Preparing to move ~ carless

We debated long and hard about what to do with the car. As soon as we made the decision to move out, we occupied ourselves with the car. Should we leave it behind stored like the belongings that were not travelling with or should we sell it? How about lending it to a friend for the length of our stay in Morocco and reconnecting with it upon our return? Driving it cross-country and parking it in the Northwest? Or putting it on a ship so that we can have it on hand in our new "home"? Every option carried its own weight and we were pulled in different directions.

I hesitated to sell the car. CR-V was like a member of the family. When we brought her home seven years ago our lives were changed. We had had a car before but we sold it shortly after we got married. Then, when we moved to DC we opted to make use of the public transportation system for as long as we could. But when Jeff's school held its classes on a non-metro accessible campus and I took a job that required an offsite training in the early hours of the morning, buying a car was a wise move.

We drove CR-V off the lot the same day we went to look at her. We had only one condition when we arrived at the dealership: we wanted a stick shift car. They had what we were after, but only one. We had little choice in color unless we could wait for another month. We bought the golden car. We were satisfied customers.

We took good care of our car. When we moved to PDX, she came with us. When we returned to VA, it journeyed back. Where ever we went, she went: New York, West Virginia, Charlottesville, Pennsylvania, Seattle, Vancouver and Bend. It took us to work, to the doctor, to school. It took us out to breakfasts and lunches and dinners. It drove JR home from the hospital and then brought Yousef back with us from there, too. It did airport runs, beer runs, pharmacy runs. We were constant companions even as we lived a pedestrian life in the city.

Then one day we had to part. We wanted to ship it; we could not: it did not pass the age requirement. We wanted to lend it to a friend; we could not: she did not drive a manual. We wanted to store it; we could not: there was no one to maintain it. We had to sell it. We posted a "trial" ad. We had an interest. In less than 24 hours we had a buyer. The buyer was kind. She let us hang on to our wheels until the end of the month. We were not carless yet.

But August 30th came too soon. The day of car/cash exchange was marked with joy and sorrow: the new family's joy at acquiring a wonderfully kept car and our family's sorrow at parting with it. Some things have to be done, though, and this was one of them. And so JR, Yousef and I were carless for what remained of our time in the US and will probably remain as such until we return to the US again.

"Riveted"

It is possible that things will not get better
than they are now, or have been known to be.
It is possible that we are past the middle now.
It is possible that we have crossed the great water
without knowing it, and stand now on the other side.
Yes: I think that we have crossed it. Now
we are being given tickets, and they are not
tickets to the show we had been thinking of,
but to a different show, clearly inferior.

Check again: it is our own name on the envelope.
The tickets are to that other show.

It is possible that we will walk out of the darkened hall
without waiting for the last act: people do.
Some people do. But it is probable
that we will stay seated in our narrow seats
all through the tedious denouement
to the unsurprising end- riveted, as it were;
spellbound by our own imperfect lives
because they are lives,
and because they are ours.

 ~ Robyn Sarah

This poem came to me right on time. Some days I think the universe is hearing me.

Morocco ~ Getting here: en route to RBA

I did not have long to choose what fork in the road to take. Our fellow traveler had a plane to catch and I had face to keep in front of the desk agent. I decided to wait. It turned out to be the right decision. Less than fifteen minutes after I risked what I had for what I may have a wheelchair shown on the horizon. It headed our way. For the time being we were rescued.

The wheelchair accompanied us through security and onto the next gate. From there on we were on our own. I was taking it one phase at a time. I was not sure how else to handle the situation and trusted that help will reveal itself when needed.

Then, I saw what the US agent had been referring to as "strollers." There, with the luggage carts, stood stroller-like mechanisms on which I could dispose JR and make my way through the airport. They were not by any means strollers but they functioned as such, and that was good enough for my purposes. I piled JR and as many carry-on bags as I could on there and took a "stroll" through the terminal checking things out, making diaper change breaks, potty visits and time wasting trips. JR was so fatigued, though, that we spent the best of the four-hour layover at the gate with her in deep slumber on the couches and Yousef in deep sleep in my arms.

Soon it was time to board. Time to face the music of the carry-on bags again. Time to face the Air France ground agents again. And again, I had to come face to face with them. "We will be conducting carry-on luggage checks. Any over-weight, over-sized, or over-numbered bags will be checked," came the voice of a lady. "Wonderful," I thought. Just another hurdle for me to get over. I was not ready to part with any of my bags; each served a particular purpose. The pink shoulder bag had edibles, the ruby dot shopper bag had diapers, clothes and entertainment, the orange back-pack had electronics, and my purse carried our passports. There was no way I was giving any of these bags away. I had to come up with a plan.

