journey11

Day 13 � Guangzhou to Home!

We take care of our morning ritual of bottles and showers and head off for our last breakfast in China. We have arranged a late check-out at the hotel since our flight doesn�t leave until 8:40 p.m. We spend our last day quietly, wandering around the hotel, taking pictures and finishing up our packing. We arranged to meet Mrs. Liang around 4:00 where she would hand off Grace�s visa packet to us after she picked it up from the U.S. Consulate. Once that envelope is in our hands I breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing now stands in our way of bringing Grace home! The visa is actually a large sealed envelope containing all of Grace�s Chinese and U.S. paperwork. If the seal on the envelope is broken before returning to the U.S. and giving it to the immigration personnel it is considered invalid. You can bet we took VERY good care of that envelope!

Around 5:00 we call to have the bellhops come up and get our bags and head down to the lobby. The hotel shuttle will be taking us to the airport at 6:00. In the lobby we take a picture of Grace on the famous �red couch�. This is a red velvet couch located in the White Swan lobby where all the adopted babies get their pictures taken. We watched while a large travel group tried to get their 6-8 babies on the couch to all smile (or at least not cry) at once while parent after parent took pictures. It was easier for us since all we had was Grace, but it was still hard to get her to smile. While waiting in the lobby we happened upon a few other families who would be on the same flight home as us. We sat and chatted with them and Jude took some last minute video before we loaded on the bus and started on our Journey home.

We made it to the airport without incident and got in yet another line. You cannot check in for your flight until 1 hour or so before departure. While Jude stood in line Grace and I wandered around the small Guangzhou airport. Mrs. Liang graciously stayed with us until we were allowed to check in even though she had a 90 minute bus ride to get home to her husband and child. At last the line started moving and we said our good byes. After going through what seemed like a million check points showing our tickets and passports, and avoiding the �baggage wrappers� (people who charge you for placing plastic banding around your luggage for a fee which you DON�T need to do) we made it to the actual check-in desk. We got rid of our luggage and headed upstairs to the departure lounge. At this point you have to fill out �departure forms�. Unfortunately, we didn�t know this and had to borrow a pen in order to fill them out. We profusely thank the kind businessman who waited while we filled out three of the forms, one for each of us. As we handed off these forms at yet another checkpoint we thought we were done! But noooo, they also wanted to see Grace�s visa packet. So Jude carefully removed the precious cargo from his daypack. Of course, the people behind us aren�t too happy about the delay, but oh well!!

Finally we make it to the departure lounge. At this point we�re all tired and Grace is getting cranky. I�m even too tired to shop and use up the last of our yuan (and finally in a place where I could do it peacefully). Luckily the wait to board our plane isn�t long. We get boarded uneventfully, although we had to take another bus ride to get to our plane and walk up a set of rolling stairs to get on the plane. We�re even allowed to bring Grace�s umbrella stroller on board. We had reserved the bulkhead seats and got them! Premium economy on our flight was less than half full which was nice. Even before we took off, our attendant had Grace�s bassinet (it attaches to the plane�s bulkhead) installed.

The flight was 12.5 hours long. Grace did fuss for the first two hours of the flight, even one of the flight attendants (obviously a Mom) tried to help, but nothing worked. Grace did eventually cooperate and managed to sleep at least 8 hours. She barely fit in the bassinet, but slept just fine anyway. I slept as well, probably because I felt so horrible! Jude, as usual, didn�t manage to sleep much at all. It was only at the end of the flight that Jude found out that the sides of the seat�s headrests flip inward so you can lean your head against them to sleep. Now he finds out!! Jude managed to keep busy while Grace and I slept though. Ask to see his stealth shots of Grace and I sleeping using the �night vision� mode on the video camera!

The service on the flight was great, better than on the way over. They even had a baby meal for Grace that came in very handy and they were wonderful about heating up her bottles. Instead of trying to change diapers in a bathroom, since our cabin was pretty empty, we just changed her on the floor in front of our seats.

We finally land in Los Angeles to the cheers of the all the adoptive parents onboard. There were five families in premium economy, all with children between 1 and 3 years of age, another family in first class with a toddler and one family in economy with their 7 year old. As we prepare to deplane Grace�s stroller magically appears and in she goes to experience America for the first time! As we make our way to customs and immigration our friend Andrew appears on the other side of the glass partition. What a wonderful sight to see!

As we approach immigration all the adoptive families are led off to our own line (which was wonderful since two large planes full of people needed to be processed). One of the immigration officials gathered all our documentation, including the children�s visas and the parents� passports. Within five minutes they returned with the children�s Chinese passports stamped with an I-55 visa (at least for Grace). This visa stamp means that Grace is considered a U.S. citizen!!! After all that time worrying it seems anticlimactic. I have to say that the immigration officials were very nice. We had our own line and two people processing our paperwork�they sure made it easy!

