I have a freezer full of somebody else's milk. It's not just any kind of milk. It's breast milk, somebody else's bodily fluids, which I plan to feed to my baby. There's nothing wrong with that, is there?
The 'breast is best' brigade starts banging on about the benefits of mother's milk before the first wave of morning sickness. But the assumption is they're talking about the baby's own mother, not someone else who has stored her excess milk in a small plastic bag.
My younger daughter, Jessica, now four months old, is a rather large baby. She's also very hungry, and I'm struggling to keep up. I have nothing against formula milk; I gave it to my first child alongside breast milk. But the World Health Organisation says the next best thing after a mother's own milk is human breast milk 'from another source'. And I had another source; my friend Allie Burrows.
Until Allie's milk arrived, I'd been pumping at all hours of the day, mostly at 3am after getting up to feed my screaming baby. Could I sleep again? No, the fear that I wouldn't be able to express enough milk the next day kept me awake.
Like most women, I express milk for freedom and security. I want to know that if I leave my child for a few hours, someone will be able to feed her. My husband also gives Jessica a bottle each night, giving me time to sleep and them time to bond.
I wasn't sure how my husband would feel about feeding his daughter someone else's milk, so I decided to show him my haul.
'Look what I've got,' I said, flinging open the freezer door.