Travel with Baby

The Day I Brought My Son Halfway Across the World

This was Philippines to Hong Kong. We had bulkhead seats for London and Bermuda. Bulkhead seats are given to passengers with babies which had a lot more room and a space for the baby cot.

     It was a series of an hour and a half flight to Hongkong, then a twelve-hour flight to London, and then a seven-hour flight to Bermuda. Ozzy was a year and seven months old.  We flew three flights, and traveled for two nights and two days. I had an idea it was difficult and that I needed all my strength and sanity to be able to do it. The only thing that made me certain of survival was that if I carried this boy in my belly for nine months, carried him in my arms for a year, and guided his hand for seven months after that, he should consider me home. And where mom is, there is home.

     True to his personality, he wouldn’t sleep on the baby seat and was strapped on my lap for two nights sleeping on my stomach, lap, and legs as he wasn’t very small. I was convinced he was going to get sick with the stress, recycled airplane air, and cold airports so I brought my gamut of preventive and combative medication. But he didn’t get sick and was jumping up and down when we got to my sister-in-law’s house in Bermuda. He was called “Full of Beans” by one of the attendants, and named “the best one of all” by one of the passengers. He’d pop his head and smile at the passengers along the aisles. He enjoyed the different kinds of people he met along the way and the variety of sights to see. I was very proud of my little traveler. He felt safe, confident, and sociable.

     Personally, I felt like I didn't have as much beans as he did. Luckily, I was traveling with family. And so there were people taking care of me along the way: my loving husband who fed me as I hold Ozzy during the plane ride, and guided us around London without getting lost, and my in laws, whose generosity made sure that I never go hungry.