Update

I'm finally getting around to posting about the end of our trip. In my last post, I mentioned that we would get to see Colin again the following day. Jeff was able to go see him, but I spent the day sick in out hotel room. I had been feeling a little crummy on Wednesday evening and then was awake all night with an upset stomach. By morning I knew I wasn't going to be able to make the two hour ride out to our son's baby home. Jeff went by himself while I tried to get some sleep and recover. When Jeff returned, he reported that Colin was still covered in chicken pox. He was not feeling well and just wanted Jeff to walk around the room holding him. I was so disappointed that I was not able to go that day. 

I was feeling better by the afternoon thanks to some medicine another adoptive mom sent with Jeff when she heard I wasn't feeling well (God bless Emily!) Jeff and I had dinner that night with Emily and her sister and another adoptive family, Michael and Carrie. These were the first Americans we had run into on our trip. This is quite a change from two years ago when there were so many more Americans adopting from Russia. It was such a blessing to have the opportunity to hang out with these guys. There is a special kind of fellowship among adoptive parents. 

We left the following day for home. Actually, it is probably more accurate to say we left that night. We had an early flight out of Moscow so we had to leave the hotel at 2:00AM. I didn't sleep again that night. There wasn't much point when we had to get up at 1:00AM. I didn't feel the greatest again when we left for the airport and deteriorated from there. Our flight to Frankfurt was uneventful. When we arrived in Frankfurt, we discovered our plane was delayed so our three hour layover turned into a five hour layover. That's when I went from feeling crummy to outright sick. I actually had a conversation (silently) with myself that went something like this: "Come on, just throw up. You'll feel better. - Oh no! I hate throwing up. - But you're already in the restroom. Better in here than out there in front of hundreds of people. - There's people in here too. Besides, who wants to throw up in a public toilet? That's just sick. - You are sick. - That's beside the point. - Hey, I think the restroom just cleared out now's your chance. - Oh alright. Here I go. One, two . . . nope, not gonna do it." Did I mention I was running a fever too. I managed to make it home without embarrassing myself in front of hundreds of other travels who probably would have just assumed that since we were in Germany, I had just had a few too many of the local beers. 

Because of the delay in Frankfurt, we missed our flight from D.C. to Cleveland but were fortunate enough to get another flight three hours later. There were many others on our transatlantic flight who could not get connecting flights until the following day. In all, it took us about 29 hours to get home. I slept perhaps an hour or  two in a 60 hour period. I think that and the irregular meals contributed to my getting sick. Right now, we are anxiously awaiting our court date so we can return for trip two. Please pray that all our paperwork would be in place and that the judge would find everything acceptable. We have discovered that they are extremely particular about every piece of paperwork being perfect. Our agency even had us redo some paperwork because it had an extra staple hole in it. We're hoping to get our little guy home soon.