THE Trip, Day 5: Six Month Flashback

On Thursday, we again spent the day at our guest house because our flight didn't leave until around 10:30pm.  We packed up our things and played for most of the day.  We also looked forward to our agency dropping off Mikayla's Ethiopian passport and paperwork allowing her to enter the United States.  Let me tell you, a baby's passport is just so stinking cute!  I especially enjoyed it because we got to see a picture of Mikayla  that I had never seen before.  So we got our passport and big, official envelope which they (meaning EVERYONE) tells you that you are not allowed to open.  You are to guard it with your life and then hand it over to the customs official when you make it back into the states.  Let's just say we followed those directions and didn't try to find out what would happen if we opened it...

Before we left, we had a mini photo session on the roof.  (I honestly still think about the roof and really miss it sometimes.  It was awesome being up there)!

Our family.  Mikayla is dressed in PJs with hope that she would sleep lots on the plane :)

The Mitchells and Mummerts.  This trip would NOT have been the same without them.

We arrived at the airport and made it through customs and security with almost no line, which is the complete opposite of our last trip when we waited in line forever.  That was a total answer to prayer with a little one.  We finally boarded the plane and played musical seats about 50 times so that we would be able to sit together .  We were originally assigned a bassinet seat in the bulkhead and the second seat was a couple of rows back.  We were ok not sitting together if that meant we would have a bassinet for Mikayla.  We were thankful that it ended up working out that we got to sit together for most of the flight.  I have to say Mikayla was a complete trooper on this flight.  She slept a lot (Brian and I not quite so much), and wasn't too fussy considering the crazy new experience.

Out like a light in the bassinet.  Whoever invented these things is a genius and a gift to parents traveling with infants internationally.

We didn't need movies on this flight for entertainment.  Silas took care of entertaining us!

After an incredibly long flight, we were thrilled to touch down in D.C.  We got our luggage and made it through customs without a hitch.  What a great feeling it was to know that when we made it to U.S. soil our baby girl was a citizen.  We were both pretty emotional at this point.  I almost lost it while eating breakfast when an Ethiopian gentleman came up to me after Brian left to go change Mikayla and said, "God bless you."  I must have given him a confused smile at first because he continued, "God bless you for what you have done with your child.  She is Ethiopian, correct?"  I nodded and he went on, "I thank you for what you are doing for that child and I pray God's blessing on your family."  Such sweet, soothing words to hear from this man who shares the same beautiful heritage as our daughter, especially when our 2 year journey was coming to a close...

Our Ethiopian Air plane

Our new little citizen

Lessons learned from today (oh, I could write a book, but I won't)

-If you have a baby, some kind of carrier is so crucial.  We have a Baby Ergo that we love.  It works great for babies that are a little heavier and you can put the kid on your chest, on your hip, or on your back.  

-Securing a bassinet took a lot of confirming/hounding people.  We reserved it with our travel agent at booking, we called the airline the day of our flight to confirm, and we confirmed it again when we checked in at the ticket counter.  Honestly, they are first come, first serve and it sort of felt like the luck of the draw as to who actually got them.  If you need a bassinet, when arriving at the airport, earlier is better!

-Take a change of clothes for the parents as well as the kid (we didn't need to change on the plane, but know parents who needed to change and didn't have clothes accessible).

-I also had just a few toiletries that were easy to get to in our checked baggage since we knew we would have access to them in the customs area.  During our layover, I changed and actually felt mostly human on the last leg of our flight.

-So you've clearly picked up on the fact that Mikayla was having digestive problems during the whole trip and the flight was no different.  We took tons of diapers and wipes on the flight and used all but one diaper.  We also were prepared with one change of clothes in the diaper bag, but she ended up going through 3 outfits.  We were glad we had made a couple of extra sets easily accessible in our checked bags that we could get to when we went through customs.

-Just keep in mind that even though the flight is WAY long, it has to end at some point!

I'll share our homecoming tomorrow, so stay tuned!