Thursday, July 8, 2021

And we’re off! Up at 3:45am for Sonya and I. Meagan was too excited to go to sleep so she stayed up and watched TV until she says about 1am when she fell asleep. Packed up, down those 4 flights of stairs one last time to the waiting car at exactly 5am, and it’s off to the airport.

Check in was pretty smooth. There was a long line to get our tickets and luggage checked and there was a bit of confusion with Meagan’s check in. I’m sure a Bulgarian child’s passport isn’t paired with American parents’ passports every day.

Also, Meagan’s suitcase zipper started to become separated so I asked the lady at check-in if there was some tape I could use to wrap it. She directed me toward a station with some shrink wrap. I approached the station and saw some packing tape and reached for it. I was approached by a big Soviet looking man, The Guardian of The Tape, apparently, who scolded me for daring to touch his tape in Bulgarian. He eventually half-heartedly helped me wrap her suitcase once around with packing tape. We’ll see how well it holds up.

Security was quick and easy. There was a bit more scrutiny at the Passport Control checkpoint, but we had all of the necessary paperwork. The guy checking us in said he was a Pacers fan back in the day.

First leg of the journey is a 2-hour flight to Munich Germany for a 3-hour layover. We grabbed some….brunch? in Munich and went in search of a pillow for Megi. No luck. The shops where we could have bought one are still shut down because of COVID. She’d be stuck with the free one on the plane.

When we boarded the plane for Chicago, Megi started playing around with her personal screen, starting to pick out what movie she wanted. When the safety announcements came over the screen she says, “Ohhhh…. I don’t like!” She thought that she would be watching the safety announcement the entire flight.

Long 9 1/2 hour flight from Munich to Chicago. Not a lot of sleep. Pretty bad food – for me, edible, and for the girls, not. In-flight movies for me were a couple of oldies, Braveheart and Face Off, and a little bit of sleep between them.

Landing in Chicago would automatically make Meagan a United States citizen! I asked for the pilot to make the announcement of congratulations to Meagan and he did just as we were pulling into the gate. I was able to get it on video. Very exciting moment for us.

The Chicago stop was a quick 2-hour one with a lot to do – a customs check, picking up and rechecking our baggage, the immigration check point which took a little while, another security check and a healthy walk to the gate. We had a few minutes to spare and the arriving flight ws a little late so we were good. Off to Indy!

Landing in Indy was just surreal to me, like a moment that wasn’t ever going to come. We briskly walked off the plane, down the hall, and to the opening to Concourse A. Off in the distance were pink colored shirts that matched ours with hands waving hello! We walked faster.

The scene waiting for us was wonderful, not only for Meagan to see, but for our entire family as well. Our family and friends who had been so supportive of our journey over the past two years were there to share in this beautiful moment of reunion and meeting for the first time. It’s tough to put into words the love and gratitude that I felt seeing everyone there. “Thank you!” is far too weak.

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