by Carrie Norton

Part 1: Secondary Infertility

As a girl growing up, I held a vision in my mind of one day having two children. The sex didn’t matter to me but once I had given birth to my first child, in my mind, I would have my second child immediately after. I LOVE the relationship I have with my sister; we are 13 months apart. In my mind’s eye I wanted that same relationship for my children. Three months following the birth of my son, I returned to work with the image of a second pregnancy already filling my head. I had heard that women who are breastfeeding naturally produce a type of birth control, Prolactin. I was in love with breastfeeding my son and was in no hurry to stop. I continued until my son was 6 months old and then weaned myself from breastfeeding mainly because keeping my milk supply up when I was away from him became exhausting.

When my son turned one, I was still not pregnant; I started to feel something was not right. I talked to my OBGYN and she ran some blood tests. We found even though I had stopped breastfeeding my son, my body was still producing Prolactin. This Prolactin was preventing future pregnancies. The solution, we thought, was simple: I would take a pill to send a signal to my body to stop producing Prolactin. I should then be able to become pregnantEach hitch went by with no positive pregnancy. Traveling internationally through a half dozen time zones and forcing myself to stay awake when back at home my body should be sleeping were some of the stressors I was inflicting on my body every other month. I began to question if my body’s natural fertility cycles were being disturbed. My OBGYN recommended I start testing for ovulation, and my tests were all positive ovulation was happening. We were disappointed but didn’t know what to do. I had become pregnant in the past so I knew it was possible.

My OB then diagnosed me with Secondary Infertility. I didn’t understand what Secondary Infertility was (so I Googled it which was a mistake, as Google only confused me more). After reviewing our options, complicated by the fact that I work 28 day rotational shifts on and off a drillship in Angola, we found that trying an intrauterine insemination (IUI) would help our chances of becoming pregnant for the second time. This process is the “turkey-baster” approach to getting pregnant and is not as invasive as its cousin, in-vetro fertilization (IVF). We tried our first round and I went back to work praying for a positive pregnancy test. Nope - big, fat negative.

I started to feel broken. Our first pregnancy was a blessing, and I felt our struggles to become pregnant for a second time were petty. We were fortunate enough to have a beautiful healthy baby boy. My feelings were compounded into a kind of guilt that my beautiful son was not enough. I wanted more than just him; I wanted a second blessing. We continued on our journey with our second IUI when I returned home from work. Thankfully, my work schedule coincided with my fertility cycle. At the best of times, my chances to become pregnant only came around every other month. I was already thinking, ‘how many of these procedures is the norm and will the next step be IVF?’

After two years of frustration and undergoing two IUIs, the second IUI preceded a positive pregnancy test. I was ecstatic beyond words! I returned home from my hitch to receive the health approval from my doctor to confirm I was pregnant. Work would once again place me in a shore based position, and I worked from home where I helped our Houston Corporate office and attended regular prenatal appointments for our second baby.

On October 12th, I was blessed with the birth of a healthy 6 pound 11 ounce baby girl. I stayed with my daughter Elsie for the entirety of my family medical leave. I chose to breastfeed her as I did with my first born son. We instantly connected and I felt unexpected jealousy when I would hand her to another person for bottle feeding. I knew she needed to learn to feed from the bottle before I returned to work, but any short time away from her was already difficult. It was extremely hard knowing I could be her single source of food during her first year of life but I needed to give her to another caretaker because I would return to work after a short three months of maternity leave. A part of me really wanted to stay at home and be with my family indefinitely, but I knew an important part of me would be disappointed with myself for not following through with my career. I took every single day of the three months I had with my daughter as a gift. I snuggled and cuddled her and checked out of most other things around me because I knew she was the only thing that mattered during this time.

