I almost didn't make it home

My recent travels have been so problem-free that I was due for a bad trip.

I left my conference early yesterday to stand by for an earlier flight, in hopes of making it home in time to put Littles to bed. I arrived at the airport at 11 AM and found out that the 8:35 AM flight was delayed till 2 PM. I knew that would make standby difficult, since presumably everyone on that flight was trying to get on to another flight.

Sure enough, the 12:55 PM and 1:55 PM flights went off completely full, with no standbys clearing.

Fine. I had a confirmed seat on the 3:40 PM flight, which would still get me home around 9ish, plenty of time to relax with Hubby before bedtime and then see Littles off to school the next morning.

At around 3:30 PM, the gate agent announced that there was a mechanical problem and they were investigating. Maybe 15 minutes later, she informed us that the plane was going out of service and the flight was cancelled.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The 8:35 AM flight had also just been cancelled, so rather than go to the ticket counter and deal with the madness of two full flights attempting to get rebooked, I just called customer service. Initially, the representative tried to grab a seat on a nonstop US Airways flight later that evening, but she came back and told me, "I'm sorry, that US Airways flight is now sold out. The best I can do is a confirmed seat on our 6 AM flight tomorrow morning, arriving at 10:43 AM."

Pre-Littles, I would've happily grabbed a cab back to the strip and enjoyed an extra evening in Vegas on someone else's dime.

Instead, having gone from "I might see Littles tonight" to "I won't see Littles tomorrow morning" in the space of a few hours (and having way too many pregnancy hormones coursing through my body), I just broke down in tears in the middle of the airport.

I decided to go to the ticket counter to see what they could do. My hope was that I could get on a flight to the west coast (Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Seattle), because then I knew there were red-eyes that could get me home by 6 AM or thereabouts -- it would be a long night, but I'd be able to see Littles in the morning.

The line at the ticket counter was long and was not moving, so I called customer service back to see if anything had changed. The representative went to look at the same nonstop US Airways flight that the first one had inquired into, and I patiently waited on hold, knowing that the answer would be "Oops, nope, it's sold out."

I was shocked when she came back to tell me that she had found a seat for me! I didn't believe it until I physically walked over to the US Airways ticket counter and got my boarding pass.

I got home shortly after midnight last night. Bless that agent. Bless her, bless her, bless her.

When I walked in the door, Hubby told me that I might want to check on Littles, as she was grunting a few minutes earlier and might have pooped in her sleep. Sure enough, she had. I've never been so happy to change a poopy diaper :) Hey, it bought me a few sleepy minutes with my little girl.

We were late to school this morning because I was having so much fun playing and just being with her. It is good to be home.