There ... And Back Again! Our Homecoming

Pic One: Maeve with her first rose, which she received at the Goodbye to China farewell meal for our Nanchang adoption group. (I'll be putting up pics of the families we were fortunate enough to be in the company of as we met Maeve for the first time---these fellow adopters were all so amiable, wonderful, and special people that it was a great relief and pleasure to share our first ten days with our daughter with them … BTW, all ten babies received first roses at the party, and some of them tasted cake for the first time, including Maeve!)


Pic Two: Waiting with us at Beijing International Airport, Gate 17, for the long flight to T.O. was the only other couple from our Nanchang group who'd been able to book 'the early flight' back to Canada: Carolyn and Marvin Clow, with baby Kennedy on Marvin's lap. The Clows were embarking on a far longer journey than the Forde-Fong Five. They were headed home to PEI, via a stopover in T.O., then another in Montreal, before finally arriving at home. (See Carolyn's blog of our shared Nanchang adoption/China exploration with baby at: bringingkennedyhome.blogspot.com).

Pic three: Lucilla and Maeve relaxing at Gate 17. (Was a great relief to reach the gate, after passing through security, getting rid of our two-car-trunk-load of luggage, etc)

Pic Four: Mama and Maeve and Baba shortly before boarding our delayed flight (gave us an extra hour and a half of time at the gate, which put Marvin and Carolyn and Kennedy's connecting flight to Montreal in jeopardy). Note that Maeve's wearing her "I Rule Therefore I Am" shirt, which turned out to be quite apropos upon our late arrival at Pearson …

Pics Five and Six: On board the long pan-Pacific flight home. This time we shot over the Bearing Straits rather than the North Pole … There were 30 adopted babies aboard, only two from our wonderful agency Family Outreach International. How did Maeve fare? Well, this pic is from halfway through the flight, when she'd decided that the other passengers seemed to be acting fairly normally, and the plane wasn't tossing the universe about in the way she seemed to remember quite well from her first airflight (aboard the smaller plane that took her from Nanchang to Beijing---it descended through a nasty quarter hour of turbulence that scared Maeve badly).

We know Maeve remembered her first flight because no sooner had the engines on this bigger airbus started up---before we'd even begun taxiing down the final runway---Maeve launched into a screaming fit that was only matched by the screams of her first terrified night with us, her stranger newbie-parents back on Feb. 5th. The stews, veterans of numerous 'multi-baby homebound international adoptees' flights, were astonished by the ferocity of Maeve's fear, and her inconsolability. She set the other 29 babies on board going, but even combined those 29 other cries were drowned out by our Maeve, who has a set of lungs, and a very good memory. (Marvin and Carolyn, 15 rows behind us, could hear her as if she was in their row).

Pic Seven: Maeve just outside the Immigration Canada office at Peason. We're happy she'd just become a permanent resident of Canada; she's happy to be off the plane!

Pic Eight: Maeve meets her first two Forde-side relations, a pair of delighted and dauntless Uncles. On the left, my Irish-Canadian brother Peter; on the right, my Scottish-Canadian brother-in-law William. Both were waiting for us wearing "Maeve Rules" t-shirts (they were a multi-Forde sibling design, and six more were folded in a stack for us at home!)

Uncle Peter may have looked more tired than William, as he checked the Web for our arrival time and was not informed of the delay. William, who'd phoned Air Canada, had discovered the delay and so arrived later, better rested, and in the bargain found a far superior parking spot to Peter … Being Scottish, he felt this was all as it should be.

However, William got his comeuppance when his delight with Maeve drove the location of his prized parking spot from his memory. So the last leg of our journey home began as a bit of a comedy of errors, with the three of us trying to decipher where, exactly, our ride home was waiting for us. Fortunately, Maeve blithely slept through our brief bit of Pearson Parking Lot Pathos (Allow me to apologize for all the alliteration in advance) … She also slept in her car seat for the whole ride home, so we were relieved about that (carseats being a completely new experience for our Chinese-passport carrying new Nuer).

Pics Nine and Ten: Shortly after our arrival at Gatestone, we took some video of Maeve coming in the door, with Peter and William, and then it was time to take Pepys advice:

And so to bed!

Our first attempt at getting Maeve down lasted half an hour, and involved the temporary crib in our bedroom.

Final pic: Our second attempt at getting Maeve to sleep through her first night in Canada, which lasted maybe fifteen minutes before she awoke yet again, and made it perfectly clear she was unimpressed with her new Canadian house. Being uprooted is not Maeve's cup of tea … Ah well, in that she takes after her father!