[amyfk]

It's gross to talk about but I had the "big D" on the flight home on trip one. I spent almost every half hour of the flight in the bathroom. I think I got it from drinking the water in Russia. Thankfully I didnt have to bring my child home with me on trip one. I couldnt have handled it.
Amy K, NJ

[RBSVARCHER]

Should I start out with diarrea - or the parasites I got while over there?

Susan

[kahoxworth]

Any air travel with our son on the second trip was a nightmare.

First, we had a short 1-1/2 hour flight from our son's region to Moscow. Our seats were not assigned together; I had a window seat, my son had the middle seat, and my husband's seat was the aisle seat on the opposite side of the plane. So here we are with this strange Russian man sitting with me and my new son, separating us from my husband. The man spoke no English and didn't understand our pathetic hand gestures asking if he would switch seats with my husband so that we could all sit together. Our son started a screaming tantrum as soon as we tried to fasten his seatbelt and didn't stop until well after the "fasten seatbelts" sign was off. At that time he still had some food issues, where he would panic if he saw food around him and he didn't have any. So when the refreshment cart came around, he again went into hysterics because he saw other people being served beverages. I got him a glass of apple juice and tried to hold it for him because he was so upset he couldn't steady himself, but that only made him more frantic and he tried to wrestle the cup out of my hands, and we both got soaked with apple juice. He was screaming and thrashing so hard that he kept hitting his head on things, which would make him scream more. The entire time, the Russian man next to us was just glaring at me with that "why can't you control your child?" look on his face. I wanted to tell him "I'VE BEEN A MOM FOR TWO DAYS! CUT ME SOME SLACK!"

Our flight from Moscow to JFK was 11 hours, and our son didn't sleep a wink. He screamed the entire time, upsetting everyone around us, and reducing me to tears on several occasions. The changing tables in the plane bathrooms terrified him, so the only way I was able to change his diaper was to have him standing on the changing table facing me, with both arms wrapped around my head while I tried to maneuver around him. There was no in-flight movie for the entire flight and we were going absolutely batty. We arrived at JFK with one hour until our next flight, and we were one of probably a dozen adoptive families on our flight. I grabbed our son and made a mad dash for the front of the plane as soon as we landed while my husband grabbed our carry-ons. Thankfully I was able to be the first adoptive family in line at immigration...otherwise there was no way we would have managed to make our next flight! We had two more flights in the states, from JFK to Dulles and then to Detroit. Our son managed to fall asleep on each of those two flights long enough to be woken twenty minutes later as we're trying to haul him off the plane onto the tarmac, with engines roaring and wind blowing, and he'd start panicking and screaming again.

By the time we finally got to our home that evening, we'd been traveling either by plane or by car for over 30 hours. We were so happy that no one had come to meet us at the airport!!

[Ebadge90]

We were due to take off from Novokuznetsk. Anybody tha has ever been there knows the airport is very small, and not really up to date, at least by American standards. We knew what the weather was supposed to belike, but didn't have any thoughts as to flight problems. We were ready to leave our non-English speaking hotel, when our translator told us that the flight was delayed. We went to the airport anyway, and when we got there, we found out the airport was closed, no flights in or out.
We are in Siberia, with a 14 month old that doesn't understand a word we are saying, and we are due at the Embassy in Moscow at 11:00 the next morning, to get the paperwork so we can leave the country.
The airline finally decides to bus everybody from Novokuznetsk to Novosibirsk. The thought of spending 4 hours on a bus, with no translators, and 2 toddlers didn't interest us at all. Our translator said that she would hire a driver to take us the 4+ hours to where our fight was going to be taking off from.
After a VERY adventurous drive through the Siberian countryside with a driver that spoke NO English at all, we finally made it to the airport.
The flight was uneventful, in fact our new son actually slept on that plane ride. When we got to Moscow, 7 hours late, we found out our agency switched hotels on us, and were even trying to switch our flight home to Monday instead of Thursday, and I do not mean 3 days earlier. But, that of course, is another story.

