Thursday, March 15, 2007

Posting Time has Diminished

Trying to play catch up...

There were some things that happened on our trip that never got posted that I wanted to share especially about our last day.

On March 7th, we had our swearing in ceremony. Our group plus the other families from the same agency we used arrived first. Soon after more and more families piled into this one room. Our guides did something at the beginning and later we were all called up to show our passports and identify who we were and show our baby and who she was. Around 4pm, a lady began speaking to everyone there. She told us there were 54 families there that day from the US. FIFTY-FOUR That number amazed me. That means at least 54 children were being adopted and brought back to the US on this day. That's not counting how many all week or how many were adopted by families from other countries. 54 orphans were receiving homes and forever families. After her speech she had all of the parents raise their right hand and swear that all documents submitted were true and then congratulated all of us. It was quick and simple...probably the easiest part of the entire process. The children would then become US Citizens upon landing on US Soil and handing over a brown envelope full of documents.

We later boarded the bus and headed to the airport. Some families took a train and some stayed another night. We waited in long lines at the airport to check in and then found a restaurant that would take credit card b/c we had spent the rest of our Chinese money. Afterwards we waited with several others from our group dreading the long flight home.

The flight wasn't as bad as I thought it might be but it wasn't fun either. Madelyn had diarrhea the entire flight. We lucked out and the seat beside us was empty so we had a changing area plus a little more elbow room. Logan slept almost the whole flight home which was a big relief to us. Madelyn inbetween diaper changes slept on me or Tony.

Food on that flight was not good at all. It was disgusting. Luckily we had snacks. They also don't believe in cold drinks. They serve Pepsi and Sprite room temperature and water boiling. One time I walked to the back to ask for water and when I picked up the little cup I thought I was going to burn my hand. How are we suppose to drink that? I understand China has to boil their water but on the plane you'd think they could have bottled water. There also was no ice on that plane.

LA airport wasn't much fun either. At one point we were waiting on customs to go over our passports and documents and while we waited they told us to roll our luggage over to a place that said "do not leave luggage unattended" and then told us to sit away from that. Made no sense whatsoever. Everywhere we stepped it seemed we were asked for passports. Take five steps "passports please." At one time I just wanted to say "didn't you just see me pull these out to that person right over there (pointing just a few feet away)?" We had to claim luggage there and check it back in. LA airport is big! Lots of walking! Thank goodness for baby carriers. My back was killing me though through all this.

After checking in we had to go through security. They took our water bottles (except one) and then had us dump our water in our thermos. One of the families with us had their thermos dumped in front of them but the man checking us made Tony take it outside himself and dump it. They even took my hand sanitizer which was well below the allowed liquid size. We had no water after that to make bottles with. Luckily McDonald's later filled our thermos with hot water. We had enough to make it back to Charlotte after that plus had one water bottle left (it was down in the diaper bag and security didn't find it). It didn't matter to them if the water bottles were sealed. They'd take it and toss it right in front of you. We had a 5 hour layover in LA. We used all but a little over one hour for customs, check-in, security and eating.

The LA flight to Atlanta was bad. Madelyn was restless. She wouldn't sleep at all. When we got to Atlanta, we barely had enough time to get to the other terminal (from T to B) before our next plane. She was restless also on that plane right but at least it was short. Logan was worse. His mouth ran non-stop until Charlotte. I was ready to pull out that duct tape. I had to apologize to the lady behind us he kept turning around to talking.

***awake babies now***post more later***

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