Our van ride went off without a hitch. The border was easy. We didn't get out of the van. The border patrolman identified us by rolling down the windows. We did a curtesy trunk pop, but no one blinked an eye at it's contents... Not that we were hiding anything.
We arrived at the Hong Kong International Airport in good spirits, met up with our friends, and checked in. This airport was enormous. The main terminal is four stories! The gate was ions away. Thankfully, we passed a Starbucks and it had vanilla chai! Our day was headed for perfection!
Famous. Last. Thoughts.
As always, we declined the early family boarding and waited until the last second to get on. I've never understood family boarding. Do they think we want to be trapped any sooner on that flight with a toddler?! Let them run some energy out! The door shut and everyone was in their seats. And we sat. An hour. The pilot came on to explain. The tow, the vehicle that pushes the plane back, was stuck on our wheel. Once that issue was resolved, we got in line for takeoff. There were a number of planes ahead of us.
Airbound, I felt a weight off my shoulders. We had finally left China. I wanted to go there and fall in love with the country that gave us a daughter, but I didn't. I'm not a fan. I was very ready to get home.
Our seats were divided, and Everlee sat next to Daddy. I was seated next to a lovely young Chinese couple who were headed to study at Carnegie Mellon and Ohio University. Small world. I enjoyed chatting but really wanted to sleep, so when B needed to switch, I'd be rested. None of that mattered, because what happened next changed the course of our trip. Literally. Emotionally and physically changed the course.
United did a good job at concealing what was happening at the back of that dreaded flight. If you were more than four rows from the back, you'd have had no idea a woman was fighting for her life. There was no yelling, no panic. An announcement was made over the intercom, "If you are a medical professional, please make yourself known to the crew and proceed to the back of the aircraft." Brent stood up and walked back. He was the first on the scene. A flight attendant had collapsed and was seizing. Minutes long, not seconds. No medical history of seizures. Soon, two others arrived. An anesthesiology resident and a foreign OBGYN. The OB should have been the most knowledgable, but B said she wasn't on the same page. Maybe the language barrier. A dentist and a resident... sounds like the start of an intelligent joke. But both were definitely qualified for basic, even advanced, life support. They know the terminology, the drugs, heart rates, how to start IVs and such. And that's what they did. Started her on oxygen and put an IV in for fluids. The plane was not equipped with the proper medications. They had to let her ride the seizures out. She had three. Brent arrived in the middle of the first. She needed immediate medical attention. Later he was informed she'd had a brain aneurism.
We were half an hour past Beijing. There isn't much opportunity to land in a major city beyond Beijing when you're flying over the Arctic, so the pilot circled back. Medical emergency landing.
Here's the problem: We had 14 hours worth of fuel. You can't land with that kind of weight. We had to waste time and dump it. The crew told Brent they had 105,000 pounds of fuel they had to dump. We were not on the ground until an hour + later. Crucial minutes to her health. EMS boarded the plane and she was taken to a hospital. Later, a United employee gave Brent his email to inform him of her status. The last we heard, she was in critical condition.
Our flight sat on the ground for four hours, the airline deciding it's next step. China requires a visa for entry, which we had in our passports for the adoption, but since we originated in HK, not all passengers did. Because of the visa issue, we could not de-board. An announcement was made to inform us that the flight was trying to be rerouted to the west coast of the US where we could get connections home. Great! Pop that balloon though, because with all the hours on the ground, the crew was about to "time out." At least, that's what I inferred. Brent says it's because rewriting a flight plan takes more than we think. There were a number of factors, I'm sure. The decision was made: We were flying back to where we started. Boo.
The entire plane was surprisingly calm and spirited during all of these tense hours. E was a rockstar. I held myself together, but once Beck was distracted, I sobbed looking out the window. The thought of Mattie and Papa telling Penn we wouldn't be home broke my heart.
12 hours on a plane and not a single mile closer to home.
Defeated: How I felt.
We had to go through immigration. Again. Seriously. By morning, we'd gone through Hong Kong immigration four times in 24 hours.
When all was said and done, it was 2 am. We hadn't eaten dinner. We only had two diapers left (because I'd only packed enough for the flight and the rest was checked,) and we'd been up since 4 am the day before. Everlee only slept ONE hour all day. We concluded that she wouldn't let her guard down. She had never slept anywhere outside of a crib. She's never fallen asleep in someone's arms, a stroller, or a car seat. It was all new to her, so she wouldn't let herself fall asleep. The positives: I had an extra outfit for E, my eye glasses, and a toothbrush in our backpack carry on. We all used that one toothbrush. Desperate times. I reminded Brent NOT to drink my contacts that were floating in the hotel water cups. (He did this in Canada in 2004 and I skiied the following 2 days in my bottlecaps. I had to stop every 30 seconds to wipe the fog so I could see the run. Dummy. I'd even barricaded them with doilies and the glasses case on top. He suggested we go to Walmart to get some new ones, not realizing his bride-to-be was legally blind and had to special order the prescription.) Yep. Drank my contacts. And I still married him.
There was no wireless at the hotel, so we could not inform anyone of what was going on. Fun.
We reminded ourselves of the flight attendant and kept perspective. No big deal in the grand scheme of life.
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