The journey home

We traveled on Friday to Sofia.  It was nice to be back in the city and in a hotel with an elevator.  We talked about going out but I wasn't sure what the subway system looked like, if I would be able to safely get Maria on and off of it.  So instead we hung out at the hotel and eventually had dinner at the restaurant.  We were able to meet and have dinner with another family using our agency too.  We spent dinner talking about our first trips and learning more about each other.  Since we both had early flights we went upstairs for bed.  That night was the first time Maria really cried on the trip....we had a busy trip and she was not ready to leave her birth country. I comforted her the best that I could and reminded her we will come back again one day.  She has such a love for her birth country and her adoptive country too.  Maria finally fell asleep, I on the other hand didn't sleep really at all.  During the week I had caught a cold and was coughing like crazy.....since I didn't want to wake Maria up, I didn't get much sleep.  

We woke up around 3:45 am to be at the airport around 4:45.  Our plane was scheduled to leave at 6:45.  We were early and ready to go.....our plane was not.  Mechanical difficulties.....we ended up finally leaving around 9am....and missed our connecting flight to Chicago by 30 minutes.  When airport assistance finally came there was a mix up and they didn't have Maria's wheelchair.....someone had checked it through to our final stop....honestly at this point I lost it a little bit (nothing like a missing $5000 wheelchair that child needs to push a mom over the edge).  We were taken to the ticket counter to figure out what we would do next.  A nice man from our first flight told us that the flight to Pittsburgh was full and they were being told that no one could leave until the next day.  Needless to say this was not acceptable to me at all, but I took a deep breath and believed it would work out.  And it did.  The airline made an acception for us because of Maria's special need.  They didn't feel it would work well for us to have to wait overnight without her wheelchair.  So we rushed through security and to the flight.  Maria and I were rushed onboard, where we discovered the flight was not full at all.  

The flight was long and fairly uneventful other than Maria deciding she was sick of being in an airplane.....sorry kiddo we are stuck until we land.  We did have an amazing flight crew who were extremely helpful with us and we were also surrounded by several members of the Navy.  We arrived in Pittsburgh with no issues....quickly got our stuff and through security again.  Then headed for our final flight to Chicago....which we almost missed because I read the ticket wrong.  But we made it in time!  This flight was also not full at all and we were able to relax until we touched down in Chicago.  Once we got to Chicago (with Maria's wheelchair) we got our bags and headed to our car.  After so much traveling we opted to go to a hotel verses stay with friends....honestly we were grumpy and tired....just needed food and a bed at that point.  Honestly, sleep hit us both fast and we were out until mid morning.  We then packed up again and headed home.  It was good to be home and we turned in early again that night.