"Are they coming with us?" came a question in familiar Arabic behind me. The man was referring to a group of ultra-conservative Jews praying at the terminal before the flight. Saved! I thought. "I am not sure," I responded, "are you headed to Rabat?" "To Fez. Do you need help?" And with that, we divvied up the luggage and walked together to the plane. He stowed them for me, helped us to our seats and sat in the row opposite us. The arrangement could not have worked better if I had planned. A traveler who spoke and understood my dialect, coming from the same place I was, heading in the same direction I was and sitting across from us. A Lebanese could not be happier to be around a Syrian!

And while the flight was short, the Syrian traveler's assistance was not. During the flight, and seeing how I did not have any hands to spare, the gentleman helped himself to our passports, filled out our travel documents, and organized matters for me. When we landed, he took our bags down, carried them through the terminal and guided us to the passport control. There, he put us in the hands of another wheelchair and parted ways. We were in Morocco.

The Story ~ The End, Part 4 ~ going home

It was Saturday morning when we found out why Yousef was not gaining weight. I was to be discharged the next day. We had 24 hours to add some much needed ounces to avoid mother-baby separation. We were fighting for son, and so was the pediatrician.

As a near-term baby, Yousef came with his own set of challenges; he was a great pretender. Earlier in my pregnancy I had gotten in touch with a lactation consultant friend who had prepared me to life with a later-term infant who is like a term baby but does not act like one. He was super sleepy, tired quickly, and tended to have poor sucking skills.  I needed lots of coaching on how to best feed him and had to factor in a fair amount of pumping to compensate for baby.  

And so, with these two constraints alongside Jeff and I tried to pump as much nutrition as possible into that tiny stomach. I breastfed, pumped, bottle fed breast milk and then supplemented with “high-calorie” newborn formula. I had lactation consultants coach me. I had nurses help me. Yousef got weighed at every chance. We recoded, they recorded. He gained an ounce. We had a heart-to-heart with the pediatrician. She agreed to discharge the family.

We were to see her first thing Monday morning and to continue formula feeding him. It was heart-wrenching. I was determined to breastfeed him just as I was determined to have a healthy pregnancy and yet again I was being made to compromise my goals and expectations. I took it all in. What is a mother to do. I tried to fight it but it was stronger than me. I protested. I refused to take part in the formula feeding. I did not help decide what brand to get him. I did not care. What I had was enough, and yet it was not. I breastfed, I pumped, I sustained, or at least I tried. The numbers would tell us all, soon. The plan was to continue this routine for a week and reassess. I kept seeing numbers in my mind’s eye and the day I would let the man-made nutrition for my infant go.

Monday morning came quickly. We put Yousef on the scale. He had put on a few more ounces. “Keep doing what you are doing,” came the instruction, “and come back for a weight check on Thursday.” “When can we stop the formula?” I pleaded. “By the end of the week, if the numbers keep creeping up.” The end of the week brought hope. I did not want to lose my last breastfeeding journey to a bottle. I was not ready to give that part of my motherhood up so soon. I had given it up before I was ready with JR and I was not about to have a repeat with my last child.  

And I did not! Yousef continued to put on weight. By March 6^th, two weeks after he was born, Yousef weighed 7 pounds 5 ounces up from 5 pounds 12 ounces at discharge. Not only that, he had already exceeded his birth weight of 6 pounds 8 ounces. The pediatrician was now fully satisfied with our parenting. We were doing a good job feeding him, so good of a job that six months later, our near-term tiny infant tipped the scale at 18 pounds 10 ounces. If only, however, the journey to get him to that weight had been simple.

Morocco ~ Getting here: CDG

We landed. As the airplane became unpressurised, my blood pressure started rising. The steward had no idea what I was referring to when I spoke of a stroller at CDG airport. And when I asked for assistance unboarding with my baby, sick child and my bags he startled me saying, "we cannot assist you on the ground. Our job has now ended. Talk to the ground agents when you leave the plane, there is nothing I can do for you." I became red in the face, my adrenaline kicked in, and the only thing that kept me from lunging forward at his unsympathetic poker face was the baby in my arms.

