Houston, we have lift off.

Getting eight families out of Chongqing and to the airport on time was quite the production. I would probably have written about it sooner but our newest member of the family decided to greet the day ahead of the rooster and started wailing around 4 AM the day we were flying. Having stayed up late the night before, this change in the 72 hour routine we had set up caught me off guard. I can be an early morning person on 6 to 7 hours sleep but 4.5 hours is tough.

We had to have our bags packed and in front of our hotel rooms by 8:30 AM for a noon flight. The hotel took our locked luggage to the airport ahead of us and checked it all the way to Guangzhou for us. It was actually really convenient, except for the fact that I was exhausted and I had to pack when I would much rather have been sleeping. Makena was still following her course of antibiotics. Jack was now coughing again and blowing his nose and all I could think about was how my kids were going to be able to pressurize or depressurize on the 1.5 hour flight to Guangzhou.

The thought of taking a baby on an inaugural flight is about as exciting as anticipating a root canal. You know you have to have it, you just hope it won't be too painful and that you won't lose your cool during the operation. Just before we boarded, I gave Makena a bit of Dimetap and I withheld her bottle until we started to lift off. She fell asleep before I could actually give her the bottle but ultimately, it was brilliant and uneventful. Poor Jack, on the other hand had a hard time adjusting to the air pressure on the way down and ended up with a wicked ear ache compounded by a sore throat. Not good.

This is day two in Guangzou and both my children are now officially on antibiotics. I called the doctor in to look at Jack's ears and check Makena's lungs to make sure they were clear. They were. To find this out cost me 100 Yuen, or $13 US.

In retrospect, the only thing that caught me off guard, was me. As we were boarding the plane I started crying. It came out of nowhere. I was crying for Makena and the thought that I was taking her away from the place she was born. I was crying for her biological mom and I was crying for the homesickness Makena would probably never know.

I locked eyes with this pregnant woman in the airport on the way to the gate and I think that's what probably set it off. I wondered if it was her first pregnancy, whether it wasn't, whether she was from another town and had flown to Chongqing to have the baby...all these thoughts ran through my head and then to my mother who would never know Makena, just as she never got to meet Jack, who is named after her.

After I calmed down, I came to the conclusion that:

A) I'm either going through PMS,
B) Menopause or
C) I'm just whack or
D) All of the above.

Don't answer that.

I wanted to include this picture of Makena with the giraffe cudly she sleeps with. It was taken after I gave her the inaugural "first" bath. She loved it. But trying to bathe her was like trying to hug an eel. She was slippery and wiggly and kept launching into her crocodile death roll spins and it was a small miracle that she didn't split her head against the tub, the way she splashed around in the soapy water. It was worth it though. A) she got clean and B) it was the first time she giggled and laughed freely. I've decided to give her a bath once a week, whether she needs it or not.