Traveling With Baby

This weekend we’re taking our baby, Maya, on a little road trip to visit her Auntie T (my sister-in-law) who lives about 3.5 hours drive from us. The last time we took a trip, Maya was three months old and it involved flying to Calgary (a one hour plan ride) then overnighting at my sister’s house before boarding a plane the next day for Tucson, Arizona, where my parents have a vacation home. The trip to Arizona went well. My sister & her three kids (ages four, seven & eight) came with Maya and I, and we left our hubbies behind. The return trip on the other hand was rather nightmarish… here’s what ensued:

We flew from Arizona back to Calgary without incident. Then, after we got to my sister’s house, her kids started vomiting with what we initially assumed was food poisoning from some bad eggs. Well, it turned out that it was actually a stomach virus because a few days later, as I was riding in the car on may way to the Calgary airport (which was the last leg of my trip), I started to feel nauseous and the feeling only increased as we got closer to the airport. By the time I arrived at the check-in counter I was explaining to the airline employees that I was feeling ill and would need an extra seat for Maya’s car seat because I thought I might not be able to hold her for the duration of the flight. While the very understanding employees worked on arranging for this, I ran over to the nearest recycling bin and proceeded to vomit up my lunch. Not only was it terribly embarrassing, I was starting to panic that I couldn’t fly in this condition. I recalled that my sister’s kids were sick with this flu repeatedly for about 6 hours before they recovered. To make matters worse, I was vomiting up beet salad which was very red and, thus, made the airline employees think that something more serious was going on. Thank goodness my sister was there to explain that I wasn’t actually hemorrhaging, it was just the beets. After losing my stomach contents and apologizing profusely to the airline employees for the public puking, I felt a bit better and decided that I should get on the plane, after all the flight was just an hour and Maya was asleep. Well, I felt terrible for the poor man sitting next to me as I had to ask him to get up so I could run to the lavatory to vomit yet again. While I was gone, Maya woke up crying and was inconsolable. In my weak, shaky condition I tried my best to nurse her for the rest of the flight. It wasn’t easy and I was honestly afraid I was going to pass out or something. Somehow I made it home and got her off the plane and promptly passed her to my wonderful husband who took over all the baby care and drove me home where I could writhe around on my own bathroom floor until the flu bug had passed. Thankfully, Maya never caught the virus, but my brother-in-law, grandmother, and husband all ended up experiencing this superbug firsthand. The whole thing was like a scene from a bad movie.

Let’s hope this weekend’s trip is uneventful by comparison!