Adventures in pumping, European edition

Just from a quick peek at my tag cloud, it's obvious that I have quite a bit of experience with pumping while traveling. So when I found out I had to go on a business trip to Munich, Germany, I wasn't particularly worried about pumping during it. How much different could it be?

It turned out to be quite the adventure :)

Before the trip
This trip was for a large meeting with some business affiliates that are based in Europe. To keep costs down, most attendees shared hotel rooms. This poses obvious problems for me with needing to pump, so I contacted the group in charge of organizing the meeting ahead of time to let them know that I'd need a place to pump and also a refrigerator in my room.

(As a quick aside: I have shared a hotel room while pumping, on two trips earlier this year with the lacrosse team that I coach outside of work. I had to coordinate with my roommates so that I could take over the bathroom a few times a day. Certainly not preferable, but it did work out.)

I felt a little awkward, especially since the main organizer was a man. But the other four members of the group were women, so I figured at least one of them had to have breastfed at some point.

There was a moment of confusion when the male organizer thought that I meant I was bringing Noob with me -- as in, bringing him into the actual meetings! He gently suggested that I might want to have someone to watch him during the day! I reassured him that it would just be me and my trusty breast pump, and he made the proper accommodations.

The outbound trip
I flew to Munich via London. My outbound flight left at about 9:45 PM on Sunday, so I was able to nurse Noob normally all day Sunday before getting on the plane.

I opted not to pump at all on the trip to Munich. Noob nurses little enough now that I'm not in discomfort if I go for a while without nursing/pumping, and it was much easier not having to deal with pumping on the plane. I might have tried to pump during my layover in London, but as it turns out, my director (my boss's boss) was on my flight from Dallas. We ended up chatting for most of the layover. It was nice not having to find an excuse to slip away to pump.

In Germany
I arrived in Munich a little before 6 PM local time (11 AM Dallas time) on Monday, about 18 hours since my last nursing session. I eagerly got my pump out... and realized that despite all my careful planning, I had forgotten one very important thing: A converter to allow my pump's AC adapter to run on European voltage. Oops.

Normally, I would have been able to use my pump's battery pack, which I always leave in my pump bag. The suction isn't the best, but it would have allowed me to pump enough to stay comfortable while I searched for a converter. Unfortunately, I had pulled the pump part of my Medala PISA out of the larger bag for this trip, to save on space in my jam-packed suitcase.

I quickly searched Medela's web site (in German, of course!) and figured out that there were a few "apothekes" (drug stores) in the area that were affiliated with Medela in some way.

I set off for the nearest one, which was in a shopping area directly underneath my hotel. It was a tiny shop, so I was surprised to see that they did have a sizeable display of pump parts and other breastfeeding supplies. They did not have any PISA adapters... but they did have an Avent manual pump available. These retail for around $30 in the USA. At this store, it cost €61.99 (just under $90).

Whoa.

But I was already late for a meeting, and I knew that the store would be closed by the time it was over. I didn't have time to shop around for the best price, nor did I want to wait to pump until it reopened the next morning. So I bought it.

I had trouble at first because the Avent only comes with a standard size (24mm) breast shield. I typically use a large (27mm) or extra large (30mm) shield with my PISA, so the smaller shield was very uncomfortable. But I found that I was able to insert the larger Medela shield into the Avent shield. It didn't look pretty, but it worked! This is not the greatest picture, but you get the idea. The clear plastic (and the white handle) is the Avent stuff and the cloudier plastic is the Medela shield:

Once I got that figured out, I actually liked pumping with the Avent. I got a decent amount of milk, and it didn't take much longer than pumping with the PISA. Actually, when Littles was the same age that Noob is now, I had retired my PISA and was pumping with a manual pump (Medela Harmony) on all my business trips. It might be time to retire the PISA again! The PISA bag takes up nearly half of my rollaboard suitcase -- compared to the Avent, which is just what you see above -- so it would be nice to get that space back.

Anyway. The Avent turned out to be so effective that I ran into another problem: I ran out of room for all the milk I pumped! I didn't bring milk storage bags (I had forgotten them, too, in my PISA bag -- yeah, I don't know where my brain was when I was packing!) and so by Thursday morning, I was down to my last storage bottle. I looked at a couple of stores to find some sort of container for my milk, and eventually saw the following box on a shelf at a different drug store:

Based solely on the picture, I quickly discerned that this box contained something breastfeeding-related, and then I read the (tiny) English text to confirm that it did indeed contain breastmilk storage bags. So that picture was a very effective advertisement! But I don't think it would fly in the USA, because it shows -- gasp! -- a naked breast! Funny how different things are in Germany :)

On Friday, with all that milk pumped and safely stored, it was time to head home.

