The trip home

Our friend Kimmie asked in the comments of the last post how our flight home went, so I (Todd) thought I’d write a post about it.

After our last buffet breakfast at the White Swan hotel, we left at 10am for an hour drive to the airport in Guangzhou. This was a very special ride for our family, because our guide Helen was able to translate between us and Hope, and so we were able to have some very special dialog with Hope for the first time. It started when we had Helen tell Hope in Chinese that we will be taking her to the doctor to get help for her eyes when we get home, and she asked Hope if that was ok, and then Hope got a big smile on her face and gave a big huge nod of approval! It was special beyond words. It was so exciting for us all to be able to actually communicate to each other using language after spending almost two solid weeks together!

There were a few questions like this before I remembered to turn on the camera, and caught this video of some of the rest of our ‘conversation’ with Hope (the audio is probably going to be hard to hear with the engine/road noise and the degree to which youtube whacks down the quality, but at least you can see her priceless head nods if you can’t hear the talking, and you should unfortunately be able to hear my embarrassing gushes too, lol):

These wonderful transactions with Hope and the fact that she was seeming to be a lot more gentle and comfortable in general with us brought us a lot of initial encouragement. I was now thinking that this was a reflection on how our flights were going to go. I couldn’t have been more wrong! Hope started to get pretty fussy and screamy at the airport and these activities escalated in frequency and intensity on the three hour flight to Beijing. The pictured watermelon lollipop helped us for a while, but we couldn’t teach Hope to lick it. She would only chew and bite on it, which made it not as long lasting a diversion as we desired, though Kim said they did develop a fun game of “ew” with it. (Saying “ew” and then dropping pieces of it to the floor). By the time we got to Beijing, we knew our flight home was going to be tough!

We had a five hour layover in Beijing and almost that entire five hours was full of stress. Hope was often upset and hitting us and herself and screaming. We had all of our stuff with us including luggage because we couldn’t check our luggage in until three hours before the flight. I wanted to charge batteries so the kids would have the laptop on the flight, so we stopped at the Haagen daz store and had some ice cream, hoping to pass a good chunk of time to charge the battery, but Hope couldn’t calm down, so thankfully Kim took her and walked around with her for a while, and endured. We were all completely burned out with all the screaming and all the staring from all the concerned onlookers at that point.

Then we had a very tasty dinner at a Thai restaurant in the airport there. Well at least everyone except Hannah, who had her China food staples, (Burger King) fried chicken nuggets and french fries. 😉 The stress continued to escalate during dinner, as Hope’s outbursts were happening more frequently and with greater intensity. During these outbursts we can usually not find anything to console her and just have to do our best to try and comfort her and wait out the storms.

A cute moment happened while we were getting through the airport security. We were filling out some forms and meanwhile the kids were walking and skipping around the area holding hands and playing, and Hannah was happily singing a song she made up called “We are kids!”. It was so cute! It was also fun at the security point because I was getting noticed for proudly wearing my souvenir Ba Ba (Daddy) shirt, and Kim was making jokes with the checkpoint workers about it.

Once through security we took a twenty minute wrong turn in the terminal and had to then sprint to the gate while trying to keep Hope from jumping out of her stroller, so that even with a five hour layover we managed to almost miss our flight!

From the beginning of the thirteen hour flight home that took off at 9pm, Hope was a complete mess. By this time she would only let Kim hold her, and wouldn’t ever tolerate being in her seat. Kimberly had to go through the whole flight holding Hope and had to deal with many periodic outbursts. The hardest part of these tantrums was the people around us who would look and stare and glare and who we knew were all trying to sleep! Kim had a few times where she needed to take potty breaks, so I would hold Hope and she would get so upset that I just had to lay her on her chair and cover her to try and block as much of the sound as I could with my body! Stressful!

I had much respect for Kim swelling up in me throughout the flight. She handled this most stressful circumstance so well! When the screaming fits would get real bad, she’d take Hope to the back corner of the plane where it would effect the fewest numbers of people. Sometimes she’d have to do this on a moments notice from the napping position… At one point Kim came back to her seat crying and this was actually a seemingly helpful breaking point because Hope settled down for a little while, though she still insisted on being held. We were thinking that maybe she was processing Kim’s emotional response and had some sympathy! I also feel like God used it because it was also her same trip to the back of the plane where I was crying out to God in my spirit with the most intensity. I felt like I was past the limit of would I could take, and really needed some kind of solution, and all I could do was sit there and holler to God about that! Then Kim came back crying and Hope was quiet! She was then quiet long enough for us both to get a little nap in…

It’s all in the past now, and fortunately we don’t expect to have to relive any of that any time soon! When we landed in L.A., Kim told Hope that she was going to meet her Ni Ni (Grandma) and Ye Ye (Grandpa) who were waiting in the airport, and Hope smiled and started holding pieces of her hair up. We realized that she was wanting us to put ribbons in her hair like they did for her at Bethel on Gotcha day! 🙂

From the moment we got off the plane, Hope has seemed to be in a much better place than ever in our short time of relationship. Let me also mention that our other kids did wonderfully on the travel day. They were very compliant and helpful the whole way, and did very little complaining. I was glad for them too because they slept through much of the final flight.

Our friends the Winters picked us up at the airport and they have helped us so much! Among many other things they watched our dog for us for two weeks and hosted us for two nights when we got back. This was very helpful because our house was a mess and we just felt like we needed an easy place to begin recovering from our jet lag. The English speaking company was also very refreshing. And whenever Hope would act up, instead of staring and giving us looks, the Winters were there to lovingly help us calm her down! We can’t thank the Winters enough for all their support and for taking such good care of us when we got home!

Hope really seemed to be enjoying the Winters and their home. We walked to the beach near their home on Thursday to let Hope experience the ocean for the first time. It wasn’t quite the response I had imagined from her at first. I thought she would be fascinated by the sounds and smells but she didn’t really seem to notice it or want to be there, and wouldn’t even let the sand touch her feet! After a while though, the ocean overpowered her and she relaxed and fell asleep in Kim’s arms!

On Thursday evening, our friends the Hursts were able to stop by the Winters house, and some other friends of the Winters also came over, and we all shared a meal and had a nice worship/prayer time. This was a very refreshing time for me personally. It was also neat to see all our kids playing together once again and having fun!

Hope has been adjusting well since we got home and has really been seeming to relax and enjoy herself more, and the frequency and intensity of her outbursts are decreasing every day! God is good! 🙂

We got home Friday morning to our big mess called a home. Our internal clocks are all whacked out and we’re having a hard time taking care of business, but that’s ok! The first two nights at the Winters we were still up all night, and hungry and going out for fast food at 3am! Last night Hope was all wound up ready to party! If you could have been in our house you would have heard sporadic yelps from Kim and I from our bedroom as Hope was playing on our bed bouncing and jumping all over us and having a good ol’ time until some time after 4am! We are still wandering around feeling like we are in the twilight zone! Right now it’s 10:11pm and the kids are playing and Hope is on the floor enjoying a bottle, and Kim is out getting us frozen yogurt, and this all feels like what we would normally be doing in the afternoon, and it doesn’t feel like any of us are going to bed any time soon.. Oh well!

Update: It’s 6am the next morning and I went to bed at 2am and woke up at 5am. I am glad for everyone else in the house including the dog who is still sleeping soundly and I suppose this is good for me because I have to start back at the office tomorrow morning. 😉