At Home With Our New American

Hallelujah, we're HOME!! It took me this long, almost a week, to find time blog but it is starting to settle down a little around here, so I think I can get this done. I'll have to do it without airport pictures, which are wonderful but not in my possession. If I wait for those I may not have a chance.

Our trip home was long and tiring which isn't surprising is it? Ailah doesn't like to sit still in our laps on an airplane any more than she did in a taxi or bus. Despite the Benedryl we gave her to make her sleepy, she struggled to sleep because she kept coughing. In fact, she coughed so hard that two times she gagged and vomited, all over herself, me and, unfortunately, our seat mate. (Not Jeff!) Thanks to a similar experience with Mara three years ago, we had a change of clothes for each of us in our carry-on. But not two changes for me, so I spent the last hour of the flight rather damp and smelly. At LAX, where we had to pull our luggage to go through customs, we snuck it over to a corner and frantically dug through for a "clean" pair of jeans for me. (At this point clean just meant it didn't have baby vomit on it.)

We were extremely blessed on the way home to be given bulkhead seats from Hong Kong to LA. Wow, what a great difference that made from our last trip home. We could move! Since we had the aisle seat and seat next to it, we were able to get up and change, prepare bottles, etc. Plus Jeff was able to stretch his legs, all the way out. Along with the bulkhead seating came the most gracious and friendly gentleman I've ever met in the window seat next to me. He was an American who travels to China 3 or 4 times a year and he couldn't have been nicer about all the bruhaha caused by a 17-month-old fussy baby coughing nonstop and vomiting on his arm halfway through the flight. Every time I apologized he told us what a joy it was to watch her or that she had a very quiet cry or that he as a father understood completely. I'm sure he was lying through his teeth but it made the trip so much more comfortable for us. God really answered our prayers for good travel.

Once we reached LAX it was smooth sailing. Because we were fairly close to the front of the plane we were able to get off early and Jeff practically ran to the immigration lines with Ailah and I moving as fast as we could to keep up. We were only second in the "visitor" line we'd been told to wait in for Ailah's sake. Turned out we could have waited in the citizen line but that is NOT what they told us at the Consulate the day before. But I think we got through faster this way since many Americans beat us to the line. We ended up first in line after that for the officer to go through Ailah's immigration packet and it only took about 10 minutes for her to be declared a citizen and leave that room. Whew!

Next step, moving our suitcases through customs and onto the domestic flight. I'd been dreading this the entire trip because my memory was that at San Francisco last time we had to hand carry/pull them. (But had 4 people to do it.) Thankfully, LAX provided carts to transport our 4 suitcases and 3 carry ons through the hallways. Once the luggage was back on track and I had the chance to change my clothes, we still had time for some American food in an overpriced airport restaurant.

Final leg was easy by comparison. Ailah slept for the entire flight from LA to Denver with only a moment's waking when the pilot LOUDLY announced we'd been cleared for take off. (A full 25 minutes before we actually quit taxiing and took off.) Despite a delayed departure, the tail winds were apparently in our favor and we arrived in Denver only a few minutes after our originally scheduled landing.

Our welcoming entourage consisted of our three "big" girls and the Collins family. What a wonderful homecoming! Mara ran to me for a giant hug and didn't want to let go the entire evening. It seems all was forgiven as soon as she laid eyes on me and that was such a blessing to me. Jeff and I also got lots of hugs and love from Katy and Nikki though Ailah was the star of the show and, of course, everyone wanted to love on her. She was having very little of it though she terribly curious about Trevor's head (who isn't?) and touched it several times trying to figure it out.

After we collected our luggage we said goodbye to the Collins and headed to Katy's for some fast food and fellowship. We had a great time chatting about the trip and their new sister but Jeff and I were a little tired. We didn't make it much past 8:00 before we had to head home. We were both so weary we had to have Nikki play chauffeur.

We are so thankful to be safely on this side of the adoption trip to China. It was a great experience but I love being home without that lingering dread about flights to and from that we've had for the last 2.5 years. And just for the record, the Hong Kong airport was the least hospitable, most confiscatory, rude and obnoxious of our stops this go around. Both directions. They even come close to beating out LAX on our first China trip.

I'll post later about our adjustments since getting home. Both girls are resting now and I just hate to miss an opportunity to rest for a few minutes. And I think I'll have pictures to add very soon.