Flight of Joy

Beijing-Thursday August 23.

All of the girls born in 2006 who lived at the Yangxi Social Welfare Institute have the same middle name, Zi, it means purple. "It's a noble colour, that's why I chose it," the orphanage director told us.

At the Forbidden City Jenny told us that "in imperial China, purple was the colour of heaven."

It has been a heavenly month, and as I leave this place I'm feeling a little blue, mixed with purple.

At breakfast in the morning, we made the rounds to all the tables. 14 Canadian families were in our group. What joined us all is our love of children. There was the 47 year old dentist who just wanted one more crack at motherhood after raising several children, there were young couples who had struggled with infertility, there were families who wanted to grow, and add a little sister, there was us.

We'd all pinned our hopes on China, and China came through.

We loaded up our luggage and made our way to the airport. Baby Jasmine was sitting on my lap, as our bus pulled out of the parking lot.

"We'll be back, I promise," I told her.

We got to the airport, it was predictably chaotic. People bumping into each other, bags loaded to the rafters, and me trying to push a stroller through it all. "Baby, baby!!!" I kept saying, hoping people might give baby Jasmine some space.

"That's my husband and my son!!!" I said to one customs officer who wanted Louis and Pierre to move farther down the line.

We got through, got the baby ticket, cleared customs, immigration and security, then we got to the gate.

"They took away my bulkhead seats!" Dave Watts said. He and his wife Lorrie were in our group, and we were dreading the 10 hour flight to Toronto.

"We'll try to sweet-talk the flight attendants," I told him.

We boarded Air Canada flight 030 from Beijing-Vancouver. Pierre, Louis, and I had three bulkhead seats, and baby Jasmine was moving from one lap to another.

I could hear Dave Watts pleading with the flight attendant, there were two seats across the aisle on both sides of us.

A few minutes later Dave sat down, to our left. A Chinese Mother and her 12 year old son, who was carring a violin, said they would exchange seats.

"That's worked out well," I said.

"Yeah, we were worried because the woman on your right refused," Dave said.

The woman was well-dressed, looked Canadian, and was wearing a lot of silver jewellery.

"Not to worry Dave," I said. "If Jasmine decides on projectile vomiting this evening, we'll point her towards the right."

We were all laughing. Dave works in computers at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario. I said we should get the engineers at RMC to figure out the best way to get Jasmine to precision bomb the woman in bulkhead.

"I'll put the cadets on it," Dave said.

There were several families with Chinese babies on our flight. We all had different strategies. I fed baby Jasmine a bottle, and some cereal, and Pierre succeeded in singing her to sleep. The most divine 3 year old who was adopted by a woman in Moose Jaw coped by walking the aisles and making frequest trips to the bathroom. Everytime she passed by she'd talk to baby Jasmine.

"Ni de Ma, Ni de Ma!" the three year old kept repeating and smiling.

"Do you know what she's saying?" I asked her new Mum.

"Nope, we're still trying to figure it out."

And then there was Dave Watts and his wife Lorrie. Realizing that Chinese orphans like to sleep on hard surfaces, Dave unfolded his tray table. Place a pillow on it, and lay his infant daughter on top of the table.

"It works," he said. And he was right. His little girl hardly cried, neither did the others, on our long flight home to Canada.