Monthly Archives: September 2013

Pumps on a Plane

30 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Seatmate Shenanigans, Un-fun Up in the Air

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Trip type: Personal

Airline: Delta

Route: SNA-MSP

Apparently very confident after last week’s trip to Detroit, I was back in the air Wednesday morning and off for a quick trip to California.

Although the trip itself was short, a flight to Southern CA is no joke. As I knew I’d arrive and have to get moving right away (on both legs), I broke it to myself that I would have to pump en route. In an airplane bathroom. I did not take it well. If you find yourself in a similar situation, here are my tips:

  1. Plan ahead. Although I was pleasantly surprised to find the plane had an outlet in the bathroom (how have I missed so many opportunities to re-straighten my hair in flight?!), this is not a guarantee. Thus, I purchased a battery pack for the pump as well as eight rechargeable batteries and a battery charger. I also brought a small cooler bag with frozen gel packs. (TSA will check and they must be frozen solid at security.)
  2. Get over it. As I realized in my trip to Detroit last week, you gotta just suck it up and roll with it. I don’t like talking about bodily functions with strangers any more than the next person, but I forced myself to get over it. I told the flight attendants what I was doing so that they wouldn’t beat down the door wondering why I was taking so long or try to make me take my seat if there was turbulence. (I also told them as I hoped they might let me pump in their flight attendant area in the back of the plane but no such luck.)
  3. Make others get over it. On my flight back, I caused quite a back-up of people trying to use the bathroom. Of course I felt bad that I had made them wait so long but I don’t have a lot of options here (see #2 above about hoping to use the flight attendant’s space). I walked out to find about 10 men glaring at me so I just held up the little bottles and said, “Sorry, baby business.” A few turned red. A couple gave nervous chuckles. I think we were all friends after that but you know what? I don’t care. A plane is a flying bus and we’re all doing our best to cohabit and get to point B.  Sorry that you have to fly with other humans.

Aside from pumping adventures, there was some other flying fun as well. First was the head flight attendant, Steve, who gave a very funny little diatribe about shutting off devices at the start of my flight home: “Ok people, I need them turned all the way off. You’re not clever just turning it to airplane mode. Let me tell you a little story about a guy who didn’t turn off his phone last week. His seat neighbor turned him in and now he’s on the FAA watch list for two years. So let this be your cautionary tale because today is my Friday and I don’t want to fill out that much paperwork. Just turn ’em off.” Message: Received.

Also on the way home, I sat next to a very old woman. Very. Old. She was nice enough but probably shouldn’t have been left alone in a middle seat (graciously, her son and daughter-in-law were sitting up in first class. The son sort of offered to switch seats with her when we were about an hour away from Minneapolis. She declined.). She spent most of the flight reading tabloids (favorite headline: “I’m the real life Tin Man”) and loudly hacking and sneezing into tissues which she methodically shoved under her legs until the end of the flight when she carefully drew them out from under her and stuffed in an air-sick bag. It was amazing.

Our pilot told us several times that we were going to arrive early in Minneapolis which could only mean that something would happen to ensure we didn’t arrive early after all. Just when I was thinking he might be right, literally seconds before we were going to land (the engines had been cut and everything), we abruptly aborted the landing and pulled back up into the air. There was some nervous chatter as we quickly climbed back up into the air before the pilot came on to tell us there was a plane that took too long taking off and was still on the runway when we were supposed to land. Neat. He also told us (once we were safely on the ground 10 minutes later) that it was only the second time in his 35-year career that had happened. Double neat. Please bookmark this under “Things I never want to hear from my pilot.”

At any rate, home once again, I’m looking forward to staying put. At least until next month. Which is tomorrow.

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Back in the saddle

26 Thursday Sep 2013

Posted by in Fun with Security, With love from the Tarmac

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Trip type: Personal-ish

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-DTW

Hi. I’m back.

Isn’t it cute how I thought I’d post some old stories while I was out on maternity leave? Six months and one baby later, I’m back–and back in the air!

Concrete jungle

Concrete jungle

Last weekend found me getting my travel sea legs back under me by jetting off to Detroit for a Junior League conference (how thoughtful of them to have it so close to home for my maiden voyage!). I had been looking forward to the trip and dreading it in equal measure for a while so I was surprised to find it finally upon me last Thursday.

Compounding my anxiety about being away from H for three nights was the added stress of figuring out how to transport breast milk back [If this is not your cup of tea, you might want to cut out of this post now. Sorry, dudes.] Consider this post a how-to for moms who pump and fly.

Packing Tips

  1. In preparation for coming home again, I bought a soft-side can cooler which said it held about nine aluminum cans. I figured this should accommodate three days’ worth of milk stored in plastic bags. I also bought two Medela hard-sided bottle cold packs. I figured these would give some structure to the many bags and not get condensation like a standard cold pack.
  2. Made it home with the whole stash!

    Made it home with the whole stash!

    At the hotel, I made sure there was a refrigerator in the room. There actually wasn’t supposed to be one when I called ahead to ask, so I requested it. (Don’t worry if you don’t remember to request it, however; they sent me a nice little confirmation and everything only to forget to actually do it and had to send one up post check-in.)

  3. I packed my pump bag in a larger bag. I figured when I came back, this larger bag would hold the pump and the cooler bag. This greatly confused the TSA agent:
    “A big in a bag, eh? What’s in here?”
    – “A breast pump.”
    “A what now?”
    – “It’s a breast. Pump.”
    “Oh.” And then he dropped it like it was hot and he was Snoop.
  4. Obviously, you’ll also need plenty of bags, a pen for marking, and a Ziploc bag to transport pump pieces to and fro. Oh, and I wish I’d remembered a cover but a scarf worked just fine.

I actually had a very nice time pre-flight at the airport and especially appreciated the woman with whom I bonded at Surdyk’s who told me “Motherhood is a sisterhood–all my love to you on this first trip away” when I got a little bleary eyed looking at her five-and-a-half month old.

A view from Saturday's booze cruise

A view from Saturday’s booze cruise

Naturally, the flight out did not go smoothly. Due to a fast-moving storm, we were grounded for about a half hour and then pulled out of line to re-route. Twice. It was not awesome. Just when I was starting to wonder if I’d be testing out the pump’s battery-powered abilities in the airport bathroom, we were off. Crisis averted.

Although I knew TSA policies would be on my side, I wasn’t sure if all the agents would be fully accommodating. At DTW on Sunday, I went to the Pre-Check lane and was delighted to find myself all alone with three TSA agents. I wasted no time announcing to the first agent that I had precious cargo and he loudly relayed the message to his two counterparts. The agent working the conveyor did go through my bag (“Wow, it’s labeled and everything!”) and swab it for explosives but it was smooth sailing other than that. I was very relieved to get everything transferred home successfully.

It was a little weird to be back in the air. Everything felt familiar but oddly surreal. It was like using an arm that’s fallen asleep to brush your teeth. You know you’re doing it right but it feels really strange. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it again soon.