Travel plans ...

Well, no turning back now.  Last weekend, I booked a flight to America for me, who will be about six months pregnant, with a toddler riding on my lap the whole way -- and we're leaving in about a week.  Ahhh!  (That is meant to be taken as both an excited scream and a terrified one.)

Travel plans have been up in the air around here to say the least.  It has been probably 4 or 5 years since I've been back to America, and though my mother and brother have come to Taiwan, my father hasn't.  Originally, we thought that Stephen and I and the babies would go back in August to coincide with one of my cousins getting married, but "next baby" has decided that August was when he wanted his birthday to be, so that plan got scrapped.  Then, we thought we would coordinate with my brother's vacation at the end of April, still going as a family, but my father's health has been tenuous these past few months and they've been exploring various medical options and he didn't think he could take the chaos of two toddlers in the non-toddler-proofed house.  Although I want everyone to see everyone else, I breathed a little sigh of relief because Jonathan isn't cleared for an immigration visa into the US until November, and though Taiwanese have visa-free entry status now, we would need to bring all sorts of documents proving our ties to Taiwan and our intention to return with my Taiwanese son and British husband.  I did not look forward to dealing with immigration with two toddlers after a 15-hour or so flight, especially since we would also probably need to catch a connecting flight afterwards.  Then there's the fact that Jonathan is now over two and tickets are definitely not cheap at the moment, so that wasn't fun either.

Somewhere along the line someone (I think my husband) suggested that I go home by myself, which got modified to Vivienne and I going by ourselves since 1) People would get to see one baby.  2) Just Vivienne is much less stress on my dad than Vivienne and Jonathan would be together.  3)  Jonathan's going to dreadfully miss mommy and Vivienne since he's too young to understand what's going on, but he would do much better with just daddy than Vivienne would.  4) Vivienne would be much easier to handle traveling than Jonathan would be (except for that doesn't-get-a-seat-of-her-own bit). 5) As a "lap baby," her ticket costs a couple hundred dollars instead of well over a thousand like the rest of us.  and 6) She and I both travel on American passports, so immigration should be a cinch (which is good, because the flight we ended up booking really doesn't have much time between planes for the American connection).

Of course, things were still not decided.  My parents were still unsure of my dad's healthcare schedule, and I wasn't sure that I would be able to find travel health insurance that would cover me as an American visiting America and in the second trimester of pregnancy.  However, I mentioned this to my boss.  She had trouble once traveling while pregnant and is totally scared for me traveling while pregnant by myself with a toddler, but she came up with a solution anyway.  She could help me buy travel insurance from a father of two of our school's students, and it covered her when she was pregnant and had to go to the hospital.  I had her check if it would cover me since I'm not Taiwanese, and she sent me a message to say it would, so hopefully that's all set.  I'll talk to her about it on Monday or Tuesday.  (And oh gosh, I hope I don't have to use it.  Not only would it be bad to have anything go wrong with either Vivienne or me health-wise, I would have no idea how to actually file any reimbursement claims!)  Despite all this, I was still thinking it would be easier not to go, but my mom called last night and said that my dad's hospital stay would not be until May if it's going to happen at all and my dad said he thought he could handle us for a low-key visit, and so, I took the plunge and booked the tickets.

Since we waited so long, I am in a middle seat with a toddler on the first really long leg of the journey (from Taiwan to Japan to Detroit), so I am really not looking forward to that, but what's done is done and most likely we will all survive, as will those next to me -- though they will probably not be too thrilled about it, either.  I'm also a bit concerned about how Jonathan's going to take it all, but we'll FaceTime him every day if we can -- and hope he doesn't turn us off to use the other iPad apps as fast as he turns off grandparents.  I think he'll miss Vivienne as much -- or more -- than he'll miss me.  But he loves his daddy and we're leaving him the iPad (and the bubbles) and we'll pray for him lots, so I think he'll survive.