The Surprising Thing This Woman Gained From Breastfeeding Her Best Friend's Adopted Baby

Best friends Lauren Casper and Sarah Rieke found themselves entering an exciting time of their lives together: they were about to become new moms at the same time.

In 2012, Sarah was pregnant with her daughter and Lauren was in the processes of adopting a baby girl. The moms-to-be excitedly envisioned their little ones growing up as the best of friends until reality hit during Sarah's 20-week ultrasound. Sarah learned the devastating news that her unborn baby wouldn't survive for very long outside of the womb.

Evie lived for just four hours after her birth — just long enough for her distraught parents to say goodbye. While Sarah was going through the most painful moments of her life, her best friend was welcoming her own daughter, Arsema, home.

While Sarah was grieving her loss, she made a surprising decision just one week after leaving the hospital without her baby: she offered to breastfeed Arsema with the milk that her body was still producing. "I was so tearful over my situation," Sarah explained to Daily Mail. "I had this milk, and she had a baby. And while I was in a time of weeping, and she was in one of rejoicing, we were both able to acknowledge each other's situations."

According to Sarah, Lauren was completely surprised by her friend's offer but understood that it was genuine and appreciated that she would give her daughter the one thing she couldn't after Sarah just lost her own baby. "Breastfeeding Arsema helped me with my grief," Sarah recalled. "While obviously, there were occasions when I wished I could have been breastfeeding my own daughter, and I did often think that I wished our girls could grow up together, it meant the world to me to do something for a friend who had been there for me throughout my life."