Sunday, March 1, 2009

Lipase Milk

I'm M-A-D. Crew has been fussy with eating the last few days or flat out refusing the milk. I finally tasted it myself today. YUCK!!!! It tastes metallic and soapy!! Internet research reveals that I seem to produce too much lipase enzyme that breaks down the milk right after freezing. The big December batch I just dove into seems to be affected. It's been in a regular freezer, while the November stuff we were using before had been in a deep freeze at the hospital. From what I can gather, it's some funky combination of excess lipase in the milk, time in the freezer, and temperature of the freezer. Who knew?? BLECH!!!!!!

Why did I spend hundreds upon hundreds of hours bonding with that horrible milking machine for three months???!! I have probably 250 more ounces of milk in my freezer and in a neighbor's freezer. I don't want to taste them all to find out which ones are bad! I (mostly) don't want to throw everything out either! This pumping thing has just been one disaster after another! I'm so mad right now!

Update:
I've thawed about 40 ounces since last night. All bad. All very very bad and you can even tell by looking at them when they thaw. They don't even look potable. Thank goodness I can now visually and smell check them, because it tastes so bad it makes me want to throw up. I couldn't face that another 70+ times. I wouldn't feed it to rats. Well... maybe rats. And my mom's chihuahua...

I keep holding out hope that some of this milk will still be good, but it's looking bleak. In a few days, once I've thawed and checked all of the nastiness I have on hand, I'll fetch the newer batch from the neighbors and see if any of that's still good or if it's just as bad. I have a bad feeling about it since I just thawed out one this morning that I've been keeping in my own freezer for less than a month and it was already destroyed.

The good news is that Crew is taking straight formula without any complaints whatsover. Too bad it's "specialty" formula with a "specialty" price tag for a "special" kid for one full "special" year. Blech.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am not sure if this will work in your state but if your baby NEEDS special formula then the state will reimburse you the full cost of the formula. We live in the state of Texas and my boy needed a formula that was so expensive we would have been in the poor house. We had to order it from the Similac website because it wasn't available any other way. We paid for it for a little over a month when a friend told me to call and check. Once we did we submitted receipts by fax and soon got checks reimbursing the whole cost. This was not done based on income either. I am not talking about WIC or any other income based program.

Our son was not growing well and after running blood work we found out he had a blood disorder where he couldn't digest the regular stuff.

Anyway, maybe there at least will be less cost than you thought for the formula although I understand that you are upset about the problem with your milk. You tried and gave it everything you had to provide that milk for him and that is frustrating.

Here is a doc I found for Texas because I can't recall the information on the actual contact we had. This should at least help you search for your state.

If you have any questions send me an e-mail and I would be happy to help if I can.

Lisa
lnewhouse1@satx.rr.com

Anonymous said...

Sorry...forgot the link....
http://netx.squaremeals.com/SNP/alerts/dch/PAL-DCH_2000-8.pdf

Patricia said...

Have you tried Good Start, or looked into it by asking the baby's doctor. The proteins in Good Start are partially broken down and it helps the baby's digestive system. Everyone I've recommended this brand to has nothing but good things to say. My daughter did really good with it and I started with Similac.

AdronsCatherine said...

Ugh. That totally bites! I'm sooooo sorry, honey!!!

Cyndi Hendrickson said...

Oh my gosh. I feel sooo bad for you (even though I know it happened a long time ago)! If that happens to my milk I will FREAK OUT!