We circled endlessly above Zurich’s Kloten Airport, after which the pilot announced that that we had been diverted to Milan, Italy. At that point, I didn’t care where we’d land; I just wanted to be on terra firma. I was so dizzy, I thought I was going to pass out. Another woman on the plane did faint, and when we landed in Milan, paramedics whisked her off the plane to an ambulance waiting on the tarmac. The rest of the passengers remained on the grounded plane for three hours in Milan as the flight crew deliberated whether to fly back to Zurich or allow the passengers to deplane.

At 10 p.m., the flight crew finally announced that we would be deplaning. The airline would put us up in a local hotel overnight, and we’d fly to Zurich at 10 a.m. the following morning. But our flight to Manchester was scheduled to depart Zurich at 7 a.m. — and my sister’s chuppah was called for 3 p.m. that afternoon.

I approached the pilot and flight attendants and asked whether we could fly directly from Milan to Manchester, or at least take a train or bus to Zurich — a four-hour trip — so that we could catch our early-morning flight. But the flight crew was extraordinarily unhelpful, as were the Italian-speaking workers in the Milan airport. “Just go to the hotel and get a good night’s sleep,” they kept telling us. “In the morning we’ll work it out for you.”

We had no choice but to comply. In the meantime, I spoke to my parents, who contacted a travel agent and arranged for us to fly from Zurich at noon. We’d land in Manchester at one, just in time to make it to the chuppah. Not exactly according to plan, but not terrible, either.

The airline sent us off to the hotel without returning our luggage. I had to beg them to bring me my stroller so that I could finally put down my baby, but all they brought us was the stroller frame, without the bassinet attachment that clipped into it. In desperation, I cushioned the baby with blankets and placed her in the mesh basket at the bottom of the stroller frame. I got plenty of stares as I wheeled her through the Milan airport like that.

We did not have a good night’s sleep. I was worried about making it to the wedding, and overwrought from our harrowing flight. We had no food, except some dry rolls we were given on the flight to Zurich, which we had no interest in eating. The hotel did not provide us with a crib, and I had nowhere to put the baby.

The weather in Milan was frigid — it was late October — but our coats were tucked away inside the hold of the plane. We arrived in the airport the next morning, shivering, tired, and hungry, and boarded our ten o’clock flight for Zurich — only to be told that the flight was delayed an hour. And there were no drinks on the flight.

We landed in Zurich five minutes before our 12 o’clock flight to Manchester. I had explained our situation to the flight crew, and a kind flight attendant moved us into business class during the flight so that we could be the first ones off the plane and make a mad dash through the airport to catch our connecting flight.

When the plane pulled up at the gate, however, the crew opened the rear door — something that’s practically unheard-of. Sitting at the front of the plane, we were the last ones to disembark, and by the time we stepped into the airport, our flight to Manchester had left. Things were definitely not going according to plan.

Avrumi and I headed for the transfer desk, still pushing our baby in the mesh basket at the bottom of our stroller frame. A kind Yid on our flight who lived in Zurich gave us some crackers, which was our first meal since the flight from Eretz Yisrael the day before. I felt so faint, I had to lie down on some chairs in the airport lounge.

The next flight from Zurich to Manchester was at 5 p.m. — but it was full. Instead, the airline booked us on a 2:30 p.m. flight to Amsterdam, with a 4:30 p.m. connection to Manchester. The thought of taking another two flights made me feel sick to my stomach, but if I wanted to be at any part of the wedding, this was the only way to do it.

I called my parents and regretfully informed them that there was no way we’d make it to the 3 p.m. chuppah. “But I hope to be there for the dinner,” I assured them. (In England, wedding guests typically go home after the wedding reception and chuppah, which are held in the afternoon, and then return several hours later for the dinner.)

Thinking that this would be a short trip, I had made the mistake of wearing uncomfortable shoes, and now, with blisters forming on my feet, I began wondering how I’d be able to dance at the wedding. At least I’d had the foresight to pack my gown into my hand luggage, so I wouldn’t have to wait for our luggage to arrive when we reached Manchester.

Avrumi’s family in Zurich arranged for kosher food to be brought to the airport for us, but we were so busy picking up our luggage at the arrivals area and then hurrying to recheck our bags in the departures area that we didn’t manage to meet the woman who brought the food. Nor did we have time to buy any packaged food in the Zurich airport before we had to proceed to security. After arriving at the gate, we ate the rolls from yesterday’s flight. They tasted like sawdust.

The airline still hadn’t managed to deliver our bassinet attachment, so in Zurich and Amsterdam, as in Milan, onlookers stared in astonishment at the newborn baby lying in the basket of our stroller frame.

The flight from Zurich to Amsterdam was on a tiny plane with barely headroom to stand. As soon as the flight attendants began serving drinks, we hit a patch of turbulence, and the toy-sized plane began bouncing up and down, sending the drinks flying and causing me to empty my already almost-empty stomach.

The flight had taken off 20 minutes late, and mid-flight, a crew member began reading a list of connecting flights that could no longer be caught, due to the late departure. Our 4:30 flight to Manchester was one of them. “You’re automatically rebooked for the next flight, at 9 p.m.,” a flight attendant assured us.

