Our Homecoming

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Our travel from Ethiopia left us more exhausted than we've ever been in our entire lives (and minus about 5 lbs.). Our journey home was BRUTAL. That might be understated. We boarded our flight from Addis to Amsterdam to find out that we did not have a bassinet seat as the travel agent had said. So we sat upright in our seats for the 8 hours to Amsterdam with a sick baby in our lap. She couldn't get comfortable with the two ear infections she was fighting, and so we took turns walking her up and down the aisles or trying to get her comfortable on our laps. Could planes be any less comfortable? We made it to Amsterdam and had about 4 hours at that airport to get some food and walk the airport. Weredesh wasn't really happy unless we kept moving. At that airport they had a cool baby nursery, actually I thought it was an AMAZING nursery with individual little rooms, an area to sanitize and heat bottles, changing tables, soothing music, and dim lighting that you could chill with your baby. It was nice for mom and dad to relax a bit and put Weredesh down in a crib.

On the flight from Amsterdam to Portland we made sure we had bassinet seating. By this time Weredesh was overly tired and we had a hard time getting her to sleep. There was an amazing flight attendant on this flight that took extra good care of us - I was so appreciative of her over-the-top service. It took about 2 hours to finally get her to sleep and then she was asleep in the bassinet. Ahhhh.....until the fasten seat belt sign came on. We were told that we would have to take her OUT of the bassinet because there might be turbulence. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?! I could have wrung some necks. Well, we took her out of the bassinet, and she was then awake for the ENTIRE 8 remaining hours. What a nightmare! All we could do is walk her up and down the aisles to keep her from fussing.

We finally made it to Portland, where my girlfriend Nancy was there to meet us for lunch. By that time I was running on adrenaline for the fact that we were almost home. After about 4 hours in Portland (and 30 travel hours later), I had a minor meltdown, as I thought I was going to fall over from exhaustion. We made it to our short flight home and couldn't believe what we saw when we arrived at the gate. It was surely a sight for sore eyes. Friends and family to give us hugs, take photos of this amazing moment, lend a helping hand with luggage, drive us home, make us dinner - what more could we ask for? Many thanks to our good friend Mary Catherine for organizing this...