The Plane Ride From..... he *double toothpicks*

Oh my goodness I had visions of a much different airport experience! Let me tell you about them. On our first trip we were in the airport for our return flight and I saw this woman with a little boy in a stroller and another young woman talking to her and asking all kinds of questions. You could tell one was bringing her new son home and one had been on a first referral trip. I thought to myself, "Soon Jackie it will be your turn to have the little one in a stroller and someone will be asking you many questions."

Flash forward to our third trip. Chris and the boys left me with all the carry on luggage and our little guy, so they could grab something quick to eat. I thought it would be wise to feed ds3, since it really was his lunch time. So I grabbed a favorite baby food jar and started to try to feed him. Simple right? WRONG! Seems the one I picked wasn't what he wanted and he started to scream and cry! A LOT! And nothing I did would console him. He wanted to go anywhere, but we had to stay with our luggage so he couldn't walk where he wanted to. So, he screamed and cried all the harder! My nice vision of "One day it will be my turn", turned into "Oh my gosh, look at that poor new adoptive mother and her toddler having a fit!" Stay away!

Needless to say it wasn't a good prelude to our plane flight. Someone was very fussy before we even took off and would pitch a fit faster than you can say it! I really think he was dealing with an upset stomach or gas. So midway through the flight, the child has hardly slept a wink and it's like way past his bedtime and no nap. We try to get him to lay down and again he will have none of it and is just crying his head off. Then he proceeds to throw up, all over himself and a bit on me. Fun! Fun! I knew he wasn't feeling that well.... I held him in my arms most of the trip (and he was content) while many other little ones screamed and cried the entire time. We've flown this trip three times and this by far was the worst, and not just because we had our own little toddler who we were trying to take care of. Seems like just about every child was upset. One woman in the back of the plane had two airplane pillows strapped to each side of her head to keep the crying baby noise out. lol! (I laugh when I think of that image.)

Our son finally feel asleep about 2 hours before we landed and he was out even for the landing! Here are some photos of everyone sleeping at different times. Ds1 didn't sleep a wink until we got to immigration, and he picked a spot on the floor. Poor guy!

We were the last people off the plane and the last to retrieve our luggage. Our two older boys did fantastic on the entire flight! Really really well. We had so many compliments on them and their manners. They pretty much entertained each other while mom and dad took care of little bro. The only bad thing is that the boys were so tired and we were kind of rushed, even with being the last ones, that they left a CD case with all their DVDs and Wii games on the plane. Chris drove to the airport today, after a call was fruitless, to see if he could locate it in the lost and found. Unfortunately it was not there. The plane went onto the West Coast after our flight, so hopefully someone will find it there. Please pray that they find it! The boys feel so bad, and we do too! We should have double checked their seating area too....

So, that was our flight experience. Way different than I imagined it would be in my idealistic mind. I think it was one of the hardest parts of the process! Here is a picture of our son all smiles as his feet finally hit the ground in the USA! He is officially an American Citizen when his feet hit the ground. (Of course we didn't know we couldn't take photos in that area of the airport. I have no idea why, but we had someone yelling at us to stop taking pictures, they weren't allowed. Sheesh! There were no signs that we saw, so we apologized and said we had no idea! I'm surprised they didn't take the camera. ) lol!