You know that vision you have of an airplane flight- petrified mother clutching her baby who is screaming at the top of her lungs. This baby screams so loud it sounds like someone is performing Chinese torture by pulling her fingernails out with pliers. And the mother pale with fear is just rocking her baby back and forth as if she is in a trance trying to figure out what is wrong with the baby and also trying to avoid the fact that everyone is staring at her.
Turns out, I was that lady.
There we were on the plane coming home from a wonderful visit with Mike's family in Arizona and Lucy started getting fussy. Moments later, she made the face that every mother knows is THE face and I curse like a sailor silently as a mouth to Mike, "Oh no! She is pooping!" I weighted the options. We were sitting in the window seat, about 1 hour into our 1 1/2 hour flight and basicly stuck. I mean how does one do this, really? Do you just strip your baby in the seat and change her diaper while carefully balancing her on your knees? Do you take your precious baby to the germ infesting airplane bathroom designed for little people and try to change her there? Or do you wait it out? I, much to my demise decided to wait it out and change her once we landed. Mistake #1.
So, Lucy is cutting her first tooth so I figured maybe she is fussy because her tooth is aching so I give her some tylenol, then I feed her, then I bounce her, rock her, and basically do anything that she likes until the shrill screams start. And of course we are trying to land now so there is no getting up for us. We are stuck. She is screaming so loud it hurts my ear. I am clutching her and at this point have tried to feed her with each boob but she won't even close her mouth onto my boob because she is screaming so much. Mike takes her for a bit and reports to me that she is leaking poop through her clothes. Great. I wrap her in a blanket to enclose my poopy girl. Then I hit bottom. I feel stuck and I feel like I am the worst parent EVER. I start freaking out thinking, "Why won't she stop crying? Maybe something is wrong with her, I should have changed her earlier when I could have gotten up!" Then, of course, I start to cry. Mike is doing a good job trying to keep Lucy calm and now me calm. But frankly we are a complete mess. By the time I have started crying, the plane has landed and of course they announce that our gate is not available and we will have to taxi a little longer. Seriously? Can't the control tower hear my baby girl and speed this process along?
So, the plane finally makes its way to the gate and we are able to get up. Everyone just stares at me as Mike and I push out of our aisle and to the back of the plane before anyone gets up. We place my red cheeked daughter covered in spit and tears onto the toilet seat (barf) and change her. Oh yeah- the best part is that our flight per Southwest was a direct flight which turns out means you stop in a city (LA) and other people board then you continue on to your destination- so we still have another flight to take until we arrive in Oakland. Mike is now interviewing the flight crew to find out how difficult it is to get out luggage off the flight because we are going to drive back to SF instead of the 1 hr flight. I change our little lady and she finally stops crying. We decided to stay on the next flight and we apologize to all the other passengers and we decide to move to the last row of the plane. We take off and Lucy sleeps the whole flight. Next time I fly and a woman's baby is crying I will feel so sorry for 'that lady' and also so thankful it isn't me.
