The LONG ride home...

We arrived at the airport in good spirits, so far so good. We were happy to see Patty, the other single mom who was adopting Taylor. She was in Astana the same time we were, but she decided to stay the full 8 weeks. We had a feeling we would run into her at some point. We also met another single Mom and a nice couple from France, all adopting girls. Our flight was delayed an hour and we were waiting around pushing Max in the stroller. Over there, you can't check in until 2 hours before your flight, so we were hanging out in the middle of the entrance area to the airport. Next thing we know we see two Lufthansa agents running out the door. Turns out they canceled our flight all together and we wouldn't know anything until 12pm, 10 hours later! (no wonder those agents were running, they didn't want to deal with some angry people) All our translators had left and we were stranded! We all started to panic. There was no one to talk with at the airport but this nice French man who spoke Russian, was on our flight and had overheard that we needed to drag ourselves over to some hotel to talk to a rep. One of us went and the rest stayed waiting for info. Shortly after, cabs began taking us to another hotel where Lufthansa would pay for and we would hang out to wait for news. The scary thing about being in another country is there is no one to talk with from the airlines until hours later, no one at the airport and our travel agents are asleep as it's midnight US time. All of us were very tired and feeling very stressed. At about 5:00am we were all checked in and we shuffled to our rooms and decided to meet up later that morning to figure out what to do. Max slept about an hour and we were all up again with red eyes. The nice thing was that the airlines took care of breakfast, lunch and dinner so we would all meet up to discuss what was happening and have a nice meal. We all decided to stick together as there is strength in numbers. Tim would also help the single Mom's with their luggage. This made me proud of him as I hope someone would help me out if I was traveling with a baby alone.
By noon we find out there was to be another flight opening up at 1:40am for all those stranded earlier that morning. We put the babies to sleep a few hours before getting up again to do the same thing all over again. (the good news is the hotel was beautiful and we had some nice meals such as breakfast potatoes for breakfast, pizza for lunch, and tomato soup and chicken cordon blue for dinner. They gave us a crib in our room as well. It could have been worse, we could have spent the day at the airport!) We all ended getting onto the flight with no problems. By now Max was wearing thin. Poor kid is tired and his cough sounds worse after two days of being awakened in the night. It is tough traveling with a baby! The airlines gave us a row of 4 because we couldn't get bulkhead seats and Max was stretched out between us and slept the entire flight! We were very proud of him. It is so neat watching him sleep. He is so precious. I can't help but think about our long journey to get here. It was exactly 1 year ago when we turned in our adoption paperwork. I spent the flight reflecting and just being really grateful and happy and excited for the future!!!

Once in Frankfurt we got our connection to Miami and only had a 4 hour layover. We said our goodbyes to everyone else and got ready to board. (Another thing about different countries is that they shove and push and don't care if you have a child. In the US they let people with special needs and children board first, not the case over here and we were getting pretty frustrated and tired at this point and so was Max). Our flight was packed and very noisy. We got a bulkhead with a bassinet that attaches in front of you. It was so bright and loud that Max slept maybe an hour total. The flight attendants I must say are very good with babies. They got us hot water for his bottles and help out any way they can. This 10 hour flight was by far one of the hardest things we have ever done! We were so tired and Max was twisting and turning and wanted to stretch his legs so we went for many walks to the back of the plane so Max could do that. We finally landed in Miami a little shell shocked, but still intact. One day of travel had stretched into two, but we were glad to be home. We had heard rumors of people who adopt get whisked away to the front of the passport line, but this was not the case with us. Max was done with sitting in his stroller for so long for the past two days that we held him and waited and waited. Once we got through we discovered that somewhere along the line the walker we bought in Almaty never made it. That's ok though, he has plenty of toys in Florida. Tim's Mom and Dad met us with a banner and balloons. I can't tell you how good it was to see familiar faces, even though we were only gone a week. Max fell asleep on the way back to West Palm Beach in his brand new car seat. Grandma and I just watching him in the back seat and marveling at how cute he is! Max just loves his Grandparents, already smiling and laughing with them. (I can't wait for him to meet his other Grandparents and rest of the family)

It is so nice to feed him in his highchair instead of his stroller and to put him down in a crib! It felt like Christmas time getting to use all his new stuff. It is 1:00am in the morning and Max just woke up and it took me awhile to get him back to sleep. I suspect his little body it still on Kaz time. This has been the first chance to update the blog so I took it!

Is it so good to finally be home with our son!!!!