Flying United Not Advised.

Alright, I'm finally ready to write the rather looooooong story of what happened on our flights to and from Ohio. Here we go...

Adam, M and I left California on December 22nd in the afternoon. Everything went really well on the flight to Chicago. Makayla took a nap within an hour of us taking off, but not for too long. She did really well on that flight overall, though. We got to Chicago around 7:30ish their time, I think. When we were on the plane, Adam was checking what time our flight left and I kept asking him and he said he wasn't sure. And I was like, you're looking at your phone! HA!

So we get off the flight, Adam took Makayla and I carried the car seat out. I ran into one of the seats in front of me with the car seat and hit my belly. Of course. It hurt but the baby is obviously fine. :) Anyway, Adam is talking to one of the workers in the airport when I get out there. Then he says, "There's no good time to tell you this, so our flight's cancelled." And he was smiling really big, so I totally thought he was joking. Well, turns out, he wasn't. We had to go stand in this line for 50 million hours to reschedule our flight and the whole time we were in line, Adam was on the phone with United trying to get us a flight out that night. Once we finally got rescheduled on the phone, we still had to wait in line...since the flight we got wasn't until the next morning. We waited in line for a voucher for a hotel in Chicago for the night. But, of course, it was just a discounted rate, not actually a voucher, which totally sucked. The worst part was there were still flights going to Cleveland AND Columbus that night! (We were flying into Akron.) And the weather didn't look bad in Chicago, but whatevs.

So we got all of our crap taken care of, go to get the shuttle, M starts screaming like a banchee because it's so late at night and she's tired and blah blah blah. Well this guy (who has a kid) looks over at me and M and starts laughing. It pissed me off. Everyone said he was probably laughing because he's been there, but still. And then the shuttle wasn't coming back for another half hour or something, so we took a taxi. When we were out waiting for the taxi, Adam said something about how these wet paper towels I had on the outside of the diaper bag kept getting his pants wet. We laughed about it and kept on going.

Got to the hotel, got a crib for M, got ourselves taken care of, although there was no contact cases or solution, so I had to wear my contacts all night and the next day, which sucked. We had no clothes or anything, but I did have an extra outfit for M in the diaper bag...or so I thought. When we ate dinner at the airport, I got a water bottle and in the hastiness of everything I threw it in the diaper bag. So when we got the hotel, I was parched...went to get my water and found the whole bottle empty and I wondered why Adam drank all my water! Well I searched in the bag some more and found that the entire thing leaked on everything that was in the bag...M's outfit, diapers, my books, etc. THAT was awesome. So her outfit was soaked and one of her diapers was soaked, too, but luckily some were saved. HA! We went to bed, had to wake up 6 hours later, get on the shuttle, go back to the airport and get on a flight at 7 that morning...to go to Columbus, which is two hours from my mom's house. So she had to drive there to get us and we were all exhausted and just ready to have a shower and clean clothes.

Well, that didn't exactly happen. If you recall, we were supposed to be flying into Akron, but then had to get switched to Columbus....sooooooo, yeah, they lost our luggage. FOR DAYS. We finally got to Ohio on December 23rd and didn't get our luggage until Christmas morning. It was a Christmas miracle! We survived, but it was rather annoying. I was SO happy when we got our luggage, though. It was probably the best thing ever!!

After all that, I figured we couldn't get much worse on the flight home. Well, I was wrong again. Our flight left at 6 am and Adam had already come back home a couple weeks earlier because he had to get back to work, so it was just me and M. We had to get up in the middle of the night, drive to Akron/Canton airport, check in, etc., etc. That all went really well. I even asked if my mom could come back with me since I had M and her car seat and was by myself and the lady didn't give us any hassle! So Mom went back with me and then I asked if someone could help me get my stuff onto the plane since I had to go out onto the flight line and up the steps onto the plane. They actually obliged! They even put M's seat in her seat for me! And while we were waiting for my flight, there was a little kiddie area for M to play in. It was really nice, so after all that, I figured the rest of my day would go really smoothly.

