Two Hearts of Mine

My travel to Ind*a and the prep for it all seems like such a blur now. It all happened so quick, despite the anticipation and wait all along. The reason was that the unpredictability of adoption makes most parents put a shield around their heart, as I did to my poor heart as well. It is so sad to think about how I was afraid to be happy and excited, just in case something went wrong. I did not want to even start preparing for travel. In fact, I held off on any of the travel shopping too till I was 200% sure. Usually I am easily excited, but close to my travel time, I found myself extremely calm! That was new for me and I am not really sure why that was the case.

Once my tickets were booked, I allowed myself to be a bit excited. We shared our news with our extended circle of friends. Our family and close inner circle of friends could breathe a sigh of relief at this point. The day we all anticipated would soon be here! I had a week and a half left before I flew to my baby girl. I wondered how she was being prepared for this by the orphanage staff. I wondered if she listened to the recorded storybook that we sent her. I wondered if she looked at the photo book with all of our photos. I wondered if the staff pointed to our photos and told her who her mummy, daddy and brother were.

I had decided that I would not do any shopping till my tickets were booked. I went through many of the blogs for a list of things to take with me. I guess I over shopped and did not use many of the items, so when I came back, I had to take them back and return them to the store as I never needed them. I made sure I kept the receipts with me and was able to get about $60 back after I returned the items.

After receiving the guardianship written order I was allowed to work out the details of my stay at the orphanage, directly with them. I think this was more because the country coordinator was going to be out of the office and I needed to get things coordinated soon, and this was the best option. So during the few weeks prior to travel, I was able to speak with some of the orphanage staff. I was able to get some updates on my baby girl too. They gave me her shoe size and her dress size. They told me how much she weighed and how tall she was. That helped me with her diaper/pull-up size, etc. I realized that in my head I imagined her to be much younger than what she really was. She was far more independent than I thought. I learned that she likes fruits, so I was able to take some Gerber graduates snacks. I was thankful for being able to call them and learn of her likes and dislikes. Those last few weeks of communicating with them was a blessing when it came time for my travel and mental preparation. It really helped me get a better idea of what she was like. On one of my calls with them, she happened to be in the same room, and they tried to put her on the phone hoping that she would talk. They asked her to blow me a kiss and I heard a faint voice saying "Umma" followed by the sound of phone dial being pressed... by my daughter! Oh, my heart stopped! How beautiful that "Umma" sounded to me! Even the pressing of the phone dial sounded pretty awesome. The whole world could have stopped at that moment... What a wonderful feeling it was... Since we were not given any videos of her, and very few photo updates, it was amazing to hear her voice. The more I heard about her, the more familiar she became to me, and I felt closer to her, if that makes any sense at all. I think it really contributed to the comfort level I felt with her when I met for for the very first time. I imagined my heart would beat out of my chest when I met her, but to my surprise, that's not what happened at all...

   

Continued...

#8. Once the orphanage received the NOC, they filed for guardianship in the local/regional court on July 16th. The guardianship hearing with the judge was on August 24th and the written guardianship order was received on September 5th. At this point, our agency gave us permission to communicate with the orphanage as we made plans for my stay/travels etc.


#9. Once the orphanage had the written guardianship order in hand, they applied for her passport. The passport was issued on October 8th. Yay!!! The final step, or so I thought...

#10. I was supposed to get my clearance to travel at this point, but sometime toward the end of August, my local home study agency indicated that I should really get one more document from the local county courts that essentially is their version of NOC. Guess what, as with everything adoption, another hitch arose. Our medicals and background clearances required for submission to the county courts were expired and needed to be redone. All that took about a month and a half in parallel with the rest of the paperwork going on in Ind*a. That document finally was approved on October 16th. We were never asked for the document anywhere, but it just gave us the peace of mind of having all the documents in place. Honestly, I could easily have been upset that this was allowed to be expired, but then that would not make things right again, so I made a conscious effort to not be mad/annoyed at the situation, and rather got working on it at lightening speed. See what adoption teaches you?!!!

#11. Over the next couple of days, I chalked out my travel plans to and within India and on October 19th booked the flights. Thankfully I had family in Ind*a that helped me to book my domestic tickets within Ind*a.


