Brooklyn Cancer Survivor Receives Donations Of Breast Milk For Her Baby
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) - A Carroll Gardens woman was just about to give up on having a baby. She had a miscarriage and failed fertility treatments and was then diagnosed with cancer.
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Then two months after undergoing a double-mastectomy, 40-year-old Eva van Dok Pinkley got pregnant. But the procedure that saved her life left her unable to nurse her now 3-week-old son Oliver.
But thanks to a group of women, Oliver won't go hungry. Twenty-five women from Brooklyn came together from across the borough to pump and donate their breast milk.
"It takes you back at first, but then, when you think about the situation and you think about what it means for her to be able to do this for her child, I think it's a wonderful thing," says Dave Barnes, Pinkley's downstairs neighbor.
Pinkley has two freezers filled with dozens of milk containers, one in her kitchen and the other in Barnes' basement storage room.
"That freezer got filled in no time," said Barnes' roommate Butch Ford.
Kristi Guigliano, 30, one of the local moms pitching in, said when Pinkley sent out an email looking for help, it was a "no-brainer."
"I think it says a lot for our neighborhood and the type of neighborhood that we have and I think we're all happy to help each other out, whether it's opening a door for someone else, pushing a stroller, or helping someone out with milk," she said.