When I travelled to the airport to join the rig on my first hitch back from my second pregnancy leave, my husband brought our son and daughter to the airport with us. I had thought during our journey from the house to the airport, ‘this is going to be an absolute disaster’. They walked me through security and to my gate with a “family escort ticket” - I was able to stay at the gate with my son and daughter snuggling with them until the very last minute. When all of the other passengers had boarded, and it was my turn to take my seat on the plane, I passed my daughter to my husband and gave them both a big kiss and a hug. I then lastly turned to my son; by this time, I was in pieces, with tears running down my face. I gave him a huge hug. I was crying so much that all I wanted to do was hug him. He looked at me with the most mature and understanding look I have ever seen and said “Bye Mom.” As simple as that. He knew I was heading to work and he was OK with that. I hugged him again; I was so thankful that he wasn’t crying his eyes out for me to stay. I knew then that everything was going to be all right. The world was not coming to an end, and my family would survive without me while I worked my hitch at sea.

Part 2: Returning to Work

Pumping and saving breastmilk (BM) while traveling is a commitment of the heart. The commitment I made to myself and my daughter to keep my BM supply going by pumping kept my head occupied and my brain focused on what I could provide for my family while I was away from home. Breastfeeding (BF) and pumping BM has been shown to medically reduce the chances of women developing breast cancer later in life. Also, the longer a woman can BF and pump, the greater the risk is reduced.

I wanted to save as much BM to send home to my daughter as I could. I pumped and dumped my BM with my son, and later had a lot of anxiety thinking of other ways I could have saved it and shipped it home. I was determined this go around with my daughter to try harder to preserve and ship it home to her.

Two days prior to my departure to Luanda, I needed to apply for my short term visa (STV) in Houston, Texas. The STV application meeting was at the Angolan Consulate and is a full day affair in which I left my house at 4am and returned home a few minutes before midnight. I packed a full bag of snacks, dish soap, collapsible basin and a bottle brush to wash my pump parts, BM storage bags and a cooler with cold packs for my expressed BM, but I was so tired the morning I left the house, I forgot my electric breast pump charging at home. I did, thankfully, have a single hand pump to hand-express BM. It was a painful experience but it forced me to understand my limitations, challenged me to make do with what I had on hand, and I learned the important ability to hand-express, which I was not very good at prior to my trip to Houston. This was mistake number one for me, and also a hard lesson that reminded me I WOULD NOT let myself forget to pack my electric pump when I left for my 28-day hitch to Angola.

Before departing to Angola, I found a solution to some challenges I was facing in transporting BM from point A to point B without spoiling. Milk Stork, a company I found through the Google search ‘transporting breastmilk internationally’, helps working mothers ship expressed BM back home to their babies. The company utilizes the services of FedEx through international or domestic deliveries. The traveling mother can also check their Stork baggage internationally or domestically when traveling home on an airplane.

The limitation I found with Milk Stork was the BM I expressed could only be in a refrigerated state and not frozen. Being gone for 28 days, the BM I expressed on day one of my hitch could only survive if frozen. I ordered an “International Pump and Ship” Milk Stork package and had it delivered to my day room at the Hilton Frankfurt Airport two days prior to my arrival. When I called the hotel, they confirmed my package had arrived and I could pick it up when I checked into my day room. I pumped intermittently from the time I departed my house in Maine through two domestic and one international flight. I had two different flight attendants, on two separate flights, walk in on me while I was pumping. They both claimed they wanted to check on me because they were worried something was wrong. I explained I was expressing milk for my child and they always seemed irritated or burdened by the fact I was using the aircraft lavatory. I never felt comfortable, even though it was my right to use the space. I learned by Googling ‘pumping breastmilk on a plane’ that women sometimes pump while sitting in their assigned airline seat. I could see why they felt more comfortable doing so, because I always felt I was inconveniencing everyone on the plane by camping out in the bathroom to pump.

This led into mistake number two: I used my pump a lot traveling from Maine to Houston, and on the flight from Houston to Frankfurt, my electric pump battery was dangerously low. I had packed two manual pumps for back up but when I tried to setup the Medela Harmony pump, I realized I was missing some pieces. It would not work with the setup I had on hand. Thankfully, I had the second hand pump which did not need any accessories. Moral of the story: make sure you are familiar with your equipment. I was thankful I had a backup plan to my backup plan. I was exhausted but had a small cooler full of milk when I was done. I was very excited to see my Milk Stork package waiting for me at the Hilton.

