I've Been Around the World

My last post was pretty heavy going, so I thought I'd do a quick little post about some of my "war stories" from my adoption travels. [I confess, I typed most of this up for a post on one of my adoption forums] I went to Russia 3 times for my daughter, and I went to Kazakhstan twice for my son. If you are in the beginning stages of an adoption, you may want to stop reading now...

Having adopted once from Russia and once from Kaz, there are just too many stories - every trip was an ordeal! It was 20+ hours to Khabarovsk for my daughter, 15+ hours to Petropavlovsk, Kaz, for my son.

The worst ordeal with Russia was my return trip from adoption trip 1 to see my daughter. The plane was delayed 12 hours, first, and I had to spend an extra night at the hotel. The next day, I got on a plane that was about 50 years old. The seats were jammed against one another. I sat squashed against the window in a 3 seat row for 9+ hours. The smell of BO from the old man just in front of me was godawful. The bathroom was not only tiny, the toilet seats were WOODEN. There were people in the back of the plane smoking and snarling at the flight attendants. There were many drunks.

Then I got to Moscow, and a guy from the agency met me and took me on the most hair-raising car trip across town to another airport. He defied every traffic law, drove on the median, the sidewalk, you name it, and several times I felt certain we were soon going to both die in a fiery ball of flames...

On the Court Trip, I flew from Atlanta to Chicago [where I ran around frantically for 2 hours trying to find my gate - I hate O'Hare], then into Zurich. We had a layover in Zurich. I wandered the airport, and went into a small shop to buy bottled water. I had a bad cold. I realized the plane was soon going to leave and dashed back to the plane. I got on the plane and realized I had left my heavy coat in the gift shop! It was November. In Khabarovsk, which is on the edge of Siberia, it gets COLD in November. They wouldn't hold the plane for a few minutes so I could run back. Dadgum Lufthansa. I got to Khabarovsk and opened my suitcase in the airport, and there, atop everything, was the heavy fleece pullover I had thrown in at the last moment. I wore 4 shirts and rarely ventured outside the rest of the trip. My return trip also went thru Zurich. I got my coat back in the airport, after running around frantically looking for the Lost and Found.

With my son, I encountered the usual scenarios, but one incidents stands out. I went on two trips for his adoption. After the adoption hearing, I had to go home and work for almost a month before i could go back, and get him.

So, trip 2, after about 12 hours of flying, I had just landed in Astana, the capitol of Kazkhstan, and was standing in line at Customs. A man was brought off the plane by several Kazakh guards, being arrested. When he was 10 feet away from me he tried to run for it, hitting the guards and taking off. The guards subdued him, threw him on the floor, and proceeded to beat him half to death. There was a lot of screaming and a huge pool of blood. I couldn't leave, or go elsewhere, because it was a long line and I had to get into the country. The prisoner finally started moaning pitifully, saying Help me, help me, in Russian. He was pinned to the floor lying in his own blood. I have NEVER witnessed anything so horrific.

I got up to the customs window, totally freaked out, and the woman accused me of having a false passport, of trying to get in the country illegally, and having an invalid travel visa, etc. I sweated and sweated, pulled out all my adoption papers, and finally asked for a supervisor. The supervisor took a look at my passport and visa, and waved me through, shaking her head.

THEN - oh yes, the ordeal wasn't over, because the flights to the region were sold out - I had to spend 8 hours in a car getting to my destination, and there were horrible gale-force winds rocking the car. The potholes were enormous, and at times we could only go 10 mph. My driver got lost several times. We stopped twice for potty breaks and I had to use outhouses - really nasty places with just holes in the floor. The second one, the door got stuck closed by the gale force winds, and I thought, I am going to freeze to death in an outhouse somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and my driver is smoking and probably napping and hasn't even missed me, and he CANNOT hear me scream!... aaaargh!

When Michael and I were flying home, we flew Lufthansa from Almaty to Frankfurt, then had a 3 hour layover before getting the Delta flight home. I didn't check my bags thru, because the Delta flight was on buddy passes and I was paranoid about not making the flight and losing my luggage. We get to Frankfurt and I try to go get my baggage, but they won't let me into the baggage claim area with Michael, since he didn't have a visa and it was "German soil." They told me to leave him in the airport, go get the suitcases, and come back and get him. Well, I couldn't leave him ALONE, in a huge bustling airport, speaking no German and almost no English! I finally found a sweet lady - in the Lufthansa office that handled handicapped passengers - explained my plight, and she said Michael could sit in there with her. I explained to him in my bad Russian to stay there, don't worry, I will return. He was such a forlorn little figure, sitting there. I raced around to baggage control, got the bags, had to take a train to get the Delta buddy passes, then they didn't want to give the boarding passes to me without Michael there, even though I had his passport. Finally, I got back to the Lufthansa office after an hour and a half. I was drenched in sweat from all the running. Then we had to go to our gate. It was iffy right up until the last moment, then we finally got two seats in business class. That was just this past May, 2007.

I call my trips my "labor pains" because they were so NOT pretty. However, I'd do it all again if I had to - it was all worth it to get my beautiful children.