People have asked us how it was taking an infant on an international flight. To be honest, we did think twice about it, since it meant completely disrupting baby's routine and schedule for two weeks, and then doing it all over again once we come back into the States.

The short answer is: yes, it is difficult.

Chloe didn't take too well to the readjustment. The first part of our trip involved a 12 hour stop in San Francisco to see Carolyn's grandmother. The trip involved us waking Chloe up at 5am in Austin to leave the house and go to the airport. The Austin to San Fran flight was not too bad, and neither was our time in California. However, after an entire day of activity, I'm sure all Chloe wanted to do was go to sleep in her crib. Unfortunately, our departing flight out of California was at 1:30am, or 3:30am Austin time. With such an unknown environment for her at the airport and on the flight, she was unable to sleep.

In Taiwan, Chloe was so confused by the time change and environment change that we ended up having to soothe her to sleep every time. This involved one of us carrying her on us in a little backpack pouch thingy (Ergo Baby). The Ergo Baby saved our lives, and our arms. Chloe also started waking up every few hours for milk, regardless of the time of day/night. We had definitely become spoiled in being able to put her down for 12 hours straight for bedtime in Austin.

By the end of the trip, Chloe got much better with a routine and was quite the happy baby. Though we dreaded the return flight back home, it went quite smoothly. Part of that was due to our flight departing around Chloe's bedtime instead of at an ungodly early morning hour! Chloe basically slept soundly through the entire 10 hour flight, except for 1-2 times where she woke up wanting some milk. We credit this to several of our friends who were praying for us for our return flight.

After being home for a week now, Chloe is pretty much all adjusted back to her original routine. There are a few nights where she will still wake up once for milk, but it is nowhere as crazy as when we were in Taiwan.

We look back on our trip with fondness and good memories. Even though it was tough, it was well worth it for us to see our relatives, and for them to see the newest member of our family. My grandma told me that she felt so much empathy for us because taking care of Chloe on this trip seemed so exhausting. I told her that it was small potatoes, and that the important thing was that she got to see her first great-granddaughter. In fact, Carolyn and I agree that we would do it all again in a heartbeat.