China had carts perfect for strollers, and the workers encouraged me to use it as a stroller, even though the big signs had the no baby on cart! ;-)
26 hours from the time we left our hotel in Guangzhou till touch down St Louis. It could have been worse! ;0)
I did not sleep well the night before we left China of course. So many thoughts in my head and SO much excitment. While in China in some ways I had to just keep the kids out my mind because I missed them so much, but now knowing we were headed home I was SO anxious to see them and hold them and just be together as a family of 7! And of course I was dreading the flight.
Our guide picked us up and we headed out. She really was a great guide and so sweet. She talked about how she has always wanted more children (she has one boy that is 12) and since she is not allowed (China, as you know, has a one child policy. Some areas the rules are different. You may have a second if you pay a years salary) she says she loves her job so much because she can't have more children, so she gets to have "all these children". That is the one thing I did not like as much this time. We did not have the same guide the entire trip. I would have loved for Connie to see us meet Mavery and then have her see the changes we saw in those days while in China.
We got to the airport and had another enjoyable time of the chinese people trying to figure us out. One man was rattling off something to Mavery and he finally came over to me and pointed at her and said " your baby?" I said yes. He pointed at Mark and you could tell he was just so confused. I said, I adopted her last week. And he just stood there turning that over. "adopted, adopted, hmmm". I told Mark I was ready to be home just to not be stared at all the time! I do understand the staring, and most of the time I become immune to it. But it is hard, especially when you feel like you are not understanding your child, but everyone else is! Though one thing to note, if you have adopted you know that here in the US you get stared at also, because you are a mixed family & everyone is trying to figure out how you have a chinese baby. But the difference here is that they try to ACT like they are not staring and they won't dare ask you a question because here, we just aren't a friendly to each other people as the Chinese are.
We took off for Shanghai with out any trouble. Mavery did really well on the 2 hours. It was a pain in Shanghai as we had to get our luggage, re check in, take a shuttle, all of that on our own. We did meet up with a family from Tennessee that we enjoyed chatting with. They had met their 5th child, 2nd adoption this week also. It was funny because she came up to me and asked if I lived in Tennesee and I said no. And she said oh my friend told me to look for someone flying who has long hair and their baby would be in big beautiful bows so I thought it had to be you. Come to find out she knows my friend Brenda IN Tennessee and so it was us she was looking for! They had a 15 hour flight ahead of them, so I did not envy them!
IV>
>While we had lunch at the airport, Mavery dumped almost a whole bottle of water on my pants. So glad I did put extra clothes in my carry on!
Our plane left for Chicago just a few minutes late. I had been praying that the Lord would bless us with either empty or NICE seat partners on this flight and that prayer was answered. I was SO excited when we got on and in our row was a mom and her 6 year old she had just adopted with the rest of her family right behind us. That turned out to be such a blessing to me. It gave me someone to talk with that of course helped pass some of the time. She homeschools, her children were similar in age, God was very good. Though at one point her 11 year old daughter was sitting in the row with the 6 year old and I could not stop crying thinking how much Makenna would have loved being here and could have helped with Mavery and wahhhh!
As soon as we took off Mavery was out, which was good. We just laid her between us and she slept for a couple of hours. About an hour into the flight the captain said it was going to be rough for awhile. Which you know how that makes you feel. They had just given us drinks when it started getting bumpy. And then bumpier and then they told us the flight attendants could not serve dinner it was to rough. THEN all of a sudden they said "Flight attendandts sit NOW". I was scared to death. Mavery was still sleeping, laying between us. She had her seatbelt on, but I was trying to hold on to her, while also holding my cup of soda and full can of coke. (and yes it entered my mind that I was WEARING the extra pants I packed and the others were wadded up in my carry on wet from the water spill and so what in the world was I going to do for the rest of the day if I am covered and soda, but then I thought I will take soda pants over puke pants which I am going to do if this keeps up!) The plane was doing that dropping, free fall thing. Along with bumpy. At one point my soda was spilling all over me, I am crying and praying and looking at my watch thinking, who at home is even awake at this time, but remembering my friend said she was not sleeping good so reminding myself of that and that surely she at least is up and praying and also trying to remind myself that I have never heard anyone die in a plane wreck from turbulence but the already tired on edge emotional side of me thinking, we took Mavery out of the orphanage and now we are going to kill her on this flight. Also thinking I should have just had the wine like Renee suggested even though I don't drink or at least took some drugs to calm me down because I am losing it! I just kept praying, Lord, you parted the seas and you made the mountains, I KNOW you can get this plane to steady. And thankfully it eventually (a very long time later eventually) did, but that just was not a fun way to start. I kept telling Mark, just tell God you will adopt again IF He calms this plane right NOW! I know, I know we dont' "bargain" with God but let me tell you at that time I was desperate. And I am not sure what Mark talked to the Lord about but I know in the end is when he told me if we adopted again we were going somewhere closer to home!
