Departure day and I have some serious travel butterflies. Daddy was up at 4AM and really had an anxious tummy. Mommy got 8 hours, but by her account, it was very restless. We had checked the papers over and over to make sure we had everything in order. The plan was, get up, go to breakfast, come back down and shower. While at breakfast, Christopher stated that he missed his friends. This came up yesterday, but it’s starting to come up more often. It hurts both of our hearts to hear it. We want to comfort him, but we don’t want to make it worse either. It’s a hard spot to be in because you know he’s aware of everything that is going on. We just keep talking up the pets and he just gets so excited. We agreed that Chubby, Roscoe, and Charlie are the war cry when we needed a pick up for our 30 hours of travel.

We made our way back down to the room for showers, and we made sure that everything was packed as we were just delaying for time. Christopher took a nice long cold bath, but we still had a solid hour before our car was ready. I had called first thing in the morning and lined everything up, as far as car services go. Our printed itinerary stated that we needed to be at terminal 2. Christopher watched some TV, and checkout wasn’t until noon. We ended up going down to the lobby to settle everything up at 11:30AM, which was super simple.

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We headed to the car and our anti-GPS driver was waiting for us again. I thought, well, at least we’re only going to the airport, we can’t screw that up. I confirmed with him that it was terminal 2 and after the bags were in the car, we were off for another grand adventure. Once we hit terminal 2, I paid the driver cash and he was off. We collected ourselves and headed towards the terminal. A security officer stopped us and asked for our boarding passes, which we didn’t have. I remember the printed itinerary and took off my travel belt with my passport and money in it. I pulled the itinerary out and handed it to the guard. He said we were at the wrong gate. Crap! He explained what we had to do to get to terminal 1 and we headed for the free shuttle. It wouldn’t be by for another 20 minutes.

While standing there, a taxi pimp started waving to us. I thought, screw it, I don’t care the cost, I just want to get to my gate so we can just relax. I was still so worried about immigration. The taxi pimp charged us $15.  Yes, to go from one airport terminal to another.  Our driver was very nice, very talkative, which is super unusual.  I just felt like it was all shady, but we told the guy that Christopher was adopted, and he asked Christopher a few questions in Tagalog and told him to study hard with his new opportunity. The guy said he had an adopted child himself. Sounds sweet and Beth says I’m too cynical, but I don’t know. I wanted to believe the guy, but I was more worried that we would get to terminal 1 and find out we got scammed and need to be at terminal 2 again.

We walked up to the door again and there was another security guard. Like before, he asked to see our tickets and I went to look for my money belt that contained Christopher’s and my passports and itinerary and I wasn’t wearing it. A wash of panic set over me. I had a fleeting fear that I left it in the hotel car, no, it definitely wasn’t there since I pulled out the itinerary at the first guard. Ok, I might have just left it in the last taxi. Beth is in panic mode with me as we talk it through. No! I remember putting it in a bag, but which?! I suddenly remember it was in a front pocket, and on the second bag, there it was! Wow. Lesson learned. The first rule of using a money belt is, do not take the money belt off. We were back in business and the security guard passed on through.

Once inside, Beth ran over to the info desk to make sure we were in the right place, thankfully we were. Everyone was so shocked we were there so early, and the gates to check in weren’t even open yet. There was already a family in the queue with one and a half hours left before the gate agents would even show up. We didn’t have anything better to do so we lined up behind them. Time passed pretty quickly and before you knew it the queue was stretching all the way across the terminal. Queueing win for the Herforth!. Once we got up to the gate agent, he got us all checked in and then informed us that we owed taxes on Christopher. Yeah, you read that right. Don’t worry, the Philippines doesn’t charge a child sales tax or anything. It’s like that surcharge that’s on your airline ticket when you travel. The Philippines does the same thing, except the airlines don’t collect it for the country, you have to go to the desk and pay it if you’re a citizen or if you’ve been in the country for more than a year. The bummer is, they wouldn’t give us our boarding passes until we paid his taxes. Beth was so worried about the long queue, and that we’d have to go to the end of the line.

