As some of you have already said, others already know, and still more might imagine, there is nothing like the feeling of landing back in the US with your daughter.

Sure things are irrevocable after the court decree, and sure many of the steps that follow are mere formalities, but there is still an instinctive breath holding until that moment when you actually land back home that feels almost primal.

Well, that last step has come and gone, and I must say that even in a state of near exhaustion - or perhaps because of it - once you take that first breath, make that first step, and see that first smile back home, everything that precedes it loses all its edges.

The procurement of the dossier no longer feels to have been so tedious. The waiting while the Kaz ministries first decided if, and later from where, we could adopt seems shorter than we first thought. The frustrations experienced during the eight weeks in country appear more trivial. Even the food we managed to get through in Kaz we now miss. All this makes it feel possible we might actually do this again someday. But that is a topic for another day.

Aitugan did very well during her flights. I know that the impending travel at the end of the adoption process is a time to be rightfully apprehensive, but that acknowledged, again the reality was far better than the preflight concerns we had created in our minds.

As we stated above, she did only sleep briefly on each of the first two legs of the journey - first a 3-hour journey to Ekaterinberg and then a 6-hour flight to London. The London to Boston 7-hour flight saw an inverse in her patterns as she slept all but brief periods of eating and diaper changes. We even had to actively keep her awake during the take of and ascent so that she could continue to suck her thumb and keep her ears clearing.

We alluded to it earlier, but our trip home seemed to hit a snag before we even got to the airport. We were excited to travel Christmas Day for many reasons, though chief among them was certainly that we expected to find quite empty flights.

Well apparently the airlines tend to not take the same loving view of offering their travelers unlimited seats in which to spread out, for hours before the journey was to begin, British Air cancelled our London to Boston flight for seemingly no reason. As a result, we were rescheduled to a flight to New York with a four hour layover and then a quick flight up to Boston.

In all it was to not only add on 5 hours to the journey, but also add one more up and down in a plane - the most difficult part for any child. KJ's and my tickets were easy enough to change as they were e-tickets and could just be re-written through the computer. Aitugan's ticket however was far more difficult to change - though for reasons that still seem implausible.

We had to purchase Aitugan's ticket at the BMI office (a British Air partner) in Almaty and of course it was issued as two parts, the first to London and the second to Boston. When our itinerary changed such that there were now three legs home, we needed to get a third leg reissued for her ticket, and since it was a paper ticket, it had to be done at a ticketing agent.

We spent nearly an hour at the check-in counter in Almaty as one by one, the desk attendants cycled through offering their best guess at how to make our tickets correct. Seemingly in an act more resembling a giving up on rather than a resolution of, we were allowed to board with the understanding that we would need to go to BA's counter in London and simply get another ticket.

Sure, they make it sound so simple that for a moment you actually believe it could be, but then you arrive in London and realize you've been had. We went first to a BA desk in the transfer lounge where it was stated clearly that what we had for her would not work and that we needed to have BMI reissue her ticket.

So off across the lounge we went to the BMI desk. There we found out that on most days, they in fact have a fully staffed desk, but because of the holidays, we would have to go out through customs to the main ticketing desk in the departures area.

After venting a bit of frustration in the direction of the hapless attendant who - in a scene straight out of a movie - reasserted that it really was just around the corner, and again because of the holidays and resulting lack of crowd, would only take a few minutes.

As we moved to the front of the line at customs, we hit a wall of sorts. Aitugan was traveling under her Kazak passport, and since we had not obtained a tourist visa for Britain for her, there would be much additional paperwork to be completed before she could go through, regardless of the reason.

We decided that KJ and Aitugan would remain inside the transfer lounge and I would go 'out' and sort out our tickets and then join them in front of Harrod's. Of course we had no cell phones that would work in London and so had no way of contacting one another had anything gone wrong, but we seemed to have no other choice.

I went through customs and found the BMI ticket agent and of course was told that BA should have been able to make this change, since after all it was they who cancelled the flight and created the need for the re-routing. I was directed out of the departure hall to a neighboring building where I found the BA ticket agent.

Without pause he looked at the ticket, listened to my story and stated that BMI was in error. Fortunately I had taken down the name and number of the BMI guy and asked that the BA agent call him and sort this out.