On the plane ride from Ohio to Chicago, M slept in my arms since she was so tired, but it was a short flight and she got woken up earlier than I would have liked. The flight attendant asked if she could anything to help me and I asked her if there was someone who could help me take my car seat inside, since yet again, I had to climb down the steps and I can't do that with M and the car seat. So the flight attendant says she's not sure if someone at Chicago will do that. Well the pilot ended up carrying the car seat off the plane for me and then one of the workers there took it inside and even hooked it up to my luggage carrier for me! I was totally impressed! More great things happening, right? Up until that point, it was a really nice day. Even a little after was nice, too.

We had a 3 hour layover in Chicago, which kind of sucked, but luckily, they had a little play area there, too. It was all airplane stuff, so after we got some breakfast, we headed over there and hung out for a couple hours. Then we had to go to our gate and of course, they changed our gate from the time we got there, so I had to walk all over the airport to get to the right gate, but we got there in plenty of time. Once we got there, I went to the lady that was standing at the desk by the gate and asked her if someone could help me with the car seat. She said they don't have staff there to help with that sort of thing. And I told her there was no way I'd be able to get me, M and the her car seat down the aisle by myself. And she just told me to put M in the car seat and take it down the aisle that way. So I kept asking her if there was ANYONE that could help and she just sorta smiled at me, so I figured that was a yes? I dunno. So I had to ask her if we could get our seats switched because we had a middle and an aisle seat and if the window seat person ever wanted to get out, they'd have to switch with us. I asked if she could get the person who was going to sit next to us up there so I could ask them. And she said, "Well now you're just asking for too much." with NO hint of being nice at all. But she switched our seats and then I asked her AGAIN if there was someone that was going to help me and she said no and told me the same thing she told me earlier. So I said, "Thanks. For nothing." and walked away. I was almost in tears because I literally had no clue how I was going to do this by myself while being pregnant and alone.

I just carried M on the plane while dragging her car seat behind me. It fit down the first class aisles just fine. But then, when we got to coach, yeah, it didn't fit. It got stuck in the very first row and I said oh great out loud and then this very, very nice man asked me if I needed help and I lost it. I started bawling and said yes! He carried the car seat all the way to our row and I was crying the entire time and I kept apologizing to him. He was so sweet. Once we got to the seats and I had to get the car seat undone and all that, I put it on the aisle seat and then M was climbing all over the other seats so I had to somehow climb over all the seats and her and the car seat to get it in the window seat. I can't even explain it, it was so hard. After that I put M in her car seat, sat down and just tried to breathe. I was crying during this entire period, so I was pretty worked up over this whole business. Lucky for me I didn't listen to that dumb broad that told me to put M in it and drag it down the aisle.

Then everyone is getting on the plane...people are dwindling down and no one is sitting next to us yet and I'm beginning to think that we'll have the row to ourselves. Well then, this broad comes out of nowhere, looks at where she is going to have to sit, turns to the woman behind her, says, "Damn it." and then looks at me and says hi. So I say, "Hi. I heard what you said." She says, "Oh, it's okay. I have headphones." Ouch. Then I tell her I'm having pretty much the worst day ever and she tells me she heard. So you heard my conversation and still treat me like that?! How 'bout some freaking grace people? I'm traveling ALONE with a 2 year old while pregnant and you can't just keep your comments to yourself? COME ON! Anyway, the flight went pretty well. M wanted me to hold her a lot, but she was overall really good. And halfway through the flight my lame seat mate looks at me and says, "She's cute, though." Though? Really? What is that even supposed to mean?! DUH she's cute! And she hasn't even bothered you once, so shut it! Ugh. Oh yeah, I cried after she sat down next to me, too. It was awful. And how embarrassing that I had to sit next to her the entire 4 1/2 hour flight.

That's my horrible, awful, no good story. It was not a fun time and we will NEVER fly United again. Mark my words.