Air travel with breast milk... a follow-up

So I'm back from my 3-day trip without the kids.  It's funny - I thought I'd be terribly depressed, missing my kids.  But it really wasn't that bad.  It helped that I was really busy the whole time I was gone and that I was also able to video chat with the family.  Also, the uninterrupted sleep at night was a huge boon.  But now that I'm home, it's nice to be back with the kiddos.

Anyway, this is a follow-up post to my previous musings about whether or not I'd be allowed to travel with bags of breastmilk while unaccompanied by children, given TSA's new guidelines that breastmilk is to be treated as medical liquids.  All I have to offer here is anecdotal evidence, so take it with a grain of salt.  The TSA may have some obscure official position concerning the whole matter.  Anyway, during my trip, I pumped milk and was fully prepared to have to dump it all at the security checkpoint, as painful as that might be.  I stored the milk in the Lansinoh bags and froze them.  In all, I probably had around 12-15 bags of milk, each with varying number of ounces.  I just put it in a cooler and then declared to the TSA guy working at the security checkpoint that I had breastmilk.  He took a quick glance at it and let it through.  I wasn't hassled and they didn't make me open the bags of milk, or taste it, or make it undergo any further screening.  Keep in mind, though, that I went through the security checkpoint at a very small airport, so other airports may differ in how thorough a screening they give bags of milk.

So, for those of you who have to travel without your child for a few days and are planning on pumping while away, have heart - you may be able to take all your milk with you back home as carry-on.  (Though, I want to stress that there may be some official TSA policy of which I am unaware, so you should probably be prepared to pump and dump if you need to...)

If anyone has any other experiences with this, please do leave a comment!