[another2]

Our first trip for our first adoption was delayed 2 weeks because of 9/11. When we were leaving for trip 2 -- they ENTIRELY CLOSED AND EVACUATED the Atlanta airport because some stupid guy jumped the security gate and hid in the airport. So we stood outside the airport on our cell phone trying to talk to our agency and the agency people in Russia who were set to take us to court in Siberia in 2 days! The airport opened just in time for us to run like crazy to make our flight. We were the last people allowed on the plane. The pilot told us how fast we were flying (can't remember now) because it was way faster than normal. We got to New York and they took a man who was going to Moscow for his wedding the next day and us in one of their shuttle cars through all these underground tunnels at breakneck speed so we could make our connection. It was really nice of them. The second the 3 of us got on the plane, they closed the door and pulled away from the gate -- only telling us then that our luggage probably did not make it! I'm sure you can image what that flight was like worrying about whether we had our orphanage gifts, any clothes for two infants, etc. Turned out that we had our luggage, so that worked out too. Once in Moscow we flew Ural Airlines in a rickety place in a terrible snowstorm. I am never afraid to fly, but on that flight I was panicked. We were the last flight in before they closed the airport for a week due to bad weather. Luckily we had to stay the 10 days anyway.

During our second adoption, we were in Moscow with our two new infants when my husband got kidney stones. He was in bed in agony with me watching the kids and we needed to take them to the medical appt. I couldn't figure out how to do it because I could not carry both children and the snow was 2 feet high so a stroller would not work. Then a call came from the agency saying that due to the snow storm, the doctor would be coming the hotel and do the exams there. God sure was good to us!

This last adoption was pretty uneventful -- thank goodness!

[russia06]

This was coming home from Trip 2 (copied most of it from our blog posting that we put up a few days later):

The first flight from Moscow to Munich was uneventful. We arrived with enough time to relax in the Munich Business Class Lounge (we had frequent flyer miles donated to us so we could go Business Class.) Our DS slept almost all of the first flight, and played for the better part of the time in the lounge.

About 45 minutes before our flight, we proceeded to our gate, and yet another security scanning, this time with a sleeping baby. At the first security point, then needed to enter DS's information into the US Homeland Security Database, since his ticket was not part of the original reservation, and they needed to confirm that we had the sealed envelope from the US Embassy with DS's immigration paperwork. We then proceeded to the end of the hall for the X-ray / carry-on screening, where we needed to load EVERYTHING onto the conveyor belt, including the stroller (did we mention DS was sleeping), then explain the quantity of baby food, and then pack it all back into the bags, and board the plane, without a real chance to catch our breath.

(Oh yeah, Munich airport did not have elevators at the gate. After all that with the security, we had to go down 2 steep escalators, with all the bags and the sleeping baby.)

The plane from Munich to Chicago was a Airbus 360-300, and we were in the second Business Class section. The seats in this section are almost flat recliners with individual LCD displays with Video-On-Demand, individual 110V power adaptors for a computer, a message mode for your back, and enough leg room that an NBA basketball player could be comfortable. We also had bulkhead seats so there was some extra room for DS to move around once we took off. Our section had us and about 6 other passengers. All of Business Class was rather empty, so we had some space to spread out. DS enjoyed all the buttons on the remote, that controlled our chairs, but he did not understand that we could not play with the chairs until we we already in the air, and he did not want to stay on our laps while the plane was taxing. Daddy had to "muscle" him on to his lap until we took off. Once we took off, the flight attendants took our food order, and set up the bassinet for DS on the bulkhead. After Daddy ate "lunch" while Mommy walked the isles with the then crying baby, since DS would not be happy sitting on either lap, and tried to jump out of the bassinet, DS fought sitting on Daddy's lap, so Mommy could eat. Eventually with lunch over, DS slept for about 30 minutes on Daddy, before waking up in a screaming fit. This continued for the rest of the flight.

DS was essentially inconsolable. He would scream if he was sitting on Daddy's lap, and if Mommy took him, he would scream on Mommy's lap. If Mommy walked with DS, he would scream, and if we put him down, we got more screaming. When it came to the bassinet, the screaming there was twice as loud. The other passengers in our section were not to pleased, and most (all but 1) moved to the other Business Class section and one move back to Coach (they paid for Transatlantic Buisiness Class and wound up in Coach due to DS's screaming) before we made it over the Atlantic.

We FINALLY landed in very snowy Chicago, and when the wheels hit the ground, that is when DS officially became a US citizen. Mommy and Daddy applauded, despite their total exhaustion, while DS continued to fuss.

Once on the ground, we proceeded to Immigration Control. The line moved fairly fast, and then when it was our turn, Mommy and Daddy's passports got stamped rather quickly, and the Immigration officer put DS's paperwork in a folder and told us to get our bags and go to customs, where we would take care of Sam's immigration stuff, by this time, DS had fallen asleep in his stroller. We found a very nice Skycap, who helped Daddy gather the luggage, and patiently waited with us in the New Immigrant section of customs.

