Part of the reality of being a working mom committed to providing breast milk for her baby long after maternity leave ends is making the transition into a pumping mom. This is my reality.
Luckily, the company I work for provides fantastic new mom’s rooms that include a sink, refrigerator, secure pump storage, and a decent amount of comfort (here’s some info on requirements protected by law for pumping on the job).
The next reality of being a nursing, pumping, working mom is the occasional business trip. When my daughter was around 6 months old, it was my time. I would be gone for two nights – exclusively pumping hundreds of miles from my baby. I had my trusty Medela in tow, along with enough flanges, bottles, lids, bags, and whatever else to last way longer than necessary. I was READY.
So, fast forward those 48 hours. I had my cooler full of milk and was ready to get home. But before getting home, I got stopped by TSA. And this is where things got a little…dicey.
Admittedly, it was my fault that I didn’t check the TSA guidelines for airline travel with breast milk. I ended up enduring awkward questioning, a young man-child going through my backpack to wave my pump around for all to see, and a very personal body pat-down while my colleagues waited for me. Not my favorite day on the job.
Knowing my next trip was only a few weeks away, I reached out to some of my working mom friends who connected me with my employer’s new mom’s Employee Resource Group. I traded some emails about my experience with a fellow pumping working mom who told me about a company called Milk Stork.
Through Milk Stork, you order shipping coolers to be sent to your hotel, do your pumping, pack the coolers, and FedEx overnight ship them home (there’s also an option to tote the milk home in the coolers, but I’m not playing that game again).
This next trip had me away from home for three nights. I ordered two Milk Stork coolers – one 34oz cooler and one 72oz cooler. The box was huge, but was at my hotel upon check in, as I scheduled it to be.
I opened the box in my hotel room to check out the goods – my two coolers already setup for FedEx overnight delivery and Lansinoh bags for each cooler (6 for the small cooler; 12 for the large). Now, it was up to me to do the hard part – fill up those coolers!
After two days, I had enough milk to pack up the 72oz cooler. I followed the instructions on the video – press the button on the cooling unit, fold the milk bags in two rows, put the lid on, fill out the card, and seal up the box. I took my precious cargo down to the hotel’s business center to be over-nighted and hoped for the best.
I was a bit nervous about it, honestly. That’s 72 ounces of milk – if something happens to it, that’s almost a week’s worth of milk my daughter takes to daycare that would be down the drain. The anticipation was killing me, so my mom volunteered to wait for the precious cargo at my house while my husband was at work. And guess what? FedEx overnight delivery did not disappoint! The shipment showed up, milk was cold and promptly put in the freezer. A true game-changer for traveling mamas!
A few weeks after this 5-star experience, a last minute out-of-town meeting came up. While at the airport waiting for my flight to depart, Milk Stork called me to inform me my cooler would not be arriving at the hotel due to weather conditions, causing FedEx to hold my cooler in a FedEx shipment facility. It was too late for me to come up with a back-up plan and it made for a stressful experience. Milk Stork did tell me I’ll be refunded my money, which was the right thing to do.
Milk Stork is fantastic, but if weather causes shipment issues, you might find yourself in a bind. Despite the shipping issue on this most recent trip, I will try it again and will absolutely recommend it to other pumping moms (with just a head’s up to be prepared for the unexpected). Isn’t that kind of what this mom thing is all about anyway?
