Delhi and Last Days in India
The day after Vennela's birthday, we finally received our written court order naming us as Vennela's parents! We celebrated with our friends Jay and Heather, who got theirs the same day, and with DJ and Amy, who finally had a court date scheduled. S, P and Vennela were quite the hilarious trio.
We then cajoled the child welfare workers to hustle through the last bit of paperwork so we could head to Delhi for Vennela's visa. We go the court order Tuesday, if we could get her passport before the weekend, that meant we could head to Delhi and get going on the series of appointments needed: multiple days of medical tests required of immigrants, visa interview at the US embassy, and exit permit from India. If we didn't get it until Monday, due to weekends and holidays this meant being in India several more days, so we were so eager to get it Friday. This meant us sitting in the passport office for hours trying to entertain a very squirrely four-year-old, but it was all worth it when we got her passport at 5:30 pm! We raced off to the child welfare office to get the original of the court order (they wouldn't release it until we had the passport) and then over to the orphanage to get her birth affidavit, and finally got to our hotel at 8 pm. We looked up flights to Delhi for that night, and there was one leaving at 11:30 pm, so Geoff threw our belongings in our suitcases as I frantically tried to book flights and hotel. The hotel we had planned to use was full, but after searching around I managed to find rooms in a hotel right in the same area. The flights were a different story. I tried several different websites and could not for the life of me get the flights booked. At this point we needed to head to the airport to have any hope of making the flight, so we decided to just race there and give it a shot. After all our bad luck with the court order delayed, today seemed to be our lucky day- we arrived at the airport and the flight was delayed, giving us just enough time to book the flights and get on!
Our luck ran out when Vennela woke up on the plane. She had stayed passed out even through being transferred from the car to the carrier on my back, trekking all through the airport and security, so we just left her in there and hoped she'd stay asleep when we put her in her seat.
She did not. She woke up and was understandably terrified to be in this dark, loud giant thing. In hindsight, it was not our best parenting decision, but we were running on fumes at that point. She screamed her way through take-off until we were high enough that she could sit on Geoff's lap, then she passed back out until landing, and screamed her way through that. We landed at 2 am, got a cab to the hotel and passed out in bed together.
Saturday morning we got up early and started the first day of medical appointments for Vennela. Sunday was a day off, then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday all had morning appointments. In the afternoons we just spent our time having very low key days. We were all just plain tired at this point in the trip. Remember how our favorite hang-out place in Hyderabad was the mall? Well in Delhi our hotel was attached to the mall! We didn't even have to go outdoors to get there. In our defense, this was partially an intentional choice because of the horrible pollution in Delhi; it was already bad in Hyderabad, usually around 180 (Seattle folk, this is where the air was during the Canadian wildfires last summer), in Delhi, it was routinely around 450. The chart caps out at 500, so suffice it to say it was really bad. We wanted to limit our time in it, and the hotel was also close to where we had to go for the daily medical appointments. In a boon for our all-things-Christmas obsessed girl, the mall still had tons of Christmas decorations up, including a giant Christmas tree made of lights and ornaments that you could walk inside. She was in awe of this non-stop "Christmas party."
Some of the highlights included Vennela's first time swimming! Since finding her swimsuit in her suitcase back in Hyderabad, she had been asking to go swimming, so when we got to our hotel in Delhi (which had a pool) we knew we had to go swimming. Vennela was over the moon. We got out on the pool deck and she just looks at the pool, throws her arms out and goes "This is swimming?" We told her yes, and she clenches her little hands in fists, laughs maniacally, and trots off down the pool deck.
Thursday we had our appointment at the US embassy to get her visa. It was pretty sobering to see the huge crowd of people waiting outside in hopes of getting in, while we waltzed into the US citizens line. Our country is so, so far from perfect, but it was a reminder of the privilege we have being born here, a privilege from just sheer luck. We were able to get her visa the same day, which was a pleasant surprise, and then we jetted off to get the exit permit- not for Vennela, for us. It's a kind of strange step that no one really seems to understand, but thankfully WACAP had just hired someone in Delhi to help families with paperwork there, and Susantha basically carried our weary bodies through the process. I won't bore anyone with the details here, but if you're an India family and want the rundown, comment and I'm happy to give you the scoop. For past families it had taken up to three days to get this approval, so after the delays in Hyderabad when we had to push our flights out, we had booked them home for Tuesday night, thinking we should be safe. Thanks to Susantha, we had everything we needed, and they told us Thursday that the exit permits would be ready on Friday! Sweet Brenda at Adoption Airfare rescheduled our flights home AGAIN (I cannot recommend them enough if you are traveling for adoption) so that we could fly home Saturday instead! After all the delays, getting home a few days sooner was the biggest gift.
After Vennela's traumatic first flight, she surprised us by traveling like a champ. Our flight left at 11:30 pm, so we kept her up until we boarded so she could see what was happening (and we did a lot of prep with photos and videos in the days leading up to the flight). She sat down, buckled her seatbelt, and passed out before the plane even took off. She slept for the first 8 hours of the 15 hour flight!
