for her to pump and provide milk for their baby. They said yes and she is now 7 months into pumping. Sure there are times when she wants more hours back to her day. For now though, Lisa says that she has made her initial goal of pumping for 7 months and now she just takes it one day at a time.
If you would like to listen to the full interview, click here.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/allaboutbreastfeeding/episode_368_mixdown.mp3
Lori J Isenstadt IBCLC
Lori Jill Isenstadt, IBCLC is the creator and founder of the All About Breastfeeding class. She became an IBCLC ( lactation consultant) 20 years ago and shortly after founded her private practice, All About Breastfeeding. Lori is an international speaker, author and host of the All About Breastfeeding podcast. Lori lives, works and plays in sunny Arizona. You can contact Lori at: aabreastfeeding@hotmail.com
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