This conversation was conducted within earshot from our row mate who immediately offered his assistance. I graciously took it thinking that I needed it only for the length of the airplane and jet way. I was wrong! The Air France ground agents were not any more helpful or any more polite than the air agent. As a matter of fact one of them decided he was done listening to me and walked away from me mid-sentence. His mate was just as unconcerned with my situation and brushed me off completely citing "there is no supervisor for you to speak to."

I became livid. I was helpless. JR was crashing before my eyes, Yousef was strapped to my front, the backpack with all our electronics to my back, and the rest of our things were hanging off the shoulder of a complete stranger. The situation was a disaster. The airport long, the wait for the next flight even longer. We had to walk to the next terminal. I had no choice. I hoisted JR on my hip and trudged along. There was no going back. We had to get our boarding passes and keep moving.

At the next Air France counter I pleaded my case again. I spoke part in French, part in English in the hope of a sympathetic ear. I lifted JR on the counter for a visual of her condition in the hope of a sympathetic heart. I near cried. I repeated my story over and over again, but I got the same response over and over again: "there are no strollers available. The agent in the US gave you the wrong information. There is nothing we can do for you." But, there is always something that can be done, I thought.

"A wheelchair. Can you send for a wheelchair?" "Mais, vous n'êtes pas handicapé," came the response. "I am not handicapped yet," I burst back, "but what if I fell down right here with the weight I am carrying? Then you would have bigger problems on your hands!" Speaking as such I had every intention of causing them bigger problems at that point. Between the 18 pounds Yousef, the 32 pounds JR, the 10 pounds backpack, the pressure of the Moby wrapped around me and the hunger and fatigue I was certainly bound to crash at any moment. I had imagined the trip to be challenging, but for it to be this physically strenuous would have required an act of imagination that I had chosen not to enact with the careful planning and packing I had done.

The lady remained unmoved. The people I have encountered must have left their hearts checked at the door when they walked in through security that morning towards their jobs. "Think of the girl," I tried next. "Elle a de la fièvre. She cannot walk. Do it for her, if not me." That seemed to hit a vague heart note with the agent. "One moment, please,  I will see what I can do."

All along the gentleman from the plane was waiting for us on the other side of the counter. He had another flight to catch to Congo but had made a point of making sure we were taken care of before he walked away. "I will walk you through security and to your gate, if I must," he offered. I was glad he did, but hoped he did not have to. I was already indebted to his generosity and was feeling uneasy asking more of him and causing him delays and inconveniences.

"Madame." I perked up. "I have put in a request for a wheelchair for Jannah-Rae. I am not sure if there are any available, or if they will even accept the request. I have indicated that she is ill, but they may not honor the condition as she is not physically immobile. Keep in mind, though, that even if they do show up, they will not assist you with your bags. Please have a seat over there and wait. If no one comes for you by 7:15 come back and see me. " It was then 6:45, we had 30 minutes to wait, and I had a decision to make: should I let go of the help I now have in the hope of getting a means of transportation for JR, or should I muscle through it and get to the next gate? I was at another crossroad.

Morocco ~ Getting here: IAD to CDG

The walk down the jet way was made easier with the help of a fellow passenger who offered to carry some of my bags. I had called the airlines in advance and reserved a bassinet for Yousef in the hope of getting some shut-eye and a little rest during the flight, and so our seats were moved from the front of the plane to the near end where bulkhead seats were available for our request. Once seated, our bags stowed, and JR settled we met our row-mate. All along I was hoping for a female traveler who would befriend JR and offer to help with Yousef. Instead a Congolese man made his way to his seat. I was not impressed. Later in the journey, though, I stood corrected by the kindness he showed towards JR during the drip and our family when we arrived at CDG.

As we sat waiting for the plane to take-off we spent the better half of an hour during exactly that; waiting. The flight was late and they were burning into the good mood JR was in and the nap time Yousef was enjoying. I was getting anxious. We finally commenced our journey as soon as Yousef woke up. Luckily, he was in a good mood and all I had to do was carry him on my lap to keep him pleased. That was the last time during the trip that Yousef was happy. An hour into the flight, and as soon as they began serving dinner, he decided to gag himself on a toy and throw up his entire dinner all over himself, the bassinet, and the blanket. And with that, every attempt to put him back in the bassinet proved a failure, and he remained in my arms, or on my belly, for the remainder of the six hour flight, and the rest of the trip towards Rabat.

At the same time that Yousef was getting himself sick, JR was spiking a fever. She lost her appetite and her energy sank. Back home in Arlington, I had the forethought to pack Advil in my carryon bag thinking I might need it to calm the kids down to sleep on the plane. It had not occurred to me that I would be using it to treat a sick child, but either way having it on me proved to be a smart decision. While it did not do much to relieve the fever, it did allow JR to sleep through much of the trajectory and get some needed rest.

