I think that getting the newly adopted child home is the most difficult part of the entire process. It is absolutely 100% unpredictable. There is no way to know how the child is going to handle being confined on a plane for many hours at a time. Now way to know if he or she is going to get air sick. (please god NO!) Are they going to spend 8 hours kicking the seat in front of them? Or screaming? Will their ears hurt on the 45 minute decent...on all three flights?
Axel was amazing when we flew home. Except the last flight from Chicago to Minneapolis which, thankfully, is only an hour and 10 minutes long. He'd "hit the wall" of airline travel by that point, and went stark raving mad. Laughing his manic laugh as he grabbed the skirts of fight attendants every time they walked by, shredded magazines and pulled my hair multiple times. All while he laughed so hard he couldn't breath. Thankfully it was only the last hour! When we landed and got off the jetway, I politely turned down the wheelchair in favor of letting Axel make the long walk to meet his family in order to burn off the
Flying home with Asher is going to be very different. First of all, I have a 7 year old who doesn't eat solid food. Are they gonna allow me to bring jars of baby food on the plane? They better! What about a bottle of formula? (thats an entirely different post, by the way.) And then there is the whole getting around business! Did you know buying a basic umbrella stroller in Serbia will run you around $150? No really. So I thought about playing the disability card getting a wheelchair escort. It worked great with Axel when we had to run from one end of the Frankfurt airport to the other in 5 minutes (and I got lost because some worker guys told me a "shortcut" through some tunnel I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to be in but not once did anyone ask me what I was doing there! Or maybe they did but they were speaking German and I was just some crazy American running by with a kid in a a wheelchair and they probably didn't want to mess with me anyway.)
So, I'm scared to death about flying home with Asher. I'm going to check everything except my carry-on backpack which will be loaded down with computer, iPad, extra clothes, diapers, wipes, baby food and one dangly toy. And plastic bags. Lots of plastic bags.
Don't forget extra clothes for yourself in that backpack!
ReplyDeleteIn each plastic bag pack a diaper, piles of wipes, and a change of clothes. That way if disaster stokes you just grab a bag and head to the bathroom, no rummaging around to gather supplies. Pack extra pants and shirts for yourself. Don't forget extra socks in those bags because somehow, they always manage to hit their socks and shoes. Also, if you can get a couple, buy some dish towels or cloth diapers, much easier to wet those and use them to clean up a kid than piles of tiny wipes.
ReplyDeleteHoping you have a safe and uneventful trip home. (Also sounds like a parasite check is in Asher's not too distant future!)
ReplyDeletePat: Yep, the international adoption clinic is putting a stool collection kit in the mail today so it will be there when we get home! They test for every possible GI parasite known to man, I think. LOL
ReplyDeleteAbby: Thanks for the suggestion! I will put together my emergency bags! I'm tempted to buy another bag, closer to a diaper bag. My backpack is really a computer bag and not designed to fill with travel necessities, but my other carry-on usually gets checked on smaller planes or the transatlantic flight because it's borderline for size. I was just going to check it tomorrow so I didn't have to deal with it.
Of course, I only have 2 sets of clothes that come close to fitting him. LOL
ReplyDeleteLeah, they absolutely DO allow you to travel w/ extra water (for formula), baby food etc. I just pulled it out and put in the tray to go through the x-ray machine. Actually in Kiev, I forgot to pull it out and they didn't even say anything! Guess that's why security is stricter when coming into the US. :-) In O'Hare (I had one more short flight after Chicago), they put it in a special machine to make sure it was ok. But I had NO problems in Frankfurt with the food or water. :-) Praying it goes well! Any chance you can stuff him full of bananas to "harden" him up a bit? LOL Praying the trip home goes well!
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