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2008-03-26 - 10:10 a.m.

...I might be mad....

Another day with baby. I was just remarking to enfinblue: It's fairly easy to love and adore your child. It is also very easy to wish that you weren't a parent, so that you had your old life back. Susi still requires near-constant input, and I wish that I could have time to myself again. I'm beginning the search for babysitters - if only for a few hours - K and I need a break. I join the unanimous voice of those people who ask the question: How do single moms do it?? My god.

Yesterday I got a call from the Funcouver milk bank, to conduct a 15-minute over-the-phone screening interview. It only less than five minutes to determine that I'm not eligible to give milk. You'll never guess why.
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Have you guessed yet?
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It wasn't drug use, hypodermic needles, blood transfusions, sexually transmitted disease, bovine insulin (a new one on me), mental illness, or any other problems with my family health. (Not that I have any of those problems.)
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It's because I lived in Europe for more than five years.

Europe (unlike Canada?) has had occurrences of mad cow disease. And so there is a theoretical possibility that I have been exposed to it.

I held back the words, "are you KIDDING me??" as I asked the woman to explain the reasoning.

And I could tell that she was holding back the words, "Yes, I KNOW." Instead she said, "we are given a very strict and conservative set of guidelines that are set up by the blankety-blank organization, and we have to follow them." She went on to assure me that there was essentially NO risk that either I or my baby would contract the disease.

K - who has been forced to watch three seasons of X-files while I numb my brain breastfeeding - has a theory to throw out there for all you conspiracy theorists...It's the formula industry. But they will deny and obfuscate.

I don't fault the woman on the phone. It was easy to put myself in the situation of a new mother with a baby that was given tainted milk, or the hospital that is liable for giving out that milk.

But it was clear that the situation was frustrating for both of us. The bank is low on milk and short on donors. And here I sit, a leaky faucet, with now nearly TWO liters of milk in the fridge. And in all likelihood, NO ONE would be hurt by it. We are saving it on the off-chance that I get sick and need antibiotics, but in all likelihood, the milk will be dumped down the drain in a few months.

Alas.

leave a note

...they are just words, Suzi... - 2011-08-29
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...a small ripple on the big wave... - 2011-02-04

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