There were 3 other families in this section, but no children. We were 3rd in line. It was very non-ceremonious. The officer opened our envelope, went through all the documents, and then simply put a couple stamps, and reiterated what the embassy had instructed us regarding the documentation for citizenship, and we were then on our way. We proceeded through the Customs scan of all the bags (again had to get the now sleeping baby out of the stroller to scan that).

From there we went to United's Check-In counter. When we were planning this trip this transfer in Chicago from International to Domestic was the nightmare we had been dreading. We only wish someone had told us that we could check our luggage through right at the International terminal it would have been nice. It would have been an added bonus if the check-in people in Moscow had checked the baggage through, but "That is Moscow" as the United check-in lady said. Once checked in and baggage handed over to United, we then proceeded to the Domestic terminal. (Remember this is Chicago O'hare Airport and it has been snowing all day, and we now have a sleeping baby in a stroller and we have been traveling for around 20 hours already.) Since we did not know about the ability to transfer the checked bags at the International terminal, we had arranged for a limo driver to pick us up at the International terminal and drive us to the Domestic United terminal. The driver met us and we were on our way around O'hare Airport.

When we got to the United domestic terminal we proceeded directly to security. Now we have flown via the US Air terminal in Philadelphia for years (even after 9/11) but this was a nightmare. The line was HUGE, moved very slowly, and the heat was turned up way to high. Add to that that Mommy and Daddy had not got a wink of sleep since the flight from Moscow to Munich (12 hours earlier), and had been dealing with a screaming toddler for the last 7 - 8 hours, you can imagine our patience level. When it was finally our turn to put all the carry-on bags and the stroller (after removing the NOW sleeping baby) on the X-ray machine, we had to deal with the fact that we did not remember where we had packed much of the liquids (i.e. Diaper Cream, Baby Food, Yogurt, Juice, etc.), so we were scolded by the TSA people and had to have 2 of our bags repeatedly scanned until we accounted for everything. Mommy snapped at the TSA official, when he suggested we should know where everything was. Oh Well.

We finally made it to the United Business class lounge where we had about 1 - 1 1/2 hours to kill before our flight was scheduled. We had some cool drinks, Daddy changed his now drenched shirt (Baby sweat) for a cheap Chicago T-shirt, and DS got a clean diaper and change of clothes. Daddy went around the lounge until he could find a spot to make a cell phone call (can you hear me now), so he could confirm the arrival time in Washington with friends, and tell the grandparents that we made it "across the pond".

Now did we mention that it was SNOWING in Chicago, and they had gotten about 6 inches over the last 24 hours. Fortunately the snow had stopped, so our plane landed a little delayed and even though the board said we were "on-time" our plane did not arrive to the gate (still having not deplaning the previous flight or being cleaned) until 15 minutes before our scheduled departure. Yeah right - On Time. We finally boarded and departed about 1 hour late (not bad considering Chicago's reputation and the weather).

For this flight, DS sat on Mommy, and Daddy was asleep before we even took off. Daddy did not wake up until we were getting ready to land (since his seat had reclined a bit, and the stewardess tried to push it upright and not wake up Daddy). DS meanwhile slept on Mommy for the flight, so we were a little better off in DC then when we landed in Chicago.

After we landed, we gathered all of our carry-ons (when someone asked if we had not checked anything, they were confused when Daddy told them we had also checked 4 suitcases). On the tram ride from the Gate area to the main terminal we met the pilot of our flight, who admitted that we were lucky to only be one hour late considering the day Chicago was having, so we counted that as a blessing. He also gave DS a picture (business card) of the plane, and congratulated the "Newest" American.

Our luggage came out very quickly (advantage of Business Class), so we then called our friends that were picking us up, who were parked right outside the Airport and pulled up within a couple minutes of us walking out the door. DS did not seem interested in saying hello, but he also did not seem to like his new car seat (something he will have to get used to). We said a quick Hello, Thank You and Good-Bye, and then went directly to the hotel. (About 2 miles from the airport.)

About 27 hours after we left our hotel in Moscow, we were settled into our room in the Fairfield Inn at Dulles Airport. All three of us had a quick bite to eat , and then we all passed out on the bed. Yes, Mommy and Daddy let DS sleep in their bed, since neither had the energy to fight with getting DS to sleep in the Pack-and-Play provided by the hotel.

The next morning (Thursday, April 12), we woke a little late (around 8:30am) and grabbed our showers and bath (DS), and then piled back in the car for home. After about 30 minutes of squirming and complaining by DS for being "forced" to sit in the car seat, DS fell asleep. We made pretty good time, and we HOME by 1:00pm.