Day 10 - Nearing the homestretch

Wed, October 12, 2022

Every day there’s some new challenges we weren’t anticipating. For the most part though we’ve been able to keep things moving forward as quickly as we can. We’re currently at the Hilton Garden Inn in New Delhi and have made it through the first major hurdle of the immigration process to bring Anandhi home.

We found out Monday evening that the passport was delivered to the orphanage, and they were arranging a driver to bring it to us in Chennai the next day. We scrambled to book a flight to New Delhil for Tuesday afternoon. You need about 3 business days minimum to get through the immigration appointments, and it takes at least that long to get the exit permit needed from the Indian government. We wanted to try and get things moving so that we could possibly be headed home this weekend instead of next week… Monday night was rough too, Anandhi had a few long crying fits and none of us got much sleep since we just had a single room. It looks like she is cutting a couple teeth and anytime she’s awake in a crib alone she cries. Likely since she was used to sleeping in a crib with several kids.

So we were very tired packing up and checking out of the hotel on Tuesday, Leah was starting to feel pretty run down with symptoms like I had a couple days earlier. It took us basically all morning to get packed because 1. We were slow moving, 2. We brought so much random stuff to keep the four of us appropriately fed, clothed, and entertained… Traveling with kids/babies just takes so much stuff. We headed to the airport in Chennai and without too many problems caught our flight and made it to New Delhi. It was only slightly confusing figuring out/remembering the nuances of Indian air travel. Fun things of note include:

- Separate men’s and women’s security lines where some woman refused to believe that Leah had an Indian baby without an Indian husband.

-There were no restaurants in the airport that took credit cards, I was out of Rupees with no ATM’s around and my food order prepared. Fortunately, some friendly guy took my $8 (US) that I had and paid for my meal in Rupees.

We survived it all and Anandhi’s first plane ride went just fine. Though the 3-hour flight is nothing compared to what it will be like when we head home.

Between landing and our first appointment this morning things got a bit crazy. After landing we realized that Ravi was burning up and running a fever. He had been enjoying looking out the plan window and watching shows on his tablet. Leah and I were busy keeping Anandhi entertained, and he didn’t say anything so we never noticed he might not be feeling well. It was about 8:15 when we got a taxi arranged and both kids passed out on the ride to the hotel. After everyone fell asleep I started gathering up the necessary documents for our morning appointment. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line we lost one of the notarized documents we needed. Fortunately, I learned that you can get documents notarized online 24/7 these days. So I had a mission to get that taken care of late last night/early this morning. When Ravi work up he was still running a fever a bit over 101, and Leah wasn’t feeling great either so we figured it was best for them to sit out as many of the errands as they could today.

To get Anandhi’s Visa to emigrate to the US, we have two major appointments that need to be completed. The first is a quick medical appointment and then we need to complete the Visa interview. The medical has to be completed first and thankfully does not require both parents so I was on my own for this first step. Again, Anu was amazingly helpful at getting us through the appointment. She arranged transportation and helped complete forms and manage paperwork. To make a long story short I really had almost no idea what was happening. The appointment was at a small clinic. I know all the adoption cases come through here, but they must do lots of other medical appointments for Indians emigrating to the US and maybe general healthcare as well. There were multiple counters that we had to go back and forth between. Sometimes I needed to produce a document, sometimes it was completing paperwork. I’m pretty sure Anu just kept jumping to the front of the line and handing the people at the desk our forms. It was hectic but we were only there about 20-30 minutes and I think it should have taken 2 or 3 hours if we had the expected wait at each step. On the way-out Anu told me, “These people don’t make me wait anymore since I’m here 3 or 4 times a month”. I felt a little guilty but was happy to be heading back, to check on Leah and Ravi.

After getting back to the hotel I gathered up all the paperwork needed for exit permits and sent them electronically to Anu. She “has a guy” who takes care of filing it on our behalf. It was like 20 some pages worth of documents we’ve gotten throughout the adoption process. By the time I finished that Anu was back to take Anandhi and me to get passport style photos of her taken that we apparently need for the immigration interview and her Visa to enter the US.

After that it was a pretty low key afternoon. Ravi and Leah both had gotten good naps in and were feeling a bit better. Eventually well enough that we were able to venture out to the mall and courtyard area attached to the hotel. After eating some dinner we had enough energy to get Ravi to the playground so he could do some monkey bars after. We could tell he was getting pretty stir crazy after the last few days.

That about catches you up on the process stuff. We have a pile of documents for our Visa interview at the US Embassy tomorrow morning. Lots of waiting around, but hopefully isn’t too difficult. But there will be some surprise, I’m sure.

I’ve spent most of the blog writing about our process and the mechanics of traveling and this adoption. There’s so much other stuff that I could, and maybe should, be writing about too. I’ve read that India’s a “place of extremes” and I think I’d agree. The weather, the culture, the people, the poverty, the pollution, the shear density of humanity, etc. It’s a lot to process even though we have been here before, and something that’s difficult to explain and have someone else appreciate. There’s so much poverty and it’s so in-your-face unlike anywhere else I’ve been. I try hard to take pictures and videos to share with the kids so they have a more complete idea of what the country is as they grow up. Obviously, now Ravi will have some memories, but so much of this is going over his head. Hopefully, they’ll both have more chances to come back and visit as he gets older. If I ever do get my thoughts organized, I’ll try and get them written down, or maybe I’ll just have to share them in person over a beer sometime.

Everyone else here is a asleep so I should head that way soon too. As always, we appreciate all the love and support we’ve gotten in the many forms it’s come.

-Ryan, Leah, Ravi, and Anandhi