We Are Leaving Today!

Today is our last day in India. We leave tonight at around 9PM. Our plane will leave at 1:30 Am.
Yesterday we completed everything at the embassy after about 5 trips there. Finally everything is complete. We are ready to go.
Uma has terrible diarrhea today. IT is the type that literally covers her entirely in a matter of seconds and also requires a bath to clean it all up. It started yesterday, stopped in the evening and then came back this morning after she ate. The pediatrician had given me some medicine for her. I am praying it works - otherwise this travel will bring a new definition to the word hell!
Uma also has a fairly bad cold, which is also not an ideal situation for travel, and especially since this will be her first time on a plane, and she is a person who does not like to be confined anyway. The pediatrician gave me a decongestant that will also make her sleep. I gave her a dose last night and noticed that she seemed to wake up earlier than usual (which thwarted my packing plan). However, after her morning dose today, she threw one of those "I am really tired and really pissed off about it because there is still fun to be had" tantrums, and then when to sleep. She is still asleep now, so I thought I would quickly update the blog and get to my packing as since she is not feeling well, she is particularly clingy today and packing will otherwise prove difficult.
We spent most of our trip back and forth from the embassy and at the doctors, and so much to my chagrin, I hardly even saw New Delhi. After Uma wakes, if my packing is under control, we will go on a outing, our first and last for this trip.
Still, I am really eager to get home and start our routine there. There really is no place like home!

We have our Baby!

I was in such a frenzy to try to get ready, I literally had not a moment to spare to update this blogsite and clarify that yes were were leaving.
Well, we left and here I am right now, late at night (since I can only do anything for myself after Uma has gone to bed) writing from India. Our little girl is asleep in the room next to where I am writing. I have the door open so I can hear her if she calls out, which she frequently did the first few nights, and less as the days go on. She still reaches out to make sure that I am next to her and last night, in the middle of the night, she threw a literal tantrum because she had gone to sleep inbetween us and when she reached out on the side I am usually on, she found Adhipen instead.
She has bonded very deeply with me and is a literal velcro baby. She will not let anyone else touch her, including Adhipen. We were advised by the experts that we consulted that she needs to form a deep attachment to her mother first before anyone else, and so I have really been with her constantly with no one else to aid me.
In the embassy, she threw a terrible tantrum and screamed and cried so loudly that the officer had to ask us to do something about it. Adhipen had to take her since I was the one handling the embassy stuff. She was extremely unhappy about that. She is strong willed and very much a toddler with her own mind. That coupled with a background of abandonment and attachment issues makes her tantrums particularly intense. Thankfully, a technique I learned called "holding time" has seemed to work and as the days go by, it seems to take less time for me to calm her using this technique. Some of her tantrums are mixed with deep grief and so after she is finished, I have spent almost an equal amount of time holding her in a different way that the technique dictates and comforting her.
With each progressive day, we can see her coming out to be herself and feeling more secure.
Initially, I could not even go to the bathroom in peace as it would require me to set her down and this elicited shrieks and crying. Now, she feels safe enough that if I leave all doors open, she will sit quietly playing with her toys, and as long as she knows where I am and can hear me, she is not troubled.
She is very beautiful with huge dark brown eyes and the sweetest smile and expressions on her face. She has a birthmark that is right in the center of her 3rd eye, which Adhipen keeps remarking about. She babbbles constantly, and sings to herself alot. One of the words she loves to babble, is "um ma," which is pretty amazing! It is almost as if she knows that this will be her name someday soon.
She also seems to understand quite a bit of English. We were out the other night having dinner with some friends, and I was talking about her as she sat on my lap. She turned and looked up and put her hand over my mouth with a smile, as if to say, "stop speaking about me!"
Though I had learned some Hindi phrases, she and I have developed our own way of speaking to each other with signs and expressions. She shakes her head "no" if she does not want something, and points if she does.
She is extremely bright and catches on right away to whatever you show her. She used to scream when we would go into the elevator until she finaly became brave enough to push the button that Adhipen showed her how to do. After that, she was no longer afraid and remembered which button (out of many) it was that she had pushed to get us to our destination. She is also extremely sensitive.
She has an amazing appetite! I have never seen a child eat so much! She can down a meal that an adult would eat, and then be hungry a few hours later. We took her to a pediatrician today who said that she was trying to "catch up." Actually, today was the first day when she actually shook her head "no" when she was full. Otherwise, prior, she seemed to be a bottomless pit!
Because of her temper and her tantrums, I am really not looking forward to that plane ride home, I have to say! Still, she surprised me today with amazing behaviour when we took her to Apollo Hospital for a check up. I was stressing out from the crowds, the noise and the long waiting, but she was a calm as a cucumber the entire time, and barely even fussed when the doctor examined her. So maybe she will surprise me again, and I will be able to throw the word "dread" out!?
We had a bit of a problem at the embassy, with one of our paperwork having an error and requiring me to contact our social worker in the US to fax a correction. This, of course, happened on a Friday, and so I had the entire weekend to worry about it (which I refused to do!). We went to the embassy today and the fax had been received and so that part of the problem was solved. Everything else seems in order and so tomorrow, Uma and I will go to the embassy alone to do our interview and hopefully pick up the visa in the afternoon. I am a bit anxious to go without Adhipen, but while we need to go to the embassy, he has to go for a GI workup at the Apollo hospital. We decided to do that here as the cost is ridiculously low and the medical care is top quality.
India is intense and amazing. We are staying a the most wonderful bed and breakfast. Uma's angels sure were at work when they found us this place! The owners, Sudhir and Aruna have literally treated us like family. They have bought gifts for Uma, have fed us so well that it is as if our owhelped Adhipen locate copper cups that he sells on his website and could not get any longer from South India. We have had the run of their home, which has really, really helped in terms of my bonding with Uma (lots of space for us to play in) and our comfort, in general. We have had a driver to take us anywhere we need to go and Adhpen has had a cell phone. Right across the street is a Goddess temple where we went to pray and given mother were here, and make food for us to take out during the day for the baby. They paid for my doctor's visit (he made a house call to us) as I had a cough that was relentless and worsening due to the enormous stress of the trip and the lack of rest, and they thanks just before we went to pick up Uma.
I would really love to write more, but our little girl went to be around 7,. and though she sleeps a good long sleep, I have a feeling she will wake me up nice and early and I will be on with her until bedtime the next night. Welcome to motherhood! :)
I will close now, and write more when we get home.