As I was standing at the counter listening to the conversation going back and forth between the two sides, I asked another agent when the flight to New York that we were working so hard to get on to actually was set to depart, when invariably she tells me that boarding closes in 3 minutes, two terminals away.

Alright clearly that is not going to work so what is plan C? After some hemming and hawing, I am told of a direct flight on American to Boston that we should be able to make, but that I still have to go back to the BMI desk to make the changes. So off I go, all the while hoping that KJ, Aitugan and I will actually find each other at the end of this.

Off to BMI I set, assuming of course that both sides were in agreement as to how now to proceed. Well not quite it turns out. BMI could and would reissue our tickets, but first BA would have to release our reservation. They actually looked to me and asked me whether they had released our reservation. Am I the one looking at the computer as they incessantly type whatever novel it is they are creating as I stand there? Was I the one on the phone with them five minutes before when I was back over at the BA desk?

No problem, they would call over. What, no one at BMI seems to have a phone number for BA? No problem, they'll send an agent over to BA and he'll come back with the information. Meanwhile, the man behind the computer goes back to his literary masterpiece pausing every few hundred words to look over my passport, or ask how to spell Aitugan's name.

Several chapters later, fearless Francoise, our fateful runner is no where to be found. It has now been over an hour since KJ and I split up, and the sands in the proverbial hourglass seem to be nearing the end where our getting to Boston was concerned.

In an apparent conciliatory act, the agent agrees to issue the ticket ahead of BA's clearance, though now begins to inform me that I will not be able to go through security here in terminal 1 to rejoin KJ and Aitugan since our new tickets have us departing from terminal 3.

What to do?

I implore them to find a solution as I have no way of contacting KJ, and after detailing the convoluted path they suggested I make from the BMI desk over to terminal 3, through security, onto a bus back to terminal one, find KJ and get back on a bus to terminal 3, they mention that they might be able to escort me through security here at terminal 1 and avoid all of this nonsense.

Several calls, and seemingly hours, later, I am heading through security with our new tickets in hand and rejoin KJ and AItugan who have waited faithfully for my return. We make our way over to terminal 3 and assess the prospect of one day rejoining with our luggage again - all three going missing was the odds on favorite.

Once on board the AA flight, Aitugan had worn out her last bit of energy and needed constant jiggling and jostling to keep her awake enough to suck her thumb. It was a nice moment of comic relief as these two new parents found it required more and more physical shaking to create the same awake response as time went on.

As I said, 0 of 3 bags seemed most likely with a slim chance of 3 for 3, but the resultant 2 of 3 was a surprise. Clearly someone had taken the three claim numbers and gone looking for our bags to get them re-routed in the correct alignment, how then do only two make it.

We still don't know. Hopefully the bag will show up as it has nearly all of KJ's things, plus the bulk of our souvenirs/gifts/mementos from Kaz. Maybe we'll get around to calling after it at some point today, but the reality is that we are just having so much fun having her home with us, in our house, with our dogs, that tracking luggage doesn't reach high on the list of priorities.

We hope that everyone is having a wonderful holiday, and we wish the Robinson's a smooth an eventless journey home in just a few hours. Know that many of us are thinking of the three of you today and look forward to connecting with you soon. Take Care.



Well I have to at least make it seem like our little angle slept all the way. The truth was that she slept for maybe an hour during the first ten hours and two flights that took us from Almaty to Ekaterinberg to London.



Here we are getting set to leave Kaz. There was definitely an odd 'wow, I can't believe it is really over' quality to it.





Taxiing out of the gate at Almaty



Aitugan has really taken to music and just had to see how these latest headphones stood up. As one might expect, they were no competition for an infant.



Touching down for a brief refueling stop in Ekaterinberg, the local weather was -27 C with 25 mile an hour winds. Not exactly a popular destination for Christmas Break.



We thought - incorrectly - that once we left Kazakhstan, we would surely be rid of the random babushkas telling us how to care for our child. How wrong we were. Luckily, we parted ways in London and were able to finally walk our daughter through a public space without a hat, and without a lecture.



We arrived home in Maine shortly after midnight, and though we stayed up for several hours, decided to wait until the next morning to open gifts. Aitugan received a great number of wonderful things, though the clear favorite was the wrapping paper. There is just something captivating about the sound of tearing paper.