Transatlantic Travel

Crosby & I have come "home" for a few weeks - Crosby's first flight and her first trip to America. Scott will join us later for some time with family here in the US, but since I am on maternity leave and Scott is busy with work, I decided to take some extra time at home first. (Secretly I have to admit is really nice to have time at home with doting grandparents who want to help out with Crosby and take care of me - doing everything from changing diapers, bathing the little beauty, and even sleeping with a jet-lagged baby so I can get a break.)

While we are now enjoying some down time at home, the trip here was a bit stressful for me. I was quite nervous to be flying with an infant BY MYSELF for her first time on a flight - a LONG one at that....13 hours of travel, 2 flights and nearly 4,000 miles traveled in one day!

So many things could have gone wrong, but luckily Crosby did pretty well and after doing it on my own, I am pleased that it went so well - but I do hope that I will always offer help to any other mother or father I see traveling by her or his self. I was expecting the airline staff to be more helpful when boarding or de-boarding the plane with an infant, but they really didn't offer too much assistance to me when I was trying to collapse the stroller at the gate, when I was trying to put my hand luggage in the overhead bins, etc. etc.

The "stuff" to manage on my own....2 suitcases (about 90 lbs in total weight), a stroller, a car seat, the baby(!), three carry on bags, and myself. Whew, it made for two handfuls (literally) at the Newark Airport where we had to collect luggage and clear customs. As seen here, this is how I managed....two suitcases being wheeled in one hand, baby and kit in the other hand, with all bags hanging off my shoulders.

Crosby was fast asleep in her car seat when we first took off into the air. Then, I had requested this bassinet for her to use (available on certain long haul flights for babies under 6 months of age) and she did pretty well in it for most of the flight. She woke up about mid way through the flight and screamed for a little bit but then seemed to be just fine. I have to wonder if she was either not sure where she was - or maybe her ears were bothered?

Wide awake later on during the flight and looking around at all of the people on board!

At the end of the flight, in her car seat ready to go....just waiting for everyone else to get off the plane first so we could take our time to put the stroller together before racing down to baggage claim to collect our bags for customs and our connecting flight. Let's hope Crosby's good traveling behavior continues for a long time!