We Have Our Tickets!

We are traveling to India! We leave on December 28 and will stop in Washington, DC to visit my dear friend Neha, who also adopted from India. She lives in Virginia. She is like a sister to me, and I have not seen her in a year. The tickets were actually less expensive to do it this way. We will then leave from Washington, and are off to India! We are traveling via Air France, have a few hours in Paris, and then arrive in India, January 2 at about 11PM. Hopefully, God willing, we will be with Uma the next day!
I am now running around like mad trying to get everything done!
I will post more updates as they come in!

We are going to India!

Well, after several days of not knowing, and a bittersweet Thanksgiving (since Uma was supposed to be home by then), we finally confirmed the news today that the order was given and we have been granted custody!
December 5, the judge is supposed to sign the written order and then it takes about a week or so for the court to scrutinize and copy everything and then the written order is sent to the orphanage where the lawyer there will apply for Uma's passport. We are told that it will be best that we travel sometime after Christmas and so we are now in the process of trying to arrange plane tickets and hotel accommodations for a very busy time to travel! We are praying that we will be able to get it done and travel as close to Christmas as possible.
I will post again once our travel dates are set.

We Don't Know Anything Yet....

Our court hearing was supposed to be November 21 (which was last night, India time).
We eagerly called our agency this morning. He, in turn, immediately called his contact in India. She said that she had heard that the lawyer had called in ill, but did not know if he had sent a replacement or not. So she said that she would try to find out and let our agency know.
Yikes!! :(((((

Another Angel in Uma Aakriti's Life!

Uma has been blessed with the love of Anne, who has been looking after her and showering her with attention and affection. Today, another angel entered her life, though, thankfully, it only needed to be for a brief encounter. That angel is Dr. Amit Singal.