We paid the taxes and I just went up to the business class line and the people traffic controller guy recognized me and sent me right up to the agent again. Sorry everyone… I was only there for two seconds. Long enough for her to tell me that we were all sitting together, and she then handed me the passes. What a sigh of relief. We were concerned we might not all be together, especially on the long flight.

Next up, immigration. We had everything all lined up. We went to the foreign counter and I went first. It was a quick picture and a stamp of the passport and I was through. Mommy and Christopher were up next. Mommy handed over the travel certificate for Christopher and they were done in three minutes. They didn’t even really look things over. They just logged the document numbers and we were off. Wow, that was too easy. I love the Philippines immigration counters. We’re in and we’re headed to the gate. We all did a bathroom run and Christopher doesn’t wait up for Dad to finish.

We were at gate 1, and gate 1 was off in the basement. No kidding. I turned the corner and the Philippines airport security is summed up in one glorious image:

Yeah, that’s the baggage inspector completely asleep. I didn’t care to be honest. The gate 1 security situation was just weird. The gate agents checked our passports and took our ticket stubs before we were even close to boarding. If you wanted to leave the gate, you have to leave your boarding stub halves with the clerk at the bottom of the stairs and they gave you a hall pass looking thing. So weird, but again, whatever.

Wouldn’t you know it, the plane was late and we had another delayed flight. It didn’t matter to us, as long as the plane was leaving, we were going to make our connecting flight. It just lessened our layover time which is A-OK to me. Mommy went for a water and snack run and while she was out, out of nowhere, a spontaneous Asian queue appeared. I mean, I thought I might have noticed a little gate activity, but these people have a sixth sense for aircraft readiness. I quickly texted Beth back as she was hearing the final call for our plane. We sat on the plane for what felt like forever. We were just anxious to get in the air, and Christopher said again how he was going to miss everyone.

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Finally, we were off! Christopher was amazed and thought flying was pretty neat. That wore off, as his Filipino bowels detected an airplane restroom nearby. We weren’t 15 minutes into the flight before he stated that he had to really go. Man, it was the worst timing too. We tried to put him off, and we got as far as the inflight meal.

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After we were done eating, the timer was up. I nabbed the flight attendant and explained we had a Filipino onboard and he had a hot turd in the chamber and the hammer was cocked! She looked as panicked as I was, and she called for the head flight attendant. She directed Christopher to head to the front lav, and as I started to follow, she stopped me. She wanted to make sure that loaded weapon made it on her own. Beth wasn’t so happy that I didn’t just barge up front to make sure Christopher was ok. When the flight attendant came back, she looked me in the eyes and she knew I was concerned. She assured me that there was another attendant up front keeping an eye on things. Beth wasn’t having it. She was going to go up but I told her to just wait it out, 60 more seconds I said. She was ripping pissed with me. Longest 6o seconds of my life. I could feel the laser beam eyes in the back of my head. Her cheeks were beat red. Just as I was getting a little worried, here comes Christopher, jacket off now, smiling ear to ear.

The rest of the flight was pretty uneventful. We played with a new toy and avoided screens the entire two hours we were in the air. Christopher was a little restless and stated that it was taking awhile. We had to again explain to him just how long then next flight was going to be. Our plan is to just keep the little guy up in the airport as long as possible so we can all just zonk out for a few hours, if not longer, on the 777.

Once we were down, Beth and I felt like Guangzhou pros. We knew the routine at this point. We made the terminal change in no time. We headed to the quarantine check, done. Headed to the security checkpoint, no problem. It was another queueing win. We got there and only one line was open and only four people were in line. By the time we got up to the metal detectors the queue was wrapping around the hallway and the Chinese security back up SWAT team was just arriving to help out. We made it through our major connector!