We actually landed in Amsterdam with time to make our connecting flight — but the crew would not let us off the plane. “Your flight departs from a different terminal, and you’ll never make it there in time,” they said. “This airport is huge.” By then, I felt so weak that I needed a wheelchair. (I was six weeks after birth.) An airport attendant wheeled me to the waiting area near the gate, where I lay slumped on a chair and cried my eyes out.

When I called my parents to tell them we had landed, shortly before the wedding dinner was to start, my father responded with a warm “Shalom aleichem!”

“Uh, we landed in Amsterdam. Do you think you can save some of the wedding food for us?”

He and my mother were devastated.

In the meantime, my mother-in-law in Zurich arranged for a friend of a friend to bring us food to the airport. Sandwiches with hardboiled eggs never tasted as good as they did then.

When we were informed that our 9 p.m. flight was delayed an hour, I was hardly surprised; everything else had gone wrong on this trip. By this time, all the fight was out of me. I no longer cared about making it to the wedding; I just wanted this horrible trip to be over. And I did not want to board another plane in my life. I was terrified of what might happen.

Staying in Amsterdam was not an option, however, so I reluctantly boarded yet another flight, our fourth in 36 hours. We arrived at the wedding at 11:30, just in time for the last of the sheva brachos, with our baby still in the stroller basket. (The bassinet arrived four days later.)

I looked like a wreck. Shani, the kallah, was happy to see me, and my parents were relieved that we were safe and sound. But I couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for the simchah — not then, and not during sheva brachos. I was in a daze, not really present.

“I guess Hashem didn’t want us at the wedding,” I told Avrumi glumly. “I accept it, but it hurts.”

And I had planned this so perfectly!

At the end of sheva brachos, we returned — uneventfully — to Eretz Yisrael. When we arrived, Avrumi discovered that there had been a chavrusa turnover in his kollel, and because he had been away, he was left without a chavrusa.

The rest of the winter zeman was very difficult for him, and for me. Avrumi didn’t have a chavrusa, and I was a mess. Somehow, I couldn’t get past our harrowing trip. Every time I thought about it, or talked about it, I cried. And I couldn’t just tell the basic story of what had happened. Any time I started telling someone about it, I felt a need to describe every part of the story in vivid detail, down to my uncomfortable shoes and the stale rolls.

“I can’t believe we missed Shani’s wedding,” I kept repeating to Avrumi.

It wasn’t only that I had missed my sister’s wedding. It was that I had looked forward to turning a new leaf in my life, one in which Avrumi would return to being the vibrant, happy person I remembered from before he lost his father and we’d be able to fully enjoy our life together. For me, the trip was also supposed to be a healing getaway, helping me regain my energy and get my life back together post-birth.

Not only didn’t any of that happen, but the trip actually made everything a whole lot worse. Avrumi was listless. I was miserable. I kept reliving the helplessness and tension I had experienced during our trip, and had recurring flashbacks in which I was running and running and not getting anywhere. I just couldn’t get it out of my system.

Meanwhile, things kept going wrong. Money was very tight. Right before Pesach, when we were supposed to fly to Zurich to spent Yom Tov with Avrumi’s family, two of my kids contracted chicken pox. The doctor advised us not to fly, but making Pesach ourselves was out of the question, so we flew anyway.

Had our lives not been so turbulent at that point, we would never have even considered the idea Avrumi’s brother proposed while we were in Zurich. “There’s an opening for a job as a rebbi in the local cheder,” he told Avrumi. “Maybe you want to apply?”

We had no immediate plans then of leaving Eretz Yisrael, nor was Avrumi thinking of leaving kollel and going into chinuch yet. And I had no interest in moving to Switzerland, where the culture and lifestyle were completely foreign to me. But when you feel that your life is spiraling out of control, you start giving serious thought to options that you wouldn’t normally have considered.

By the following Elul, we were living in Zurich. Three years later, I’m still wondering how I ended up here, and the only answer I have is that Hashem rerouted us.

I had planned to be in Manchester; Hashem wanted me to be in Milan, and Zurich, and Amsterdam. I had planned to spend relaxed time with my husband; Hashem wanted me to be bumped around and jolted. I had planned to return to Eretz Yisrael reinvigorated; Hashem wanted me to return depleted. And then He plucked us out of our life in Eretz Yisrael and diverted us inexplicably to Switzerland.

Avrumi has been very successful in his position as a rebbi, baruch Hashem, and our children have settled nicely here. Perhaps it was the change of location that caused a change in Avrumi’s mazel, or perhaps it was the fulfillment and satisfaction he derived from teaching Gemara, but after we moved to Zurich he became much happier and calmer, returning at long last to his old self.

Something has changed in me, too. While I still like to plan my life down to the last detail, as I did with my ill-fated trip to Shani’s wedding, I’m able to bow to Hashem’s plan and recognize that what He has in mind is what’s right for me.

What made it so hard for me to get past my nightmarish trip was that I couldn’t come to terms with how nothing worked out the way I had planned: not being at Shani’s wedding, not enjoying a nice getaway with my husband, not returning from the trip refreshed and ready to turn over a new leaf. And so I experienced — and continued to relive — our multi-airport ordeal as a disaster, practically a trauma.

Today, I don’t feel that same need to control every aspect of my existence. I never thought I’d end up living in Zurich, but if Hashem put us here, I can adjust to that.

Come to think of it, our trip to my sister’s wedding did usher in a new, brighter season of our life. Only not in the way I planned.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 720)