Dr. Amit (as we have been calling him) left his busy job at government hospital (and Adhipen says that the goverment hosipital MDs are the best because of the numbers of cases they see on a daily basis) which was far from Uma's orphanage to go and examine her on our behalf. He had to go during his working hours, though originally he preferred to go on Sunday, his day off, because the orphanage rules were that he could only go between 9-5 on weekdays. He accomodated to their rules and went yesterday (our last night). He refused to take any payment from us. He felt it was his "duty" because Uma is an orphan and because we are adopting her.

Dr. Amit found Uma Aakriti to be in good health with all milestones met for her age except for speech. He said that to have one milestone unmet was not a concern. He also found her to be malnourished with a protein deficiency. She does not have alopecia (hair loss in patches) but her hair is thin and lacks luster, probably due to being malnourished. Though he did not look at the past medical records, her weight /height was only slightly under the norm for her age, and so he was not concerned about it.

Dr. Amit said that she was responsive to him, smiled and made eye contact and was able to run and even climb the stairs with some help (and even without help when she was determined to go visit Anne as per Anne's last e-mail to us :))

We were very relieved by Dr. Amit's report, and very grateful to him for his kindness and his humanity. He is what I would consider a true healer! We will always consider him one of Uma's angels. :)

Life Line Cut! :((((

Yesterday we received a devastating mail from Anne telling us that she no longer would be able to communicate with us. I had told our adoption agency about our concerns regarding Aakriti's emotional health during the time that Aakriti was pulling away from Anne. Since she has Failure to Thrive syndrome, and that can lead to cognitive damage, when she reacted this way towards Anne, we all, including Anne, became extremely worried.

Our agency expressed their concern to the orphanage who in turn got extremely angry at Anne for communicating with us. Apparently she is not supposed to speak to anyone outside of the orphanage about business within the orphanage, including and especially parents. I suppose that this is to keep problems from arising, which can happen when emotions are high (and they are about as high as they can get when you are waiting for your child and are powerless to do anything).

We are extremely sad about it because we were so enjoying the communication, not just because Anne is such a wonderful person, but also because she really was giving us a picture of what our little girl was like.

On Monday, we had received a wonderful mail from Anne telling us that Aakriti was doing well and that she and Anne had been spending alot of time together. Anne told us that Aakriti had gone from her second floor quarters up to the third floor, where Anne's bedroom is, and when Anne opened the door to go out, she was surprised to find our little Aakriti standing there waiting for her! Adhipen and I were so touched by this story. It made our whole day.

There is no doubt that we will miss our correspondence with Anne immensely! I used to leave my computer on at night just so that I could wake up early and check to see if Anne had written. She made our wait somewhat bearable giving us a beautiful light to look forward to, and now we are left in the dark again.

We were planning with Anne to get blankets for every child in the orphanage. We were also going to get each child's name sewn into it, so that he/she would have something that he/she owned by name and could cuddle up with at night. Anne had obtained permission from her superior and we were going to start a campaign whereby everyone we knew could donate one blanket. It would have been fun, and something wonderful to do. Now I do not know how to go about doing it without her. :(((

Really, we are extremely sad. I have tears in my eyes as I write this :(((((

Getting to Know You....

The children at the orphange are extremely, extremely blessed to have a wonderful person like Anne who is there to love them, play with them and offer them gentleness, kindness and stimulation in the form of playing, loving touch, singing and music. There is no question that she will make a tremendous impact on their lives.

However, she is also a blessing for us as parents. Not only is she providing invaluable attention to our child, but she is a voice for us so that we may get to know our child before we even get to hold her in our arms. Through her mails, I am already getting to know my little girl.

I had written her some questions about Uma Aakriti and from her answers, we can begin to know our child. I will refer to her as Aakriti in this post since that is what she is called now, and that the the name Anne knows her by.

It seems that Aakriti makes alot of eye contact with Anne, both when she is happy and she is sad. When she is feeling happy, she looks at Anne and when Anne looks back, Aakriti gives her a sweet smile.

None of the children have toys of their own. When Anne comes, she takes the toys out to play with them with the children. All of the children like to listen to music and when she plays the radio, Aakriti likes to dance a little to the music. I can only imagine how cute that must look! With no toys to play with on her own, Aakriti has very cleverly made a toy out of a little chair that she moves around and then climbs up on.

