Going Home
The flight from Addis to Frankfurt was uneventful, if a little long. We were delayed somewhat getting off the ground and stopped again in Khartoum, but we got to Frankfurt easily on time and took busses to the Main Terminal. We said our good-byes to Tom at this point as his flight left in two hours and ours in seven hours. One thing we had to do was to find some more formula as we made a slight miscalculation and did not bring enough. Whoops.
We walked around a little bit and found a spot for Lori to sit with Sela while I went and found some formula. I had only one idea of where to get it, and that was outside security and Immigration. I entered Germany once again (for the 4th or 5th time in less than a month with my 4-day unintended stopover in December) and made my way toward the shop I thought might have formula.
When I got there, I found that they did not, in fact, sell baby formula. This fact made me really nervous because we would need it for sure during the next 16 hours of waiting and flying. As I walking around, worried, I saw a sign for a pharmacy. They would have formula for sure!! For those of you who have been overseas…well, they do things a little different and sell things in odd places. Not that your average Walgreens or Rite-Aid would not have formula, but most people probably get it at Target, K-Mart, Walmart or Babies’R’Us. Anyway, the pharmacy would not open for about 20 minutes, so I walked around some more, feeling much better about things.
The pharmacy opened promptly at 7AM and I went in and talked to the tech. He sold me some 5-month plus formula and I re-entered Germany, went through security and then found Lori and Sela again. I showed Lori the formula and she seemed very happy about it. We then walked toward the final security to get to the US departure gates and were told that we were too early. I said we were going to the Business Class lounge and they let us through. RHIP.
In the lounge we found seats, the best in the house based on the number of people who kept coming by and looking at them, and set up to wait. About 9 IT happened. I rushed to the little boys’ room and kept going back and regular intervals. It was not pretty. Lori had to visit the little girls’ room a couple of times but not as many as me. I kept having to visit on the plane, too, after it took off. At one point I feel asleep and Lori said I lost all color in my face. Lori said later that she was really concerned about me at this time. After I woke up, I felt a little better but not great. The feeling did not stop.At DIA, we got to Immigration and gave the guy our packet. He stamped Lori and my passports and took the packet to a room we had never seen before. We waited there for what seemed like an eternity until the lady helped us, but it was probably only about 15 minutes. She helped us, told us what to expect and stamped Sela’s passport. Then we left and went outside to the baggage belts to find our luggage. Once we had it, we went outside to find Brendan, my mom and Kate waiting for us. As planned, we gave Sela to my mom to hold and then held Brendan for a while. Eventually, we found our way to the exit (after another trip for me…) and left the airport. On the way out, it was decided that Lori would ride with Kate, Brendan and Sela in our car and that my mom would take me to the hospital to get checked out. Yes, the hospital. I spent a good part of my first night home at the hospital. Luckily, nothing serious was wrong, no strange (or not strange) African diseases, just a bug that I picked up somewhere. Not much fun, but not dangerous, either. After the hospital, I finally went home and got to sleep in my own bed.
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