China Trip Day 14 – 3/18 to 3/19 – The long trip home!
The past two days have been
crazy. Let’s be honest, the past two weeks have been a little crazy. So to
recap, we will give you the rundown from travel day to arriving home to Theo’s
cardiac appointment.
We woke up early on the 18th
in Hong Kong and packed everything up, fed Theo his bottle and checked out of
our hotel. Ah, last day for the need to brush our teeth with bottled water! On the way to the terminal (because the hotel was connected to the
airport and within walking distance) we ran into one of our good friends and
were able to say goodbye for the last time. Although, maybe there is a trip to
Disney World in their future?
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| Boeing 737 Taking us home! |
At the airport, we found out
our flight was delayed an hour due to crew availability… oh boy. Would we be
able to make our connection in Newark? We scrambled to the gate to start
asking questions and Laura was fortunate enough to see one of the pilots at
the gate and talk with him about the time it would take to get through
immigration in NJ. Not good. Add this time to the time it would take to get our
checked luggage in hand and re-check, go through security again, and race to
the gate… he said it was better to change to a later flight.
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| Laura handling the news |
Later flight?? Didn’t he
realize we were meeting friends and family at the Orlando airport? Couldn’t United
hold the plane if we were a few minutes late? We had to try. And Theo didn't seem to mind that we would be in a rush.
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| Theo wondering what is going on... |
Theo was great on the 15 hour
flight from Hong Kong to Newark. Laura and I were a bit restless and continued
to check the arrival time/ gates/ and keep our carry-on bags by our side for
most of the trip. We had purchased an extra seat, so there was plenty of room
for the three of us to stretch out from time to time. We each got a few hours
of sleep between watching movies and keeping Theo entertained. Before we knew
it, the captain had announced that we were making our decent.
Once the plane landed, Laura
grabbed Theo and I grabbed the bags. We took off running towards customs, which
in Newark is not a short run. The whole time we were talking with them, we kept
saying “we are in a hurry, we need to catch our flight”, so we got an escort
down to immigration for Theo. This area was right in front of the baggage claim
and we kept checking over our shoulder for our bags to arrive. After the green light that we
were good to go, Laura raced forward to the next security checkpoint while I waited
for the bags. Longest wait of my life.
Our bags finally arrived and
we were pushing time, so I ran towards the security checkpoint with my now 4
bags. I thought since they were small enough, and we had 3 seats, they would
easily be able to fit under the seat in front of us or in the overhead. For any
travelers, you know this is a problem. Only 2 carry-ons per person. So they wouldn’t
let me through the checkpoint. Panic. I ran back down to try and check the
bags, and finally back up to go though security again.
After what felt like an eternity, I ran back to the
gate (felt like a mile) only to find that the gate had been switched somewhere between taking off my shoes and doing my best to keep my pants up while running to the gate with no belt.
Without her cell phone, it
was impossible to know if Laura had made the flight or had been able to hold
the plane for me like we planned. So I started running to the new gate (felt
like 2 miles). Half way there, and with my heart beating out of my chest, my
phone started ringing… it was a NJ number, and I stopped running.
Laura informed me that we
missed the flight and a cart was coming to pick us up because our newly
scheduled flight was departing from the other side of the airport. We had some
choice words with the United staff about the inconvenience of running across
the airport several times, and worked out a couple of meal vouchers since we
would now be delayed arriving in Orlando until 9:00pm. Both sweating, we toured Newark from a golf cart.
You would think I was lying
if I told you that our departing gate was changed 2 more times… but I’m not. We rode back and forth through the Newark
airport listening to the golf cart driver say “beep beep, coming through” for the
next 30 minutes. We almost didn’t have time to rest before boarding the next
flight.
3 hours later and we were
landing in Orlando. Finally! After making our way to the unsecured side of the main terminal, we could
see two little children holding huge welcome home signs, and all our troubles
from the day were instantly gone. Laura was wearing Theo at this point and we
both went running up to Everett and Nora. In fact, we had a whole section of
people supporting us when we finally looked up from our kids. It was so great having
some of our closest friends around us during this exciting moment in our lives.
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| Our welcome committee |
After giving everyone a
chance to see Theo for the first time, we all went our separate ways. I can
only imagine how tired people were from waiting at the airport for us since our
flight was delayed, but it was so special for us. We loaded up the kids into
our mini-van and took off for home.
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| Everett letting Theo know the rules of the stroller. Nora does not seem interested. |
It was so nice pulling into
the driveway after two weeks. We spent the evening (because
we were still on China time) talking about the trip with Laura’s parents. We told
them all about meeting Theo’s caretakers and his finding spot, they told us all
about Everett and Nora’s activities for the past two weeks.
The next morning we had a
cardiac appointment in Orlando and asked Everett if he wanted to come along for
Theo’s “heart boo boo” appointment. He was very excited to come along. The
doctors couldn’t believe that Theo had his full repair in China with the type
of scar he has on his chest, but after reviewing the ultrasound images and
listening to his heart, they were amazed to say that his full repair was
complete, and barring any major issues, he shouldn’t need another surgery for
another 5-10 years. Talk about an answer to prayer. We are all very happy
hearing this news. Coming home, we were prepared for anything. If he needed to
have surgery immediately, if he had a bad surgery performed in China, or if
there were other things going on that may not have been listed in his previous
charts. There is still a question about his head shape and size, we are still
considering seeing a urologist to perform a circumcision, and we need to get blood drawn, stool samples, and immunizations evaluated/given over the next few months.
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| Taking Theo's blood pressure |
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| Getting relaxed for the ultrasound |
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| Dr. listening to Theo's heart |
Regardless of where the Lord
takes us from here, I think it’s safe to say that our daily blogging days are
over for now. We have said this a lot over the past two weeks, that we are extremely
thankful for everyone who supported us, prayed for us, cried with us, and
followed us along this journey. Of course, we will still update our blog from
time to time with pictures and stories from the happenings of our lives. But for now, we love you all and are excited
to start this chapter of our lives as a family of 5, especially Nora.
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| Needing a bigger chair |
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