When Ann is there, she takes out Legos and all of the children, including Aakriti, really like to play with them. Aakriti especially likes the Lego toys that are animal figures and she holds them and looks at them alot. She also likes to look at what the older children are doing and playing and imitate them. One time, Anne was playing some acrobatic games with an older girl. When she was done, Aakriti came to her, took Anne's hands and placed her feet on Anne's legs just like the older girl had done.

Aakriti loves to have her belly tickled and she loves to be held and danced with. She is definitely in the right family when it comes to dance! There will be no shortage of that for her with me!! :)

Apparently Aakriti also loves chocolate. If she its it on her own, she literally gets it all over herself. A bath in chocolate...hmmmm....definitely something her Uncle Jason would relate to, and unfortunately for me (I am into healthy eating), between her daddy and grammy, confired chocoholics, I think that she will be well taken care of in the chocolate department, at least behind my back!

In addition to tickling, she loves other sensory games like having her neck puffed on (this is what they are playing in the video). And Anne says that Aakriti is really happy when someone talks to her and shows her things. She also likes to play chase with the other children, as long as no one runs her down. She doesn't like that too much, but then who would? :)

If Aakriti gets upset or is sad, Anne sings a song for her to calm her down and it does calm her. I thinks that Aakriti really like music and singing. I bet she will even like Grammy's singing! That is one of the great things about being a grandma. Grammy's grandkids don't realize it when she sings the songs wrong! They just feel the love that she is singing with, and that makes the music for them (for those of you reading who don't know this, Grammy is quite tone deaf).

Though at 18 months, Aakriti is not talking, she does make baby sounds such as "tha, him, de" and so on, so she is trying. Anne feels that alot of the children in the orphanage have developmental delays because they are not getting the love and security of having their own family.

Anne has been speaking English to Aakriti since she knows that Aakriti will be coming to California.

Aakriti knows her name well and responds to it when she is called. So we will very slowly and gently be transitioning her into the name Uma. I just can't imagine how it would be to have your entire world turned upside down, even your name! We will definitely be getting the guidance of a therpist and/or parenting coach to help us make the changes lovingly and sensitively.

She does not have her own bed and sleeps whereever with the other children. I wonder if she has to struggle for a space at times? This, then, will call for sensitivity too. As per Indian tradition, and the parenting style of attachment therapy (as well as advice from other adoptive parents), Aakriti will sleep with us. However, I think that I will also get her her own bed that we will sidecar next to our bed so that she knows that she has her own bed too, if she wants to be there.

Anne was so very kind to take the time to write to us in detail to help us know our daughter. After reading her mail, I had this feeling that I had been starving and she just gave me a satisfying meal. The only problem is that now I am hungry for more!

This truely is for me, the most difficult part of the entire adoption journey. We are so close and yet so far. Thanks to this Divine being Anne, the waiting can be a bit more bearable.

Doing Our Homework Now

After Adhipen returned from India, we got some mails from Anne reporting that Aakriti's physical and emotional state had worsened. She even began to withdrawn from Anne and would bite and pinch her to get away. Anne was so upset! So were we!

It seems now, that she has calmed down with Anne, and hopefully that will last, but it really pointed out the need for us to do something now with regard to getting more tools on attachment issues with children who have undergone trauma or who have been in institutions.

I have begun to read some books about it, and we are searching out a therapist who can counsel us on how best to approach Aakriti so as not to futher traumatize her by the intense change of leaving the orphanage and coming to the US with us. I found a wonderful website (see the link center) that has been a rich resource for me.

An extremely kind person named Shilpa, has offered to teach me some Hindi words that we can say to Uma to help her feel more comfortable with us in the beginning. So nowI can say a few things in Hindi. :) My dear friend Neha, who speaks mainly Gugarati, said I had a great accent! :) Adhipen could not understand a word, but then he speaks Tamil.

We have decided not to keep calling the lawyer. He is starting to get annoyed with us. Instead, we will just call our adoption agency once a week and pray for progress in the courts. In the meantime, doing this homework to get ready for Uma's homecoming does help.