Shipping Breast Milk

Is quite the task! 

A good friend of mine from Texas reached out to me about 2 weeks ago asking if I had any milk in my freezer without a home. Since I had someone who was coming the next day and had planned on taking all the milk I had in there, I told her I was out... Well, it turns out my friend didn't bring enough coolers to take all 1506oz, so I was left with about 575oz! 

About a week ago my friend contacted me again saying her friend was in desperate need of milk for her 7 week old. She was running low on milk and the area her friend was in, they weren't big on milk sharing. So we made plans for me to ship out the rest of my milk in the deep freeze on Monday.

Fast-forward to yesterday...

I called FedEx to get the standard protocol on shipping breast milk. The lady on the phone was none too helpful. So I called UPS, better customer service but their closest store was a bit away. So I decided to use FedEx.

My first step was counting the amount of milk I had to make sure my counts weren't off. I put everything in a cooler and put it in the bed of my truck.

If you remember my picture from Facebook...

My freezer was quite full about a week ago!

My next adventure was getting to the dry ice company and getting some dry ice... 

That was quite the adventure.

Though my town isn't huge by any means... finding the dry ice company was fun. I drove past it twice before calling them to figure out how in the world to get there!

Finally we found it, I bought my dry ice and thankfully thought to ask if they have Styrofoam ship boxes and a cardboard box to go around it...

They did!

When I took the guy out there to figure out what size Styrofoam box I would need I opened the cooler to show him how full it was. I was given a really odd look... then he did a double take at the milk, back to me and then the milk again...

What came next had me rolling afterwards.

*double take*

"What is that?"

...

"That is frozen breast milk..."

...

"Is it really?!"

He didn't seem grossed out, more intrigued than anything! But it made me chuckle!

So once we got the ice in the box I packed up the milk and we closed up both boxes, put it back on the truck and away we went to FedEx!

I was so excited that the dry ice company saved me a trip to Walmart!

Once at FedEx I felt nervous but relieved to be there. The milk was still rock solid but had been out of the freezer for about an hour by this time. I grabbed a cart and a really nice gentleman helped me get the box out of the truck and into the building.

This package weighed 56 pounds! It wasn't too surprising as I had estimated the milk to be about 40-some pounds itself. There was 575oz of milk plus the dry ice, plus the shipping containers.

The process at the FedEx building was quite fun. We were there for quite awhile.

Originally the milk was to go directly to the recipient in California... but do you know what 2-day shipping to California is?! $310... Yes, Three Hundred Ten Dollars! That wasn't including the $42 I spent on the shipping supplies and dry ice. 

So, I was given a new address for Texas. The friend who contacted me agreed to store it in her deep freeze until her friend could come home and get it! Shipping to Texas is MUCH cheaper! $175... So to Texas it will go!

Now... fast forward two days! It's Wednesday and I've just received news that the milk has arrived and it was ROCK SOLID!!

This was absolute MUSIC to my ears! I had been so worried that the milk would begin to thaw but it was good to go!

I'm so happy! This totally made my entire day right here! I'm so grateful for my tata's! Seriously! Helping babies one ounce at a time! This is why I dedicate and commit myself to the pump several times a day. To help those who need it!

 Until next time, friends