Journey to Ethiopia - Day One

One year ago today: 

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The weeks leading up to our travel to bring S home were crazy. Due to the Christmas holidays combined with power failures in Addis Ababa, where our baby S waited, we were given only 10 days to plan our trip, book our flights, and pack this family up. We went to the doctor multiple times to make sure the kids' colds and allergies were under control, but our normally healthy children just kept on with the running noses and coughs. And even though we had all been vaccinated to the gills for everything from Yellow Fever to Typhoid, we still had to put together a medical supplies kit that would help us treat any eventuality in a developing country. We needed adult and children's doses of everything, and some of us can swallow pills and some can't. Plus, we needed to be prepared to treat baby S to help her start healing from whatever infections and issues she might have. We had it all covered. Diarrhea? Check. Cough and cold? Check. Fevers? Check. Cuts? Check. Scabies, lice, ear infection, fungus? Check, check, check, and check.  The list went on and on, and the bundle of medicines we ended up taking was impressive. Fortunately, we knew that if God blessed us with health on our travels, every bit of that medicine could be donated to the Care Center for the children there.

We spent 2 days and 2 long nights trying to fit mounds of orphanage donations (including vitamins, baby clothes, shoes, toys, and medicines), snack foods for our kids, and all our medications in with the clothes we needed~ all according to the combined baggage size and weight regulations of the 3 different airlines we would fly. In addition, we were advised to make sure that each bag had some items for each person in it, because we would likely lose some of our luggage along the way. We also tried to pack as much as possible in our carryons, so that if our luggage was lost we would still have some things to get us through. We went around and around, but finally figured out a packing system so that certain bags could be assigned to each person on check in, in order to avoid those dreaded oversize and overweight baggage fees. The packing alone was exhausting, and the trip hadn't even begun. But, the exhaustion of getting a whole family ready to cross the Atlantic was masked by the electric excitement we all felt. We were going to get baby S and bring her home!

Our journey began just as we begin every other family trip, with Mike's heartfelt prayer in the driveway for God's protection and blessing for our family. Then we drove just a few minutes and arrived at our local regional airport before 5 am to check in for an early commuter flight to DFW. Uncle B and cousin T came with us that morning, to help with all our bags and to bring our vehicles home and see us off on the first leg of our journey. We were all pumped and ready for this big adventure, and more than ready to finally meet our baby S ~ our travel group included me, Mike, R (our eldest daughter, age 11), HA (our elder son, age 6), HW (our younger son, age 6), and Gram and DaddyDon (Brenna's parents). Seven in all. That's a lot of luggage, people.

We got our checked bags through the line and then we took our carryons and went to the airport restaurant to wait until our flight was called. You know those sharply dressed business people you see in airports pulling their slim, wheeled carryons behind them, weaving through the crowds gracefully? That was so not us. Our carryons included bags of activities for the kids that weighed the maximum amount allowed, a big, vital bag of paperwork required to get our baby home, tons of snacks for the kids, seven jackets (we didn't need them in Texas, but we knew that would change when we landed in Chicago), my bulging purse, loaded with every kind of medicine we might need in-flight and bottles of hand sanitizer, and one very important blankie for one unnamed child who still needs it when he goes to sleep. Graceful doesn't describe our group in any form or fashion. 

We got coffee and the kids chose drinks. Suddenly R turned to me and whispered, "I think I'm gonna be sick!"

I hurried her through the empty airport to the bathroom. We made it in the nick of time. It didn't bode well that we already had a vomiting child before we were even in the air, but I said an extra prayer for her, chocked it up to all the nervous energy we all felt and hoped it wasn't a sign of things to come. We barely had time to get her put back together before it was time to go through security. The small-town airport security check that first time was sort of fun ~ all of us looked so silly with our shoes and boots in the plastic tubs, walking sock-footed to the end of the line where we put our belts back on and passed around wallets and purses. The kids giggled and we joked, and we didn't mind it at all. We had a good time going through airport security that very first time ~ the 7^th time or so, not so much.

We were jubilant on that first leg to DFW, and it was a very short trip. We barely settled into our seats before we the plane was setting down and we were gathering our things to get off.

In the DFW airport we found out our next leg of the trip was delayed by a big ice storm in the mid-west. Chicago was all backed up, so there we sat for several hours, trying our best to entertain the kids and catch a few winks in the terribly uncomfortable airport chairs. That delay gave us a few minutes to think about what we might have forgotten, and we phoned Mike's mom for a last minute pharmacy run. She arrived at DFW with a package of dental repair paste  in case of a broken tooth ( I told you we were prepared for anything), and a watch for Mike, who realized that since he wouldn't have his cell phone in Ethiopia, we would never know what time it was. At one point during our wait I jumped on a computer and posted a quick update to the blog. It would be our last real connection for the rest of trip.

After several hours of delays we were finally back on track and hoped to still make our connection in Chicago. When we arrived in Chicago we found out our bags had to be rechecked through, because our plane was late and the plane we were flying out on had already been loaded. So, we retrieved our pile of luggage from baggage claim, lugged them around again and checked them in again, and finally flew out aboard Turkish Air, bound for the city that joins two continents: Istanbul.