Being a Milkman

 

A few posts back Allison described the meeting with the lactation consultant, Diane, and how the CHOP philosophy is for dads to do most of the work related to milk production, other than the actual pumping. Diane spent as much time talking to me as she did talking to Allison and she gave me a sheet with ten duties that were my responsibility to carry out. The idea is to take some of the pressure off of moms related to milk production specifically and just in general. 

 

Our lives now revolve around pumping, so it makes sense that we'd both be engaged in the process. We pump for 15 minutes every two and a half hours. The goal is to pump eight times each day and to go 2-3 hours between pumps. Sleep and everything else that we do gets scheduled around when we pump, although if we want to pump a little early or are running a little late we have half an hour of built-in buffer on either side. Because Viv isn't actually consuming the milk yet we don't have to wake up in the middle of the night to pump as long as we do a late pump around 11:30-midnight and an early pump around 6-6:30am.

 

Vivienne can't digest food yet so most of the milk gets put into vials that I label and number and give the hospital to freeze. Once she can consume the milk they will unfreeze it and feed it to her (through a tube, at least initially) in the order in which it was pumped. In addition to the vials that are stored, we periodically set aside a small amount of milk that we or the nurses swab onto the inside of her cheeks, her tongue and around her lips. Her body absorbs some of the milk and it also acts as a force shield keeping out viruses and infections.

 

Diane said that in the first week we shouldn't pay attention to the amount of milk being produced and just to make sure that we pump regularly, even if nothing is coming out. The first day, Allison produced 11 milliliters over six pumps (one of my tasks is to keep the pumping log, including measuring the volume from each pump). The second day was 87 mL over nine pumps and yesterday she made 232 mL over eight pumps. The long-term goal is to produce between 500-1000 mL per day. Although it seems like Allison is well on her way to meeting that, Diane said that things could start great and then trail off. We're trying not to get too overconfident but I have to admit that I've been bragging (probably more than I should) to the nurses about Allison's production. I was also joking with Allison (again, probably more than I should) that she had the best breasts in the SDU. 

 

I take my role as milkman very seriously. We set the pumping schedule together but it is my job to keep track of it. Remembering to pump isn't hard but fitting the rest of our day in around the pumping schedule can be a challenge. On Day 2 I put the pump pieces into the wash basin, capped and labeled the bottles and filled out the log but forgot to wash, rinse and lay the pieces out to dry before going down to drop off the milk and visit my daughter. When I returned the nurse had completed my task but explained to me that I'm not supposed to just leave the pieces soaking. I tried to explain that I knew this and had simply forgotten but after that, whenever she saw me doing something milk-related she took it upon herself to give me pointers. This delighted Allison, who had observed earlier that I was becoming a dictator about our pumping schedule as well as a bit overconfident about my mastery of the milkman duties.

 

That's probably enough on pumping, at least for now. Although we appreciate the great care that Viv is receiving, it is a bit frustrating to not be able to do more for her ourselves. Being a participant in the milk-making tasks and giving Viv oral care has been a great way for me to feel more like an active dad and less like just an observer.