Labor 101

The pain began quickly. The girls and I began labeling our taxi experiences by the driving/driver. Over the trip, we had the singer, smoothy, weaver. Our taxi driver to the Guangzhou airport was a weaver. And tailgater. And frequent stopper/ starter. By 10 minutes into the drive I needed my sea bands. Usually I only need those for the planes. Luckily they worked and we made it to the airport intact. We set off inside the airport to find our check in counter. Found it easy enough. Line wasn't too bad. Got to the clerk. He gave a funny look at the computer, and handed our passports back. Said to call ticket agent. Um, tickets bought online and are etickets. He said there was a problem. Not confirmed. I quickly pulled out the confirmation, and asked that a supervisor come over. Showed the confirmation. We seemed to be getting somewhere. Three boarding passes were printed out and five passports handed back. He then said, "these ones cannot go". Um what? I looked and it was Katelyn and Lianna's passports which had no boarding passes. I showed our ticket confirmation again. Was I seriously being told my two children could not go on the flight, despite the confirmation? Apparently yes. Mama bear came out. I was MAD. Yes, the flight was full ( probably over full) but I would NOT allow my children to be bumped. After an hour, all of us had our boarding passes. Seats not together. I figured people would move. Nope. Mia, on her second flight ever, had to sit behind me. Fortunately, she fell asleep for most of the flight, and only whimpered for the last 15 minutes or so. And at least I could stick my face between the seats and she could see me.
Our overnight in Shanghai was uneventful. We stayed about 15 minutes from the Pudong airport. Arrived at the airport 4 hours before our flight the next day. I hoped to be the first to check in at United/Continental. We were second. We had an awesome ticket clerk who had no problems printing all boarding passes. However, no seats were together again. I can't figure out how people get seat assignments so early! He said not to worry, he would alert the gate crew so we could be together. Thank God for this travel mercy. I cannot imagine flying 13+ hours with my girls spread out all over the plane. When we got to the gate, the wonderful clerk gave us two seats together, and another two together, with one person in between. I prayed this person would change seats. As we ventured to our seats, we found out we had bulkhead seats! Oh, the extra space. And the man sitting in between us smiled and said he would switch seats with me, so I could have 4 seats together. And the man on the other side of Mia had a daughter adopted from China in 2003. He was so gracious as she slept with her feet on his chest, and reminisced about how his daughter screamed the entire flight back to the US. With the exception of one very minor tantrum which lasted less than 2 minutes, Mia either watched cartoons on the personal screen or slept.
It was so, so good to land in Chicago and have Mia become the latest US citizen. Immigration officials were pleasant and welcoming. They took our big brown envelope, and congratulated me.
For our final flight, we were again seated scattered around the plane. And once again, the ticket clerk had mercy and put three seats together in the bulkhead. The other two seats (for my mom and Katelyn) were a few rows behind us. We were all exhausted and slept this last leg of the travel until arriving in Boston.
So now, the labor is over. We are home. We are jet lagged and feel like we have been hit by the weaver taxi driver. But we are home. The labor was worth it. And we are home. Home with our sweet girl. It feels so good.