#12. On October 19th, the agency emailed (and cc-d me) the US embassy for the visa appointment. We requested it such that we could have the medical appointment on Monday Nov 5th; the TB test could be read on Wednesday Nov 7th and I could pick up the confidential packet the same day; and have the visa interview the next day morning, Thursday Nov 8th. Since it was the weekend when the agency sent the email, we received a response on Tuesday October 23rd with a confirmation of my appointment date as we had requested.


#13. I had to take a notarized power of attorney signed by Daddy J, as he was staying back home with Brother J and I was traveling alone. The agency advised us to take it, in case the US embassy asked for it. They did not, but I was glad that I still had it.  


#14. I was all set to travel, Finally!!! I left on October 29th and we returned home on Nov 14th.

Continuing....

#4. As soon as our agency found that our i-800 was approved, they emailed the DS-230 (application for immigrant visa and alien registration) to the US embassy in Delhi on June 15th. US embassy responded back right away (within 12 hours!) acknowledging the email and application and photo that the agency sent them. The response time and efficiency of USCIS has been extremely impressive.

#5. In the meantime, the National Visa Center (NVC) transmitted the i-800 provisional visa approval to the embassy in New Delhi. This allows the Embassy to now issue the article 5 to C*RA. I was told that this article 5 tells C*RA that the US government has approved "provisional" visa for the child.

 #6. On June 22nd, a week after the agency had sent the email to the embassy with the visa application, I received an email from the embassy indicating that the article 5 was sent to C*RA. They had scanned a copy of the article 5 as well. At this point, things seemed to be going quickly and it was all so exciting. This is what the email read:


U.S. Embassy, New Delhi, India"
#7. I was told that at this point C*RA will start processing the file for  No Objection Certificate (NOC). It is "supposed" to take 15 working days to issue an NOC for a child with special needs. But I was warned by my program coordinator that this is the most unpredictable stage, and can take several weeks and sometimes even months to come through. Thankfully, exactly 15 working days from the article 5, on July 12th, the agency emailed me to say that the NOC was approved by C*RA.  I have heard of NOCs being issued in 1 week, and even one day! On the other hand, there are many still waiting for months for the NOC approval. Every time I think of this stage, I pray for those parents (some of them my friends) stuck and waiting in this stage. This wait is so very tough and I hope that this stage will be streamlined well for quick and efficient approval of NOCs.

The agency asked me to anticipate 2-3 months before I could travel. They sent me travel notes! I was so excited to read through it. I have been to India many times to visit family and had decided that I was going to skip all the vaccination recommendations, and I did perfectly fine. Perhaps I retained some immunity from my younger days spent in Ind*a.

.... to be continued.

Honestly, this back story compulsion of mine has become a monkey on my back. I think I have OCD, which makes me want to go back and document all of this. Well, part of it is that following other people's timeline during their journey helped me hang in tight as we went through the difficult stages of waiting these past few years. So I want to do the same for others that are reading my blog and are waiting for their babies to come home.

Here are some of the basic forms on the US end that are required:

i-800a: USCIS determines if the family is suitable to adopt a child within the parameters indicated by the home study.

Supplement 3 to i-800A: Requesting to make changes/adjustment to the existing i-800a, including age of child, special needs, etc.

i-800: Based on the i-800a approval/adjustment, the family is given provisional approval for visa for a specific child. National Visa Center (NVC) will send this approval to New Delhi embassy so they can issue the article 5 to C*RA


i-864: Affidavit of support that shows that we (sponsor) can financially support our child. I think this is routine for most general immigrant visa applications.  This is sent along with the i-800 application.

When we received the referral for our sweet baby girl, our home study and i-800a were not approved for "special needs".  The worrier that I was/am, I went into anxiety overdrive. I did not know then, that sometimes families may not even have their home study (HS) ready when they find their baby on the waiting children's list. Thankfully, our HS agency and our international adoption agency had a conference call and helped chalk out a plan.

#1. We needed to update my home study

#2. Submit my supplement 3 for my previously approved i-800a so it could be updated to include special needs.

We got to work quickly on getting our home study updated and also send off our supplement 3 that would make changes to our existing i-800a. Even though our i-800a was just approved few weeks ago, the supplement 3 was required and the fee for it was $360. At this point, none of it mattered, I just wanted to get things moving so we could bring home our daughter!

We looked into the possibility of sending in the supplement 3 and the i-800 application at the same time, but then decided to err on the side of caution and do things in the correct order so as to not disrupt any particular flow that USCIS may have. USCIS officer also recommended the same.

