One month ago, when all of my travel mates were calmly and
assuredly getting on their planes, I was freaking
out in the airport of my own choosing. I still haven’t figured out why
everything I do always has such drama attached to it, but it does.
Nevertheless, we DID make it to China one month earlier than expected and
we have survived the eight flights to tell about it.
Speaking of flights, I have neglected to mention that when
we arrived home from China, I dreamt about planes, flying, and
airports for the first five or six nights we were home. Gee, I can’t imagine
why. [Eye roll.] I thoroughly enjoy the adventure of flying; it’s just the
getting-to-the-right-counter-at-the-right-time-with-the-correct-paperwork-in-hand
stress that does me in.
And how about that international flight. Several people have
asked me about that particular part of the trip. I have two words to sum up the
return flight home: Pain Ful. It’s the only part of the whole 17 days that I
didn’t like. Eliana was happy for the most part. Nathan snuggled with his
blankie, wore his eye shades, and when he wasn’t playing the part of “Let’s
Hide From the Flight Attendants” (who dutifully placed snacks on the Breathing Blanket),
he did a great job of taking care of the Princess. Why? Because I WAS MISERABLE!!! My head was
throbbing. The light hurt my eyes. My legs felt like tree trunks (that is, when I could feel them). If I wasn’t
suffocating, I was freezing. Then I’d play out this recurring theme: Dying of
thirst, drink water, have to tinkle, see which person was sleeping beside
me—baby or Man from Brazil, attempt to think of something besides how much pain
I was in, get up and see how the other Travelers with Crying Babies were doing,
attempt to locate my legs, sit back down. “Sit Back Down” being a euphemism for
stuffing myself into a space about the size of a beehive. And did I mention the
turbulence? I think the pilots aim for those black clouds just to spice things
up for themselves on a long boring flight. Anyway, our meals ended up bouncing
all around, Nathan getting covered the most with his. I was doing a good amount
of bossing God around about how, after all this time and hard work, I was not going to die on that plane. He
obviously answered my prayer with his own sense of humor: We stayed up In The Air,
In Pain, In Turbulence, with Really Bad Movies and Particularly Bad Food. Sixteen
Hours, Folks…Sixteen Hours. Never was I so glad to set foot in the predictably unpredictable
Chicago O’Hare.
And while I’m rambling, let me send out a few tidbits about
the international flight to China. Remember, we had to be rerouted
and flew from Los Angeles to Beijing instead of Chicago to Beijing. We thought for sure this might cut
an hour or two off the flight. Well of course not. We boarded the plane at 3:00 a.m. Ohio time and I kid you not, Nathan and I were both asleep before the plane left
the ground. There was another adoptive mom on the same flight [who a) was easy
to pick out because she was about the only other Caucasian, and b) also had to
be rerouted, hers due to a flight cancellation – Hi Mary Beth!] who informed us
that a meal was served right away once we boarded. I guess the Asian flight
attendants were a little more polite and decided not to put the hot trays on
the Sleeping Lumps in the seats. Since we were so dead-dog exhausted, we slept
off an on during that flight, but were sure glad to see Beijing at 5:00 a.m. that Saturday morning.
So anyway, today was the day we were tentatively scheduled to leave for China. But instead, we left exactly one
month ago and instead today we are
home. Home home home with our girl! Still working on getting our feet on the
ground, though……. (What month is it? What day??? What happened to February??
Anyone?? Bueller?)