As Yousef drifted in and out of naps and JR rolled around in her sleep, I tried to grab a snack here and a drink there to sustain me through the miles. The last I had eaten was at 3:15 in the afternoon at the airport and it was now close to midnight. I had packed sandwiches but they were stowed in the overhead compartment and with only one free hand at a time, getting to them was a challenge. My next "meal" had to wait till we hit the ground.

The "ground" came in due time, and with it the real test: how was I going to transport the kids and the bags first from the plane to the platform and then from the platform through the airport, past security, and onto the next plane. Was there really a stroller waiting for me or was I being misled?

Morocco ~ getting here: Arlington to IAD

September 2nd began early; it began when it started: at midnight with a sick child. JR woke me up complaining of a stomach ache. A few minutes, and every couple of hours, later she was throwing up in the bathroom. When she was not throwing up, her brother was nursing. Between JR and JR that night I hardly got any sleep, and morning did not fare much better news. Jannah-Rae was exhausted, feverish and sad. She hardly ate anything and spent the best part of her last day in the US on the couch watching shows on the iPad. Meanwhile her brother drifted in and out of his usual naps completely oblivious to the drastic changes coming about.

Around noon I laid down to rest but my mind was running wild with visions of the trip. I was worried that the suitcases where over packed, imagining the airline agents asking me to empty things out, having to pay penalties for the car seats, seeing the suitcases getting lost, and other travel-related horrors. I saw myself arriving late to the airport, the flight being cancelled, the kids getting more sick on the plane. So, instead of catching some sleep, I ended up repacking, moving things around, taking things out, calling the cab to come earlier and just stressing over the entire ordeal. And while some of my concerns later turned out to be just in my head, others were right-on.

After waiting in line for 30 minutes to check in at the airport with Air France, I was informed that Yousef was ticketed as an "unpaid adult," hurdle number one! More waiting....issue resolved. Next came the weight of the suitcases.

I was allowed three checked bags, two weighing 23 kilos for the fully paid fare and one for the infant weighing ten. The first suitcase on the scale passed the weight check; 18.8 kilos. Next on the scale was the infant suitcase; weight 18.8 kilos. Gulp! Deep breath in. Some waiting...all clear. Third suitcase on the scale; weight 18.8 kilos. What?! Wait a minute something is not right here... The scale was broken! And apparently it had been broken for a while according to the agent! It only took him a few suitcases to figure it out! Imagine if he had charged me for the infant suitcase as "over-weight" when all along it had not been! Luckily that was averted, but I hate to think what would have happened if things were different!

Now to get my mom a gate pass so she could help me through security. "Sorry, we do no longer issue gate passes to physically capable adults. Only for handicapped individuals needing assistance." Again, gulp, sigh, look of shock. What was I going to do? I had planned on her assistance in my mind all along. The supervisor was walking around. What would it hurt to ask again. I gave her the look of desperation. She looked at the kids then back at me. She ran to the back with my mom's driver's license. Another catastrophe averted! So far so good.

The security checkpoint was a breeze. They had installed a new security system since Jeff travelled two weeks ago and all we had to do was walk! No emptying out liquids, no taking electronics out of bags, no removing shoes. Look ahead, smile and keep going! The stroller was still with us. We were still going strong.

It was now 3:30 and we were at the gate after much walking and many elevator rides. We had been at the airport since 1:00 and JR was getting tired. While seated at a table getting organized a ground agent appears out of no-where asking us to tag our stroller. I was impressed. She was being proactive and helpful. I gave her what she asked for. She returned with a blow. My stroller, my donkey, my carry-on carrying apparatus, JR's rest place, Yousef's nap spot, my bathroom relief assistant had been checked in all the way to.... Rabat! "You will pick up your stroller in Rabat, madame," she beamed. It took a second or two to register. "What!" I yelled in response. I needed that free acquisition that I have embarked on locating before I left the US to help me when there was no help was around. I needed that stroller like I needed another pair of arms. "I'm sorry, madame. These are the regulations. We cannot gate check it for you to Paris. You have to pick it up at the end of your journey. But don't worry, there are strollers in Paris. Just ask an agent there and they will give you one." "Are you certain?" "Of course I am. Just fold up the stroller on your way into the plane." And that was it. I was stripped out of my life line and there was nothing I could do about it. All I had was her word that there was another life line mid-journey waiting for me.