Happy Birthday Mr. Divasaur!

Today is my husband's 32nd birthday. I made it home from abroad just in time to celebrate. Yesterday, May 21, 2009 goes on record as one of the longest days of my life, literally. I awoke at 6:00 a.m. in a city thousands of miles away and 18 hours ahead of my home time zone. The day was not with out its challenges. Firstly, the flight we were scheduled to take at back to the U.S. at 6:00 p.m. was severely delayed. Thankfully, my colleague was contacted on her cell phone by the air carrier and she managed to rebook us onto a different airline altogether. That plane was jam packed and departed at 7:30 p.m. therefore causing us also to rebook all of our connections in the U.S. I am so grateful that the original airline contacted her, because they didn't call me nor did they originally know I was also on the same itinerary until she mentioned it to them. Yay for having lovely coworkers!

Thank goodness we had also secured a late check-out from the hotel so we weren't forced to kill time all morning. I actually ended up catching that psychedelic Beatles musical "Across the Universe" on T.V. as I dozed in and out of a nap. I think it made me have some trippy dreams of my own. Off to breakfast and I was starving, despite having had a nice steak dinner the night before...a rarity for me...I am not much of a beef eater, but it sounded really good at the time. At breakfast I had yogurt, prunes, dates, fresh fruit, eggs Benedict and hash browns. That's a lot! But I was hungry and knew it might be my last decent meal for the next 24 hours.

We checked out at 2 p.m. and took a cab to the airport. Tried to check-in as the woman over the phone had told my colleague to do: "take your itinerary to the new airline carrier's desk and they'll have all of your information." Not. As if it could be as simple as that. After much run around, three different service desks between two companies, we finally made our way through travel security and to the international gate. By this time it was 5:00 p.m. and we were hungry for some lunch. Our only option? Burger King! In a foreign country no less! I never eat fast food. So this was a double disappointment for me. I ordered the least offensive item on the menu... chicken tenders with BBQ sauce and made the most of it.

We killed time and were thrilled to load onto the plane at 7:00 p.m. Less than thrilling was that it was completely packed (having since acquired additional passengers from our originally booked flight) and I was relegated to the center seat in the center of the plane. Never in my life have I sat in the center seat. In 30 years of travel! At 5'9" and on the amazonian side of female proportions, this was sight to be seen, I am sure. Not to mention that my colleague to my right and the unknown stranger on my left immediately sacked out leaving me essentially trapped in the middle for the duration of the 12 hour flight! The seat in front of me reclined so sharply and violently (at least 80 degrees) that the mini-LCD screen that was embedded in the back of it nearly clipped me in the nose! Misery definitely was re-defined for me in that 12 hours. For a moment I almost entertained an anxiety attack. This must of been some odd repayment of the extraordinary trip over which included an entire row of seats to myself, across which I spread out and slept 8 hours! I didn't sleep at all on this trip home and the movie menu was the only thing that kept me sane. I watched "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "The Other Boleyn Girl" and read OK! Magazine which a nice young lady had offered me.

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The meals came and went and were uneventful aside from the fact that smell of them almost got the best of me. I stuck to the dry roll with a bit of cheese and the juice offered. The rest went untouched. Thankfully I had tucked some dried fruit and nut mix into my carry-on and with the act of a Chinese contortionist I managed to retrieve to from the space beneath the seat in front of me. We arrived in our first U.S. point of transfer 11 hours and 45 minutes after our departure. We cleared customs rather swiftly, the only delay being the wait to locate my second bag, which someone had pulled off the carousel and conveniently forgot to place it back on again. We made our way to the Domestic terminal and found a palatable lunch along the way. We boarded the plane for our 4 p.m. departure back towards the middle of the country. Another transfer and a short flight north and we touched down at 11:05 p.m. back in my city. My exhaustion was overcome by elation and in no time I could spot my dear hubby waiting for me just behind the security gates.

We got home just before midnight and fell into bed soon after that. Home just in time for my sweetheart's 32nd birthday. I was glad to be in my own bed, next to my man. I slept a good five hours before our menace of a cat awoke me in her usual fashion. I stumbled out of bed, found my way in the dark to feed her (which is customary at 5:00 a.m. regardless of how many time zones I have just traveled through that day) and made my way to the bathroom. Something came over me and I decided to PIAC. I had an internet cheapie since ordering PreSeed and because I hadn't charted this 2WW since the morning I had left for my trip around the world, I was curious. Or perhaps it was women's intuition? Because within seconds I saw two pink lines. One much fainter than the other, but it was there! I was thankful that I had PIAC because I then ripped open the foil on the remaining FRER I had left over from last cycle and dipped it in the cup. Within seconds, the two pink lines came up! Success! I am pregnant! I capped the FRER and made my way back into bed. I placed it in my honey's hand and whispered, "Happy birthday Daddy." After the longest day of my life, I am now having one of the best and most unforgettable.