A mom who lost her newborn baby chose to donate her breast milk to a mom in need.
Jenny Rogers lost her newborn daughter Everly six days after she was born. Intrauterine growth restriction caused the complications that eventually led to Everly’s death. Everly wasn’t even expected to live long enough to be born, Rogers told Inside Edition.
Rogers heard through an acquaintance that another baby in Lubbock, Texas, was sick and needed milk. She decided to donate her breast milk to the mother, who couldn’t produce enough of her own breast milk and whose baby Merrytt couldn’t drink infant formula.
“It’s really helped me with my grief. It’s still very fresh, but knowing I was able to help another baby in need has been really amazing,” Rogers told Inside Edition.
Rogers has developed a special friendship with the family she is helping. She has donated over 700 ounces of breast milk to Merrytt, helping the little one recover from her sickness, SWNS reported.
“It’s been joyous to see Merrytt grow, and she’s gotten so big over the past month that it’s just amazing to watch. I feel like I’ve been able to help create her little full tummy,” Rogers told the news magazine.
“I don’t even feel worthy of such a cause, but Jenny is just amazing and she’s like one of our family now and I just feel better knowing her,” said Merrytt’s mother, Dianne Burnett.
Burnett has a condition that makes it hard to produce milk. At the same time, Merrytt started to refuse Burnett’s milk and was suffering from respiratory syncytial virus, an illness she caught from her older sister, Inside Edition reported.
“She actually started refusing to nurse […] breastfeeding just hasn’t been easy for us this whole time,” Burnett said. “I was pretty much in the shower crying and just praying, ‘Lord, help me figure this out.'”
Burnett told Inside Edition what she thought of Rogers’s situation, “I feel weird sometimes being in a situation where I have my daughter and I wish she had Everly but I still try to be there when she is having those tough days,” Burnett said. “I don’t even feel worthy of such a cause, but Jenny is just amazing and she’s like one of our family now and I just feel better knowing her.”
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