Overall Mavery did really well better than I expected. But she had alot of moments and when you are in the moments, they are hard to think outside of THAT moment! After the first nap(she woke in the bumps finally) she could NOT fall back to sleep. I should mention that during her nap, (I forgot to do a pullup because she has not needed them at all) she woke up soaked from head to toe as well as was her seat.(pity the poor person getting on after us!) At least it helped pass some time to clean that all up! Though at one point she wanted to switch seats so I got to get that on my clothes to! Mavery just has such a hard time getting to sleep. So eventually you could tell she was exhausted, I think we still had 5 or 6 hours to go and she just started SCREAMING. And she has a very loud scream. And when she is mad, she will not let us console her, she pushes us away. So she is screaming, I am crying, the poor flight attendant comes to try and help but what can she do? (she adopted her son from guatemala, so that was a neat connection and she was very kind to us) Finally I took her out of her seat belt and got her to sit on my lap and watch the tv and that got her to sleep. And then thankfully she did sleep for about 4 hours, so almost to the end. One very annoying thing for our seat was that my overhead light was broke, and would not turn off, so that was shining on us the whole time. I did finally make a tent over her when she was asleep which I think helped keep her asleep. I dozed a little bit here and there, and thought I would sleep out of exhaustion but no luck. I was tired before the bumps started but at that point, I was to scared to relax at all. (NOT that I am trying to scare all my friends getting ready to fly, I am SURE you will have PERFECT flights! And if not just remember, turbulence does not kill you, right?!! ;0) )
Chicago was Ok. Immigrations was not that bad, but we had to get our luggage again, recheck back in, go through security coming OFF the plane AND getting back on, just alot of steps with long lines. Mavery of course is DONE with lines and being confined. Plus trying to carry her all over with a mob of people, I was kicking myself that we had not just brought a stroller with us to china. I am a mess, just done in from the day and thinking we still have to sit in this airport for a few hours and put her back on the plane? But we are almost home, SO close to home!
**One thing that Mavery has learned that gets her out of a situation she does not like is to have to go potty. So every single line, or on the plane or wherever we are, she starts screaming in chinese I have to go pee, while pulling down her pants. So what do you do with that?
We survived Chicago airport with what else but an American meal? Mc Donalds! I could not eat, my nerves were so shot I knew I could not handle food, but Mavery enjoyed my french fries. Along with charming all those around us. We sat and talked to a very nice man for a very long time who Mavery was about in his lap at one point, she is SO not shy! He was talking about how cute she was and I said, you may not think that if you had to fly with us today! He was one of those business men you just pray you are flying with, he was SO nice and understanding.
That was not the kind of men that were on our last flight.
We boarded the plane and as soon as we start down the aisle you can see everyone looking down at their laps praying, PLEASE do not let that kid be near me! An interesting thing was that in China, everyone stared AT us and were all smiley(not all smiley but alot of smiles) and talking to Mavery. Once we hit the American people, man, they were, well, typical I suppose. Not a friendly face on the plane. It may have had to do with the fact that when Mavery realized we were back on a plane she started SCREAMING, while we were still walking the aisle, saying she, guess what? had to go potty. But we had just been I knew she did not, and they were trying to hurry us on to take off. She is WAILING at the top of her lungs and if you have heard her, she has some lungs. She screamed the entire take off but Praise the Lord before we were all the way up she was OUT. I was praying so hard once again, "Lord, I know I am asking for alot here, and quite honestly I will take screaming over turbulence on this flight, but if there is anyway I can have BOTH a calm baby and calm flight, I would be so happy!" She slept the ENTIRE way to St Louis and did not wake up till we hit the gate!
The pictures above are all I got of our day. (Not including homecoming pictures, I do have some of those) Once we got on our long flight, the only thing we pulled from our bag was food for Mavery. And I do not think you would have wanted to see us during the flight. It did cross my mind once we hit Chicago that I should take a picture of her first walk on American Soil, but did I mention I carried her off the plane screaming? Becuase I would not let her walk because there were a zillion others trying to get off, and so that set her off. And then we put her in the line for immigration and well, I am sure you can imagine. And in all reality, Chicago airport in my mind still does not count as home, because St Louis was home so that is where she really first stepped on OUR soil, right?!
More to come...
**I can't get my spellchecker to work, so please ignore the grammar, I just got back home, my mind is not all the way here yet!
Mavery is making sure no one is trying to steal her car, Makenna is making sure Mavery does not hit anyone in her way! Have I mentioned she really does love hairbows! Some have asked how I get her to keep them in and she typically wants them there, isn't that funny?
The King of our House!
Connie, our guide for Guangzhou, SO sweet!