We gathered our luggage and breezed through customs. I think they take one look at the bedraggled parents and the babies and just wave us on through! Andrew was waiting for us as we exited customs. How wonderful to see a familiar face. We still had to make our way to the domestic terminal and check-in for our flight to Oakland. Silly Amy�I didn�t want to put Grace in Andrew�s car without a carseat (we�d been riding in cabs for two weeks without a carseat for goodness sake), but I didn�t want to get anybody in trouble. So�we opted to take the inter-terminal bus. Little did we know that before heading back into the terminal you get to see ALL of the parking lots at Los Angeles International Airport. BIG mistake! We finally make it to the domestic terminal, Andrew is waiting for us, and thankfully there is no line to check-in. When I made the flight arrangements to come home, I didn�t know how long it might take to get through Immigration and Customs so I left us quite a bit of time between flights. It turns out I left too much. Our flight from China landed at 6:45 p.m. and our flight home didn�t leave until 10 p.m. and it was now only 7:30!

As Jude was checking us in the ticket agent found out our story, about where we had been and about Grace. The wonderful man asked if we wanted to get on the 8:30 flight! He wasn�t supposed to do that since I had bought discounted tickets, but he did it anyway! Jude used Andrew�s cell phone to call my folks and his sister who would be meeting us in Oakland to tell them of our early arrival. Andrew�s friend Joel was also on his way. We were hoping to be able to spend some time with Andrew and Joel, but the prospect of getting home 90 minutes earlier than planned was just too good. We made our way to our gate and fed Grace some dinner and changed her into a clean diaper and her sleeper. Joel made it and got to meet Grace, which was wonderful! Andrew also became Saint Andrew, to me at least, as he presented me with a large Diet Coke complete with ice! At this point I don�t think any of us knew what time or day it was. We had left China at 8:50 on Wednesday night, June 13th and had landed in Los Angeles at 6:50 on Wednesday night, June 13th, two hours before we�d left China!

When we changed Grace, I had opted to move behind an unused ticket stand so that we wouldn�t subject others who were waiting to a diaper change. That was a mistake, since unbeknownst to us Jude�s brother Matt and his wife Lisa were wandering the terminal looking for us (they were unaware of our last minute flight change)! As we finished up Grace�s change they announced pre-boarding for our flight. We quickly said our goodbyes to Andrew and Joel and headed off on the last leg of our Journey. It was at this point that Matt and Lisa found us; they saw our backs as we walked down the jetway!

The flight from LAX to Oakland is just under an hour. As they boarded the practically empty plane we quickly tried to get a bottle filled with milk (something we should have done while waiting to board the flight, but I guess our travel befuddled brains weren�t working that well!) and warmed for Grace to drink as we took off. A gate agent actually delayed the flight a little, I think, as she raced to find a pair of scissors for us to cut open the milk carton. The flight attendants quickly warmed the milk as we taxied and the bottle was ready for take-off. After drinking her bottle, Grace slept the rest of the flight. Since the flight was so empty and we�d managed to get front row seats, we spent most of the flight chatting with the attendants about Grace, the adoption process and our trip. Other passengers joined in the conversation and it made our last leg of the journey very enjoyable. The attendants even presented Grace with a certificate for her first flight on Southwest Airlines and a pair of wings as we landed!
We had gate-checked Grace�s stroller and it was waiting for us as we came off the plane.

As we walked up the jetway, I carried Grace and Jude pushed the stroller with one of the daypacks in it with one hand and had the video camera rolling. I wanted to get Grace�s grandparents reactions on tape the first time they saw their first grandchild. As we entered the terminal, my parents, sister and brother-in-law, my dad�s cousin and his wife and Jude�s sister were waiting for us. They were truly a wonderful sight! In fact, there was even a �Welcome Home Grace� banner flying with pride. Grace was quite a hit and even let her Grandpa hold her for a few seconds, but quickly wanted to be back in Mommy�s arms. After a 15-minute reunion, we got our luggage and headed out for the hour or so drive to home. Jude�s sister had driven our car with the carseat to the airport so she took us home (she lives next door to us). The rest of the crew headed on to my parents house. It was very important that we got to see my parents at the airport as they were leaving the next morning for a two week cruise that had been planned many months before we got our referral and travel dates. The drive home was uneventful. Pulling up to our house and seeing Larry again, our wonderful dog, felt wonderful.

It was good to be home, finally, as a family.