The layover was long, but it was uneventful. A couple of potty breaks and lots of screen time, and before long we were boarding our 15 hour marathon, this time with Christopher in tow. We were all exhausted! We gave Christopher a half of a Dramamine, though he probably didn’t need it for the motion sickness, we had other plans. We were on the plane and after 15 minutes in the air Christopher was dead to the world. The plan was coming together! Beth followed suit soon after. I stayed awake long enough for the cart to come through. They were handing out sandwiches so I grabbed three. I ate mine and I figured mommy and Christopher would want them once they woke up. Who knows when we’ll get the first real meal.

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Christopher slept seven straight hours. It was a parenting win. To get half of a 15 hour flight in as sleep time was awesome. I wasn’t so lucky, but making sure Christopher didn’t lose his mind on such a long flight was priority. The inflight screen games really caught Christopher’s attention most of the flight. The meals were ok, but if the reviews relied on Christopher’s sole input, it was 5 star. Delicious! Well that’s good news. What made this flight worse than the first 15 hour marathon was that the world’s slowest download status screen was down! No countdown timer for this flight! That really stunk. I just kept looking at my watch. I remember roughly when we took off and roughly how long the flight time was, so when it was close, I really started to get anxious. Just as we started to get in to the last hour of the flight, and after the last meal was collected, Christopher passed out again. He’s such a good sleeper, like dead to the world kind of sleep. We definitely tried to wake him, and even the jarring landing didn’t wake him up. He missed the NYC night scene, but he’ll get to see the city on the outbound.  Beth and I felt so much relief just landing in the U.S.  No matter what hurdles we came across now it would be more familiar territory with interactions in fluent English and with rules and customs we were used to.  Even though this feeling is natural and expected it offers a window into Christopher’s world.  He is LEAVING everything familiar to join our family and this is a reality we can’t forget. 

Next and last major hurdle in our mind was customs and border. We had his packet all ready to go. We walked up and waiting in line for 30ish minutes and then we were up to the counter with a super nice, and patient, gentleman. Christopher was super punchy and was copying the guy’s every word. We were done with his finger printing and photo in 10 minutes. It was another breeze run through US customs. What a relief.

We swapped terminals and retagged out bags and had boarding passes printed. We were finally about home! We’re just so relieved and thankful, not to mention completely jet lagged and exhausted. Home sweet home sounds so good. A hot shower and some down time to a movie or two. We miss the animals too, and Christopher will finally get to see his new pals.

The flight from JFK to ROC was quick and easy. Our boarding passes put is at the mid rear of the plane, we had the entire back half of the plane to ourselves, which was awesome. We thought we might get in another nap but the Direct TV was working on this JetBlue flight so everyone just tuned into what they wanted and we just cruised the last hour of our flights and relaxed. As we broke through the clouds on final decent Christopher got to see his first snowy landscape and he was so excited. Thanks Rochester winters for not leaving us hanging.

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We are down! I could have kissed the ground. After being in so many huge airports, ROC was a welcome home coming. It was dead inside and we just strolled toward the baggage claim. When we started descending the stairs a couple of familiar faces poked around the corner and Christopher instantly recognized them. After a nice little meet and greet, everyone got some photos and we headed to the car. Christopher had to throw his first snowball! He was so excited!

Once we got our luggage packed there was just one leg left, the land journey. Christopher was eager to get the trip over with, as we all were. We were counting down the number of streets left by the end to give him some sort of an idea of how much more we had to go. When we finally arrived he was so excited. Chubby was in the car with us and Lola and Lolo Herforth had already dropped Roscoe off. We piled out of the car and just grabbed the essentials. We opened the door and our long journey had ended, and the next journey as a family begins.

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Thanks for all the love and support you’ve shown us throughout this process. Without each and every one of you we wouldn’t have been able to make this dream come true. We all feel very blessed to have you all in our lives and we can’t wait for you all to meet our son, Christopher. God bless you all.

To our parents, thanks for all the emotional and financial support along the way. Adoption was a topic that had come up before we were even married, and in 2014 we started this journey. It was a long and winding process with lots of unexpected turns along the way. Thanks so much for being there and helping us through it. We love you so much!

Love, the Herforth family.