This Breastfeeding Story Is Both Heartbreaking and Heartwarming

In 2012, Sarah Rieke and her friend Lauren Casper were getting ready to embrace motherhood. Rieke was pregnant with a baby girl while Casper was about to adopt a daughter.

Sadly, at Rieke’s 20-week ultrasound, she discovered that her little bundle of joy wasn’t going to survive for long outside the womb. In November 2012, Evie was born but only lived for four hours.

Following this devastating experience, Rieke offered to breastfeed Casper’s newborn daughter, Arsema. She also wrote about the experience on her website in a post entitled “On feeding my friend’s daughter when I couldn’t feed mine.”

She wrote:

“So my dear friend Lauren, whom you may have heard on Monday’s podcast, wrote a really lovely blog post about me donating my breast milk to her and her daughter after Evie passed away. It was something that was meaningful to her and to me, and she wanted to share it…

“Pumping milk for Arsema after Evie passed away was a blessing for me. It was good for me to sit and be still and take the time to think and reflect on Evie’s life and pray for Arsema’s future. It was also good for my postpartum body – breastfeeding aids in returning your uterus back to normal size. And honestly, I was just happy for the opportunity to pump because I felt like allowing my milk to just dry up would cause my heart more pain. So, even though readers are commenting on what an amazing woman I am for making that decision, it really felt so normal. Logical, really. A blessing, certainly, on both sides. But maybe not as saintly as others seem to think…

“I also wanted to add a note for women suffering infant loss, or anticipating losing their baby. Pumping for Arsema was exactly the right thing for me to do after losing Evie. The opportunity was there and I was grateful for it. It felt right for my grieving heart.”

If you visit laurencasper.com (and many other places) you’ll find a post about something special I was able to give my friend after Evie died. So many people are saying such kind things about this story, which is just so nice. But I just have to say something … ? I’m not a saint. At the time I didn’t feel like what I did was especially special. It just felt like a solid, logical conclusion to donate that “liquid gold” to my friend’s brand new baby who had never been fed breast milk. It was a privilege, really, to do that for my dear friend and her precious daughter and to think about them and pray for their family as I pumped. Arsema was such a smiley, spunky, early milestone kind of baby … I like to think I helped contribute to that ?? Maybe there aren’t a lot of people who would have made that choice after losing their daughter, but if roles were reversed, there’s not a doubt in my mind Lauren would have offered the same to me. I am grateful to have her in my life … @lcasper1 ? If you tune into the #heartlessons #podcast this week, you’ll be able to hear a little more about our friendship journey. I promise there’s more to it than breast milk ? (Link in profile or search heart lessons via iTunes) #friendship #thankful #momlife #infantloss #adoption

A photo posted by Sarah (@sarah_rieke) on Jun 1, 2016 at 11:04am PDT

While what happened to Evie is simply devastating and we cannot imagine what it was like, we think it’s fantastic that Rieke could take comfort in breastfeeding her friend’s baby.

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