Mistake number three: When I arrived at my day room at the Frankfurt Airport, I immediately commenced charging my battery-operated electric breast pump. I also needed to use it desperately because it had been a while since I had expressed. I had ten hours in the day room before my connecting flight to Luanda departed, so I showered, slept, and then went about packing my Milk Stork “Pump and Ship” package. After everything was done, I set off to my connecting flight thinking my electric pump was good to go for the remainder of my travels to the Drillship. Apparently I had really drained the battery because it was still blinking. I thought to myself, maybe there is something wrong with the battery? I proceeded to take the battery out and place it back in. I neglected to note the fact that when the battery is removed from a Medela Freestyle breast pump, the pump is reset to factory start up mode and the battery has to charge for 12-24 hours in order for the pump to operate. The pump would start and immediately shut off after 7-13 seconds of operation. I didn’t learn why this was happening until I reached the Drillship and read the operation manual. I had been panicking, thinking I had a faulty battery and was stuck on board for 28 days without an electric pump! Moral of the story: know your equipment well enough that you can troubleshoot problems as they happen more effectively.

Back in the day room, when I had correctly packed my precious BM according to the Milk Stork directions and activated the refrigeration unit in the lid by pressing the activation button, I brought the package to the hotel receptionist. When my Milk Stork package was ready to be picked up, I needed to confirm via phone call from reception that a FedEx pick up was scheduled. When the receptionist called the local German FedEx location to schedule a pickup, they were told they could not pick up the package because German customs would not allow milk to be shipped internationally. Upset at this news, I immediately called Milk Stork, who communicated directly with FedEx in Germany. Milk Stork Customer Support was amazing, sending text messages confirming my package was picked up from the Hilton so I wouldn’t worry about leaving it behind while I travelled back to work. With the international “Pump and Ship” Milk Stork package, the cost includes international FedEx shipping from the location where you packed your BM (in my case Frankfurt, Germany) back to your home. My husband received the package within the time we expected, and the BM was a very cold 36 degrees Fahrenheit or 2.22 degrees Celsius. BM, when kept at a temperature of less than 39 degrees Fahrenheit, can keep unspoiled for about 8 days.

The only way 28 days’ worth of BM could be transported to the US from a Drillship 96 nautical miles offshore Luanda, Angola, would be to pack it securely with dry ice. There is no other way that doesn’t pose a risk to losing the shipment entirely. I could not find a company that would manage the logistics of shipping frozen BM from Luanda, Angola. I could have managed to pack the frozen items with dry ice myself but when I approached Rig Management, I could not receive approval from the client to use the rig freezer to store BM. They couldn’t tell me a specific reason why I couldn’t, other than the client would not allow or authorize it. So I didn’t press any further and decided to keep only the last five days of refrigerated expressed BM, utilizing the Milk Stork international “Pump and Check” shipping package to make my life easier. Any international Milk Stork package, whether it’s “Pump and Ship” or “Pump and Check”, will keep BM at a refrigerated temperature for 90 hours. I figured five days of pumped milk and two days of travel would be a good safety margin in case of delays in travel. The international “Pump and Check” Stork Package was the only purchase option because Angolan Customs, for whatever reason, does not allow the shipment of BM through FedEx international shipping. Milk Stork has already done the research and will help guide you through your options when traveling abroad and the process of preparing and shipping your BM home from various countries around the world. Milk Stork packages can get pricy, and I feel very fortunate that my company is paying for this benefit and supporting my endeavors to feed the best possible food to my growing daughter.

Considering everything I have been through, I would not change the choices I have made or the experiences I have gained. Being a mom as well as a mariner, I feel like I have the best of both worlds, and can share both of these parts of myself with my children so they will understand the importance of following the passions they find in their own lives one day.

As always, Sea Sisters wishes to make clear that we support all parents in their choices of what to feed their babies. While Carrie has chosen to strive to produce breastmilk for her children, we know that not all parents have this option, and we believe that fed is best!