The Long Trip Home

Yesterday was the culmination of a nearly 20 month jouney of love to adopt our son from Russia. We started months before he was born! What a ride it has been and yesterday was no exception.

The real superstar yesterday was young Jason. He's pretty brave putting up with everything we demanded of him. He was taken from the place he was used to, given to some folks who barely knew him, forced to live in a hotel for a week, was driven around and around and around with no car seat (Brittany should move to Russia), then asked to fly half-way around the world to be greeted by a bunch of very excited strangers. Through it all he was a champ. What a proud papa and mama he has.

Here's the first shot of our boy getting ready to leave Hotel Ukraina for the last time. It is a special place not only because papa and mama have spent 3 weeks of their lives at this place, but because it was the first home our son shared with his parents.


These were the tools of the trade. Passports, ticket stubs, and airplanes. Our passports were certainly a critical piece of documentation not to lose! The red one in the middle is our son's.


Here's the Boeing 767-300ER that took our family home to the United States. It was Delta Flight 47.


We had planned to make the trip home with only two seats for the three of us. We paid the 10% fee to allow Jason Alexei to get a boarding pass. Much to our surprise, the flight was not really full. I think Jason was the only baby being adopted on a flight that is typically called the "baby flight." Best of all, we were given three seats in the bulkhead row! I think us flying on a Wednesday contributed to us getting the row. This made the flight SO much better. He could sit in his own seat for a while and we could let him get on the floor from time to time to give us some relief. I am really glad we didn't buy that third seat!!!!

We had to wait at the gate for about two and half hours. It was no big deal. Our little guy has an amazing ability to sleep, here he is waiting patiently at the gate for us to board.
But when he awoke he said, "GRRRR!" which means "Please take me home mom and dad!!!".


And that is what we did -- took him home. Here we are at the gate with the plane in the background.

While these events were unfolding for us in Moscow, many of our friends were at work for us in Huntsville. My friend Matt Ligon was given the task of hanging the flags at our house. He did this around lunchtime of the day of our arrival. It really made the house festive. From left to right, Russian flag, USA flag (duh), and Moscow flag.

A follow-up story about the flags. After we had been home for an hour, there was a knock on our door. It was a young Russian gentleman who began speaking Russian to Wendy. He and his wife were looking for houses to buy and were scouting the neighborhood when they saw the flags and the blue-balloons Wendy's sister Suzanne put on our mailbox. They thought perhaps a Russian couple had a child born to them. Much to their surprise, they met us and learned of our adoption. They were thrilled for us and very excited, the lady began to tear up.

It REALLY made our night to have them stop by. We swapped numbers and now we have some Russian friends with a five year old girl. What a way to cap a night. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Back to us and we are now in flight! Onboard the plane Jason was a trooper. He only fussed for about an hour towards the end. Frankly, I think the experience overstimulated the little guy. So many new sights and sounds and SO many "friendly" flight attendants checking him out, tickling, poking, hee-heeing, etc. wore him out.

As we touched down in Georgia I clapped. Hooo-ray! He's a citizen of the United States. We thought, "Whew, back in the states. Nothing to do but celebrate? Right?"

Right??????

WRONG!!!!!

We had to go through passport control, which wasn't bad at all. That was not the difficult part. Since Jason was travelling into the USA on an immigrant visa, we had some additional waiting to do at immigration control for them to do whatever is done to admit a kid into the USA.

Talk about a dysfunctional organization. Three guys, one cranky, one younger and more jovial, the youngest seemingly learning the ropes. Cranky guy spent most of his time saying "TURN OFF THE CELLPHONE!" and "MOVE THE BAGS THERE!" He was doing this instead of working on our guy's papers.

The problem was the short duration of our layover and our time was being eaten into by this step...Tick tick tick...I beginning to have visions of missing our Huntsville flight. BIG VISIONS...

I looked to the cell-phone, IN THE OFF POSITION, thinking I would have to make a sad call to someone that we were going to miss our flight. tick tick tick....

We finally got done there and went through security AGAIN...Take off your shoes, talk off your belt, remove the video camera, etc. TICK TICK TICK...We are going to be close...

After making through security I ask the "helpful" ticket agent, "Which gate is Huntsville???" He said simply, "D". I start to break like juice was on the loose but stopped and asked further, "D what?". He says "thirty-two"...

So we are off to the races in a dash for gate D-32. There are no photo records of the jaunt, other than the security cameras. I'm sure they had a laugh at us...

It was shocking, shocking, how fast Wendy and I turned from carefree travellers in our life before the adoption to the stereotypical frazzled rushing couple with an infant. Instantaneous transformation, in a flash it happened. We'll never be the same people again!

Wahoo! We arrive at D-32, just like the "helpful" agent said for us to do. I look at the sign...Huntsville??? Huntsville---I DON'T SEE HUNTSVILLE!?!?!?!

I ask the people, is this the Huntsville gate???

"No, you need to go to C-35!"

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I left Wendy and Jason behind. We were REALLY cutting it close now. I ran most of the way to the gate. Holy cow the bronchitis and Russia trips really sapped my running abilities! But I was carrying three bags so I had extra poundage from that to deal with.

I made it to the gate and explained it to the guy. He said Wendy and Jason had about 10 minutes to spare. They should up about 5 minutes later and all was set!

We made it on the flight! As I was walking to the plane the "friendly" person at the bottom of the stairs asked "How are you doing?" She asked the question so I told her, "one of your co-workers told us the wrong gate". Guess what her response was????

A simple, "bummer dude, sucks to be you" would have been fine with me but she actually pointed to my ticket to where it says, "gate information is subject to change". Can you believe it???? I wanted to smack her, but I didn't have the time...

Holy cow! After all that we finally got on the plane to Huntsville. Hu-ray! We're almost home!

Again, Jason Alexei was a superstar. Dad was a superstar in the sense he carried all the bags and rushed ahead, but boy, talk about rage against the machine. Mom was superstar making sure I didn't have a heart attack or went postal.

After getting on the plane we had thirty minutes for the sweat to dry and the anxiety to calm down. We had to quickly get over the near fiasco in Atlanta to switch mental gears to see everyone at the airport.

Jason says, "GRRR! I am meeting my peeps in Alabama!!!"



And what a greeting it was. Tons of friends came to see us along with Wendy's parents, one of her brothers and his family, and Wendy's sister. It was such a great scene to have so many people wanting to celebrate with us and to meet our little guy.

I don't have any pictures of it, so maybe someone can share some with me. I know the blogosphere out there in Texas, Illinois, Cali, and other states and places who couldn't be there in person will want to see them. The video I took is pretty chaotic, particularly during the best parts, so I don't think I'll have many good shots of the group to pull.

HINT HINT
INSERT MISSING AIRPORT PHOTO HERE!!!!
HINT HINT

I have seen many shows on international adoptions and it was always the best part of the show seeing everyone at the airport greeting the new family. Words can't describe how great it feels after such a long hard trip, and such a long process to be greeted in such a special way. It's a moment that will live with us forever.

Afterward, we drove home in our car. Our friends Stephen and Cindy Pethel took our car to the airport so that we could leave as a family. Our little guy had no trouble getting into this new device called the "car seat". It's a piece of technology that is NOT in the Russian vocabulary. We thought he might not like being confined in it, but he sat right in and promptly crashed. The poor guy had partied himself out.


Once home it was all smiles. Here's a shot of Wendy and Jason in front of the house.


That's all for now. I'll post more from the Moscow part of the trip in the coming days. There are so many stories to tell about all this.


It is great to be home!!!!!!!!!!!