The Flight

Really there is no other name I can give this post that would be fitting. I am sure some of you after reading might have suggestions and I would love to hear them.
The day began Monday morning at Michele's we got up and had a little breakfast before heading out to the airport. Michele had some errands she had to run, so she needed to drop us off early. We arrived at the airport with little trouble or traffic. We were about 2 1/2 hours early, so we had plenty of time to check in, get through security and grab some lunch. We got to our gate and relaxed for a little while before going in search of some food. We came back to our gate and got ready to board. Now is when all the fun begins. Our flight was schedule to take-off at 1:05 and land in Manchester at 4:52, so about a 3 hour flight. Not too bad right? We'll see.
The boarding begins and we are all anxious to get back to where we came from or where we are going. We all get boarded we turn off our cell phones they close the main cabin door and we hear, "Good afternoon this is your captain from the flight deck. It seems that in the final loading of the luggage we have popped the hydraulic line for the nose gear. We are not sure how long it might take to fix or if we will have to transfer to a different plane. There is one coming in from Cedar Rapids and we might be able to grab that one. We are in contact with the tower and as soon as they give us any updates we will pass them along to you." Of course at this point we are wondering, 'okay so how long are they thinking?' The captain came back on a few minutes later and let us know that we did all have to deplane and wait for the plane coming in from Cedar Rapids. It was due to arrive in about a half hour so they were hoping to get it cleaned and back up in the air within the hour. Okay well better than nothing I suppose. We all deplaned and waited in the gate area for the plane to land, unload, and get cleaned. Now I was standing at the counter just as we were starting to board this second plane. The agent had just scanned 4 peoples boarding passes and they were starting to walk down the jet way when the First Officer (FO for future reference) came up to the desk and whispered to her, we think we may have the same problem with this plane. The first thought that ran through my head was, "You have got to be kidding, this can't happen again." Just as I was thinking that another Northwest employee said, "I have never seen this happen to two planes at the same time in all of my years of working here." So as you can see, this was not something that happened often. We then stopped the boarding process to await the fate of our flight. The FO came back up a few minutes later and informed the Agent that the two mechanical crews for this area were both tied up. They wouldn't even be able to look at the plane and see if it truly was the same problem or not until 3:30. Now mind you it was about 2 at this time. So of course many of us were getting a little agitated. They did finally let us know that it indeed had the same problem and gave us all meal vouchers for which we had about 15 minutes to use, because they had found us another plane. I did ask that they please not use the two gates we had previously been at since, they didn't seem to be working for us. We at last got on the plane and took off. We landed 3 hours later and got home 4 1/2 hours after we had planned. It was a very long day. I am just glad we weren't trying to juggle a newborn also. As frustrating as it was being 7 months pregnant and stuck in an airport, I prefer that to having a newborn and being stuck in the airport. Well we arrived home safe and sound, and plan on doing it all again in a few months so we can show off the baby back home. Hopefully the move will happen sooner and it won't be so hard to see family and friends in the Midwest.