Skyway to Hell

This week I was in Sacramento helping out my cousin who just had a little boy about 4 weeks ago. I was so excited to meet her little one and catch up with her since we hadn't seen each other for about 3 years. She is more like a sister to me than a cousin. Because I never had a sister of my own growing up, my cousins became my sisters. Jess is and always will be one of my very closest friends.

The trip there was great. The Chubs was a trooper on the plane again. It was my first time traveling with her alone so I was truly grateful. She just kind of hung out on my lap, smiling and flirting with others around us and eventually passed out and took a short nap on our descent. Things couldn't have gone much smoother.

My visit was so much fun. I got to meet little Micah, and spend time with Jess. I mainly helped her around the house and with some late night feedings and we had pumping parties together in his nursery. Good times. The Chubs was even eating better all week long, which put me in a much better mood and alleviated a lot of stress. I kept thinking how easy it was to bring her on my own. My worst fears were slowly diminishing and I was even thinking how I could probably "do this" again.

That all changed on our way home. It started with a diaper change. I changed her right before I got on the plane, but as soon as I took a seat on the aircraft, I smelled her and she had pooped sometime between the bathroom and boarding the plane. No big deal. I just took her to the lavatory and gave her a quick change before we took off. On take off, she fell asleep, which was great, however I was getting a backache from trying to maintain the same position without disturbing her. Once she woke up, the fun really began. The Chubs was so tired but could not get back to sleep. There were far too many distractions on the plane. She then began to cry... and cry... oh and more crying for pretty much the entire flight. We're not talking about a slight whimper or "fuss", I mean high pitched, frantic crying that even a paci couldn't take care of. There was no calming her down. I tried feeding her, rocking her, changing positions, playing with her, tempting her with toys, distracting her. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, could calm this child down. She was too tired, too cranky, too worn out and the only thing that would've helped her would've been some sleep. But if you know my child, taking a good nap in a public place is like telling Harry Caray to keep his head still (yes I realize this has spanish captions; just keeping it real for my latino audience).

As you can imagine, I was just counting down the seconds until we could finally land and get off of that plane. That's when we started circling in the airplane and an announcement came over the speaker that we were in a holding pattern and didn't know when we would be able to descend. They shut down all air traffic to and from the airport because of the way the wind was coming in and we were in a line of several aircraft that were waiting to land. The Chubs continued to cry at the top of her lungs, and I thought I was going to go crazy. I think I almost had a panic attack at that point. Fortunately we didn't have to wait too long and we started to descend slowly, waiting our turn to land. At this point The Chubs had calmed down a little bit and I was eternally grateful for it. However, now I was having a new issue. The flight became very bumpy because of the wind. So much so that I thought I was going to puke. My body became all tingly and it was taking all my effort to hold my lunch down without spewing it all over The Chub Muffin.

One of the flight attendance saw my face turn pale and brought me a cold cloth to put on my neck. The guy next to me willingly held the muffin for me as I grasped the airsick bag in my hands and hung my head between my legs. I'm sure the people around me were royally ticked off that they had to sit next to me. First my child is screaming the whole flight and next I'm about to toss my cookies all over the place. Fortunately I made it without pukage. However, the nausea lasted for the next 2 hours. In fact, after I exited the plane, the jetway was about 90 degrees and I had to stand there waiting until they brought the carseat that I had gate checked. I don't know if you've ever had severe motion sickness, but heat is about the worst thing. I was almost regretting not bringing the baggy out with me to the jetway at this point.

Finally I made it passed security where The Hubs was waiting. I have never been more relieved in my life. I started crying as soon as I saw him. I was so relieved to be off the plane and on my way home. And getting more than a few hours of sleep at night has been nice too. Last night I slept about 12 hours. The Hubs took care of The Chubs to give me a break. It was much needed. The moral of this story is that I will NOT be flying anywhere alone again, until The Chubs is at least 2. You can hold me too that.