The return trip
I had brought a small cooler bag to carry the milk home, along with a box full of sandwich size Ziploc baggies. I got the hotel bartender to fill up a baggie with some ice, then put it in the cooler bag with the milk before heading to the airport.

It just so happens that the male organizer of the meeting was on my flight from Munich back to London. I had met him during the meeting itself. He turned out to be a jovial older British man, quite open and likeable. As we were waiting to clear security, he said, "I just have to ask, because we were all wondering. I understand that you have a baby and that you had to pump milk. But what was the refrigerator for?"

I was confused by the question... "To keep the milk cold." Duh?

Him: "You're actually bringing it home with you?"

Me: "Yep. It's right here in my backpack."

Him: "It will last that long without refrigeration?"

Me: "Yes, it's in a cooler bag with ice, and anyway, it's good for about 10 hours at room temperature."

Him: "Wow! You learn something new every day!" Turns out that none of the female organizers have kids, so none of them had any clue about breastmilk pumping and storage :) Although one is pregnant now, so I guess she'll learn soon enough!

I was glad that the topic had come up prior to clearing security, because security turned out to be a pain. I got to the metal detectors, pulled out the cooler bag, and discreetly informed the security agent that it contained breastmilk.

Agent: "What?"

Me (a little louder): "Breastmilk."

Agent: "WHAT?"

Me: "BREASTMILK!"

So much for being discreet. At that moment, I was relieved that my director and his boss, who were flying out at the same time, had gone out of a different terminal and weren't with us at that security checkpoint. Nothing like discussing your bodily fluids in front of the people who control your promotions.

After that exchange, the agent directed me to put the cooler bag through the x-ray machine. This is something that I haven't been doing as of late when flying in the States, just to avoid any potential risks of exposing the milk to radiation. I simply tell TSA that it is "liquid medication" and they hand-scan it. But putting it through the x-ray machine is probably fine and I really didn't want to have the "liquid medication" discussion at that moment.

On the other side of the x-ray machine, another agent pulled the cooler bag off and said, "What is this?" in broken English. I replied, "Breastmilk," and she gave me a confused look. So I pulled an actual bag out, since the German-purchased bags helpfully had "breastmilk storage bags" printed on them in four different languages :) She gave me another confused look and said, "Where is your baby?"

Ummmmm, at home?

She called over a supervisor and we had the exact same conversation, including asking where my baby was. Eventually, they did a swab in the cooler bag and on the pump, to test for explosive residue. (TSA often does that in the USA, too.) When it came back clean, they sent me on my way.

Whew.

Just before boarding the flight, I asked at a small eatery for some more ice for the cooler bag. The cashier pointed to the front of the eatery and said "Ice." I was confused, as all I saw was a cooler for ice cream." The cashier was confused, too, and said, "Ice" again. "Ice cream, yes?" Ohhhhhh! I said, "No, I need actual ice" and she figured it out and gave me a cup full of it :)

And finally, my milk and I were safely on our way to London.

I had an overnight layover in London, which was good from a milk storage perspective, as it allowed me to dump out the ice and chill the milk safely into the fridge. The "fridge" in this room was actually the automated minibar, so I had to be very careful not to move stuff around, to avoid getting charged for it!

The next morning, I filled up two more baggies with ice at the hotel ice machine. I placed one at the bottom of the cooler bag, then put all the milk bags in, then put another baggie on top. This was at about 7 AM London time (1 AM Dallas time). Then I headed for the airport for the 10-hour flight back to Dallas.

I was a little nervous about clearing security in London. After all, Heathrow is the airport where the original liquid explosives plot was uncovered. But thankfully, compared to Munich, clearing security in London was a breeze. I did have the milk x-rayed again, but it didn't attract any extra attention.

On the flight, I was stuck in a window seat, so rather than disturbing my seatmate by getting up to ask for ice, I simply asked the flight attendants to give me a cup of ice whenever they came around doing beverage service. They were very accommodating. I kept the box of baggies in my seatback pocket, so I could dump the ice into a baggie and place it into the cooler bag, which I kept under the seat in front of me.

The milk was still nice and cold when I got home at around 2:30 PM Dallas time. The oldest milk was about 5 days old at this point, and had been refrigerated (not frozen) the entire time, but I did a quick sniff test and it smelled just fine. So into the freezer it went!

Overall, my first impressions were right: It really wasn't that much harder to pump while traveling internationally vs. domestically. But next time, I think I'll bring my pump's battery pack, my manual pump, and my milk storage bags :)