The Flight

Months ago, when I was booking the flight that Matthew and I would take to go to Virginia for my mom's 60th birthday, I was trying to decide which airline to go on.  Naturally, I wanted to go on JetBlue (it is the best one, after all!), and I thought to myself "I'll take the red eye flight, and Matthew will sleep the entire time, and it will be great!"

Well, on July 25th, Matthew and I took said flight to Virginia.  First of all, let me just say that we were originally going to fly out on the 24th, but there was a schedule change with the flight time and I was able to change the flight to the 25th, which ended up being perfect because there is no way I would have flown with such a sick baby on the 24th.  Matthew was still sick on the 25th, but not nearly as bad.

Our flight went from Salt Lake to Long Beach, and then we connected to Dulles.  The flight from Salt Lake to Long Beach was amazing.  Matthew fell asleep while we took off, and slept for about an hour. He was up for the last 30 minutes of the flight, and was a little fussy, but it was manageable because it was only 30 minutes.

Our layover in Long Beach was okay.  Originally it was going to be only about 90 minutes, but because of the schedule change, it was 2 1/2 hours.  It went alright.  Matthew was able to crawl around and get some energy out.  Our flight was scheduled to take off around 10, and at about 9:15 Matthew got really fussy because he was
exhausted.  I gave him some more medicine (he still had a fever, plus I didn't want his ears to bug him on the plane...hopefully), and I fed him, but he was still fussy.  I overheard someone behind me say "I really hope that fussy baby isn't on my flight!"  Nice.

I waited as long as possible to get on the plane, because I didn't want to be on there with Matthew any longer than I had to.  When we got on, we had the window seat, the middle seat was open, and a very nice lady was sitting in the aisle seat.  Once we started to taxi, Matthew fell asleep.  It was amazing!

Then, about an hour later, he woke up.  Screaming.  And he proceeded to scream for about 45 minutes.  It was awful.  I don't know if it was his ears, or he just wasn't feeling good still, or what.  But he screamed and screamed.  About 40 minutes into it, the flight attendant came and offered if I wanted to stand up front and try and bounce him.  She was very nice about it, and was just giving me an option.  I said thanks, but I was really thinking that the idea of standing in front of a plane full of people staring at me while I try to console a screaming baby sounded awful.  I chose to stay in my seat.  The nice lady in the aisle offered to take him if I thought it would help, but I told her I thought he would just scream more.

Luckily, (miraculously) about 5 minutes later he calmed down and went to sleep.  But that only lasted for about 45 minutes when he woke up and screamed again for about 5 minutes.  This went on and off for the rest of the flight (all 5 hours of it).  It was awful.  No one said anything negative to me, but there was a woman in the same row on the other side of the aisle who kept looking over in my direction and sighing each time he would start to cry.

The last hour and a half went the best because by that point he was exhausted, but whenever someone would slam the bathroom door or something he would jump up and I would cringe and pray that he wouldn't wake up again.

Finally, the plane landed.  I apologized to the row in front and behind me.  The whole row behind me, and the nice lady sitting next to us was so nice to me.  They said they could tell I was struggling, and offered me help in getting off the plane.  That was the silver lining.  They were so kind, and made me feel better about the last 5 hours of hell.

Regardless, I will NEVER take a red eye flight again with a baby, or any kids for that matter.  It was terrible.  I love JetBlue, but I can't put myself through that again.

Lesson learned.