Sydney

So Jaren and I had to make an emergency trip to Sydney - yes first time solo with a baby. We found out at the last minute that Jaren possibly wouldn't be allowed to enter the promised land without an American Passport. Now we had always planned on making him a dual citizen but thought we'd take care of that after our U.S. trip. Apparently the border control officials had something else in mind. Despite my suggestion that Jaren just walk through the non-American line with Varian, they told me that because he had a right to a U.S. citizenship it was mandatory that he enter and exit the states on a U.S. passport. This was only a few weeks before we were scheduled to fly out. So not wanting to risk Jaren being denied entrance at LAX and after getting a pile of documents together (sigh I never realized how much my life would need to be documented and certified) we booked a last minute flight to Sydney. We were able to make it down to the U.S. Embassy and get his certification of consular birth abroad. Crazy.

Luckily Chad and Felicity live in Sydney and didn't mind me crashing at their house. Jaren managed the flights pretty well, other than there was so much going on to see that he didn't want to fall asleep. And he's not a fall asleep in your arms type of baby, or rather we've trained him to fall asleep on his own in his crib. That's great 98% of the time, but not so good when you're crammed in a commercial flight and you're trying to get your 4 1/2 month old to fall asleep. But he made it pretty well and we had a good time.

Shockingly I ended up with only a few pictures of him and Jasmine. I don't know what I was thinking not to get more of Chad and Felicity and the boys. But it was a bit of a whirlwind trip, and our day in Sydney was very rainy...and who knows I was just trying to manage my first trip alone with a baby. :)

But I felt very empowered by this trip. I flew down by myself, I got on an early morning train (praying that I wouldn't have to feed him till we got to the Embassy), I found the Embassy and got around the whole day in Sydney. We had a terrible run in with the angry people at the security check in at the Embassy and I managed to not cry. Seriously let's be a little more family-friendly. Not every young mother is carting around explosives in her formula can.

One main drama/blessing of this trip happened on our flight home when I thought I'd maybe make up his bottle and feed him before the plane took off. Then to my horror (and yes - it's new mom anxiety and horror is not an exaggeration) I realized that I had left all of his formula back at Chad and Felicity's house. As much as I'd love to just nurse Jaren, my body has sadly never made enough for him. At that stage I would try and breastfeed him for as long as I could, then based off how long he lasted and how loudly he was crying I'd try and guess how much bottle he wanted - which was usually about a whole feed's worth. I had this image of me being on the plane with all those people and Jaren screaming because I'd have nothing to feed him. I said a prayer and asked around and thankfully was directed towards a pharmacy where I purchased an overpriced juice-box size amount of liquid formula. And it was worth every penny! 

But all's well that ends well. It was good to get it done. It was a relief that they could do his citizenship paperwork in time. It was fun to get to hang out with my lovely in-laws (sigh why don't they move back up to Brisbane???) And it made me feel that if I could manage getting around Sydney by myself I should certainly be able to manage going to the grocery store or run an errand with a baby. :)

So these were the few pictures that I took that trip. Luckily we had a seat open next to us that Jaren could lay on and as you can see he's pretty happy about the trip. The other picture is from the Art Gallery of New South Whales where we explored that day. And last but not least- pictures of Jaren hanging out with his cousin Jazzy. 

At the end of it all I thought. Okay we made it for our 2 hour Sydney trip...

USA - here we come!