All trying to get their hands in the cracker jar at once
We then cajoled the child welfare workers to hustle through the last bit of paperwork so we could head to Delhi for Vennela's visa. We go the court order Tuesday, if we could get her passport before the weekend, that meant we could head to Delhi and get going on the series of appointments needed: multiple days of medical tests required of immigrants, visa interview at the US embassy, and exit permit from India. If we didn't get it until Monday, due to weekends and holidays this meant being in India several more days, so we were so eager to get it Friday. This meant us sitting in the passport office for hours trying to entertain a very squirrely four-year-old, but it was all worth it when we got her passport at 5:30 pm! We raced off to the child welfare office to get the original of the court order (they wouldn't release it until we had the passport) and then over to the orphanage to get her birth affidavit, and finally got to our hotel at 8 pm. We looked up flights to Delhi for that night, and there was one leaving at 11:30 pm, so Geoff threw our belongings in our suitcases as I frantically tried to book flights and hotel. The hotel we had planned to use was full, but after searching around I managed to find rooms in a hotel right in the same area. The flights were a different story. I tried several different websites and could not for the life of me get the flights booked. At this point we needed to head to the airport to have any hope of making the flight, so we decided to just race there and give it a shot. After all our bad luck with the court order delayed, today seemed to be our lucky day- we arrived at the airport and the flight was delayed, giving us just enough time to book the flights and get on!
Our luck ran out when Vennela woke up on the plane. She had stayed passed out even through being transferred from the car to the carrier on my back, trekking all through the airport and security, so we just left her in there and hoped she'd stay asleep when we put her in her seat.
She did not. She woke up and was understandably terrified to be in this dark, loud giant thing. In hindsight, it was not our best parenting decision, but we were running on fumes at that point. She screamed her way through take-off until we were high enough that she could sit on Geoff's lap, then she passed back out until landing, and screamed her way through that. We landed at 2 am, got a cab to the hotel and passed out in bed together.
Saturday morning we got up early and started the first day of medical appointments for Vennela. Sunday was a day off, then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday all had morning appointments. In the afternoons we just spent our time having very low key days. We were all just plain tired at this point in the trip. Remember how our favorite hang-out place in Hyderabad was the mall? Well in Delhi our hotel was attached to the mall! We didn't even have to go outdoors to get there. In our defense, this was partially an intentional choice because of the horrible pollution in Delhi; it was already bad in Hyderabad, usually around 180 (Seattle folk, this is where the air was during the Canadian wildfires last summer), in Delhi, it was routinely around 450. The chart caps out at 500, so suffice it to say it was really bad. We wanted to limit our time in it, and the hotel was also close to where we had to go for the daily medical appointments. In a boon for our all-things-Christmas obsessed girl, the mall still had tons of Christmas decorations up, including a giant Christmas tree made of lights and ornaments that you could walk inside. She was in awe of this non-stop "Christmas party."
Some of the highlights included Vennela's first time swimming! Since finding her swimsuit in her suitcase back in Hyderabad, she had been asking to go swimming, so when we got to our hotel in Delhi (which had a pool) we knew we had to go swimming. Vennela was over the moon. We got out on the pool deck and she just looks at the pool, throws her arms out and goes "This is swimming?" We told her yes, and she clenches her little hands in fists, laughs maniacally, and trots off down the pool deck.
When it came to actually getting in the water she was pretty nervous, but the pool had a ledge a couple feet wide with an inch or two of water on it, so we started off just walking on that, then sitting down, and putting our feet in the water. The water was also freezing as it was winter in India, but I finally bit the bullet and hopped in and carried Vennela around. She was in heaven, and stayed in until her teeth were chattering.
Thursday we had our appointment at the US embassy to get her visa. It was pretty sobering to see the huge crowd of people waiting outside in hopes of getting in, while we waltzed into the US citizens line. Our country is so, so far from perfect, but it was a reminder of the privilege we have being born here, a privilege from just sheer luck. We were able to get her visa the same day, which was a pleasant surprise, and then we jetted off to get the exit permit- not for Vennela, for us. It's a kind of strange step that no one really seems to understand, but thankfully WACAP had just hired someone in Delhi to help families with paperwork there, and Susantha basically carried our weary bodies through the process. I won't bore anyone with the details here, but if you're an India family and want the rundown, comment and I'm happy to give you the scoop. For past families it had taken up to three days to get this approval, so after the delays in Hyderabad when we had to push our flights out, we had booked them home for Tuesday night, thinking we should be safe. Thanks to Susantha, we had everything we needed, and they told us Thursday that the exit permits would be ready on Friday! Sweet Brenda at Adoption Airfare rescheduled our flights home AGAIN (I cannot recommend them enough if you are traveling for adoption) so that we could fly home Saturday instead! After all the delays, getting home a few days sooner was the biggest gift.
After Vennela's traumatic first flight, she surprised us by traveling like a champ. Our flight left at 11:30 pm, so we kept her up until we boarded so she could see what was happening (and we did a lot of prep with photos and videos in the days leading up to the flight). She sat down, buckled her seatbelt, and passed out before the plane even took off. She slept for the first 8 hours of the 15 hour flight!
Socks and sandals became a favorite look for her
After she woke up she lasted pretty well watching Daniel Tiger on the kindle, until the last couple hours. I don't blame her, I was antsy too. We had a layover in New Jersey that was just long enough to get through customs and immigration, buy some snacks and get to the gate to board, then a six hour flight home, and we all slept through most of it.
We finally arrived home in Seattle. It was unreal. Our sweet neighbors picked us up and made us a lasagna, and several of our friends had decorated, filled our fridge and pantry, baked treats, left presents- it was the sweetest homecoming.
And then it was just learning how to be a family, which has been an adventure all its own.
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