#3. As we waited for the newly approved i-800a to arrive, I worked on the rest of the dossier, i-800 and i-864 application and sent it out to the agency.  Once the i-800a changes were approved, the agency mailed out the i-800 and the i-864 forms to USCIS.

Between the HS update and approval, the i-800a supplement 3 approval and the i-800 approval, it took about 2 months time. I know that this is a long tie to wait, but somehow the time flew by so fast, probably because of all the paperwork that needed to be completed. I really had to trust that this will all take the customary time frame. I had already waited for so long, since June 2009. I had to remind myself that we were nearing the end of this chapter soon.

Continued....

Just recently we celebrated Brother J's ninth birthday. Over the years, we have made mistakes, learned from them, grown tremendously as parents and most of all, enjoyed every bit of this adventure. It has been a beautiful journey that we have been privileged to embark upon. I know we will continue to learn things, and have different experiences with each of our children.

We are so blessed to have been chosen to start our parenting journey with such a wonderful child who truly has a heart of gold. He made things so easy on us right from the beginning. As new parents, we often remarked that if all babies came this way, we could have a dozen of 'em back to back to back! HA HA! Even when it came to adoption and adjusting to it, both of our children have been truly a dream. She really went with the flow, and he has been very kind, patient, understanding and very loving with his sister. Sure he has the usual, normal, annoying big brother habits.  But when she needs him, he is right beside her, taking care care of her and teaching her new things and showering her with his affection. Early on in the adoption journey it was clear to us how his unselfish, gentle and loving nature would make him a great big brother to his new sister/brother.


Brother J wanted to do two things for his birthday. He wanted to skip the usual children's party places this year, in favor of a party at home with our close group of friends, and also go to a indoor water park. We managed to do both! But due to scheduling reasons we had to have the party a day before his actual birthday, which is usually a big No-No in the Ind*an culture.


Most Indi*ns do not celebrate things ahead of time. I am not sure the exact reason why. My guess is to not celebrate too early. In our home too, that's how it works for the most part. However, we had set up Brother J's room and crib well before the due date. That almost never happens in Ind*a. Especially with birthdays, the party always comes after the actual birthday. We had some of our friends over for dinner, about 15 children and 15 adults. Sister J got along well with the kids and played with them as she is now familiar with them, having seen them at other weekend family parties. The older kids played on the Wii upstairs, while we the parents stayed downstairs eating, chatting, and watching and dancing to the Bollywood songs. This is quite typical of our family weekend parties, and it usually goes late in to the night, and the kids are also used to it by now. If a party ends early, the kids wonder what is wrong. Sister J surprisingly stayed up too. Our friends helped out with Sister J while I set up the food buffet etc. She is such a trooper! For the first time, I managed to cook all the food for the night in large quantities. I must admit, I was a bit nervous especially about the amount etc., but it turned out ok. I had made fried idly for appetizer, chicken curry, eggplant curry, cabbage curry, mixed vegetables curry, papadam, Kerala-yogurt-kadhi dish and sambhar to go with the rice. We ordered some delicious home made chapati too. The kids of course got their pizza and mac-n-cheese as well. 

Our friends insisted that we wait till after midnight to cut his cake, just so we are not celebrating "early". We gladly agreed and soon after midnight Brother J cut his ice cream cake. That's right, in the middle of winter, ice cream cake. Don't ask! By the time the last guest left home, it was around 2 am. Again, this is not very unusual in most of our Ind*an family parties, unless it is a school night, of course. Our friends helped with washing the party serving dishes and even had a small assembly line to pack the food in ziplock bags. I froze some of the left over food for a later time and many of the friends took some food home as well.

The next morning we all woke up late of course, sat around in our pajamas and sang the "Happy Birthday" song to Brother J. I made Sister J repeat the words too. Usually she repeats the single words in the same tune, but not the correct sounds. She hardly puts two words together. So we were pleasantly surprised when she actually strung not 2, but 3 words together. She had a sentence! WooHoo! We all cheered and encouraged her along. She has since then been walking around singing "K-appy to you, K-appy to you" over and over again.  I was so thrilled, out came the video camera to capture yet another one of her "firsts", and most importantly because this first sentence was for her brother. What a wonderful gift she gave her brother. My heart is all swollen up with joy and pride and oh so much love for these two sweet babies! 


Happy Birthday Brother J. You will always be my baby boy no matter what number birthday we celebrate.