Final Days and Recap

Wed, October 24, 2022

It took me well over a week to actually sit down and finish this post. I started it on our last full day in India (10/15) but things got so crazy and we were so exhausted after arriving home it took a while to carve out the time. We’ve been home a full week now and slowly starting to get into our routines. It’s been a roller coaster of emotions and there have been difficult stretches, but overall everything has been going as well as we could have hoped. I’ll start with a quick recap of our last few days in India and wrap up with some thoughts. I imagine this will be the last post, but we'll see. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so this will be a fairly long post...

The last few days of our trip were a bit more relaxing, though not without stressful moments.

We had our immigration interview at the embassy on Thursday morning. It's a whole feat to get into the embassy with the security and limitations on what you can bring in. We had to leave almost all our belongings in the car with the driver Anu arranged for us. We also couldn’t bring any electronics in, so I had to check it in with a small booth outside the embassy. Once inside the interview was pretty smooth. We bounced between a couple of counters and they asked about 5 or 6 questions about the adoption process and our family. We met another family from the US that was adopting and learned that there are 3 or 4 adoption cases most days at the embassy, so there are tons of families going through similar experiences to us. Then they sent us on our way and told us we could pick up Anandhi's passport with the entry visa in it and her immigration paperwork the next afternoon. So the rest of that day was spent at the hotel and adjoining mall. We hit the pool for a while and then walked around the mall. We grabbed some appetizers and drinks at Chili's (I know... we're in India eating at Chili's, but they lured us in with drink specials).

We thought the only thing we needed to do Friday was pick up Anandhi’s visa at the embassy in the afternoon. We'd later learn that we should probably have also been following up on our exit permits in the morning. Since we figured we had time to kill, we decided to do a little shopping for some keepsakes. I was able to get a driver and he took us out to a shop and a small local market. We picked out a few handmade items for the kids' rooms. I haggled on the prices, which I hate and am so bad at. But in the end, I saved us like 500 rupees... $6. We then ran over to the embassy and picked up the packet that we needed with Anandhi’s visa and immigration paperwork.

The last thing we needed before we could head home was our exit permits. These can be notoriously difficult for adoptive families. Things never go fast and there are extra steps needing coordination between a couple of government agencies, the FRRO (Foreigners Regional Registration Office) and CARA (Central Adoption Resource Authority). As part of the exit permit process, you need to provide your flight information so we booked flights for Sunday and applied as quickly as we could on Wednesday after arriving hoping everything would come together before we'd have to rebook flights. Saturday is typically a business day in India so we weren't too worried when we hadn't heard anything by Friday afternoon. We were trying to budget some time for a trip to the FRRO office Saturday if we didn't have the permits. However, at about 4:15 Friday afternoon we were messaging Anu and she informed us that the CARA offices were closed for the weekend starting at 5:30. If we didn't hear from them by the end of the day we wouldn't get our exit permit until at least Monday. To make a long story short, over about an hour we made about 20 calls (like 70% of the time you wouldn't get an answer and so you'd just hang up and call right back) to a few different offices. We also emailed a couple generic email addresses we could find on the FRRO website, and Anu called some of her contacts at CARA. I think I talked to the same woman on three or four phone calls over the span of about 10 minutes trying to confirm that they had everything they needed. The language barrier made things difficult and let's just say she was sick of talking to me. We pled our case and were able to get the permits issued a bit before 5:30. It was a stressful hour but we successfully navigated the bureaucracy and get our exit permits issued a few days quicker. I.e. we repeatedly begged whoever we could get to listen and eventually we found the right person.

Without anything else to worry about we had one totally free day with no paperwork and no appointments. So we decided to book a trip to see the Taj Mahal on Saturday. The trip was sold as a sunrise tour and it was about a 3-hour drive from Delhi to Agraz where the Taj is. The car picked us up at the hotel at 3 AM. This timing was a bit difficult to manage, but the kids slept most of the ride. and Leah and I did our best to get a couple of hours of rest. The Taj Mahal was so impressive and it was hard to believe what we were seeing. It's one of those things you've seen in pictures so many times I think your brain just refuses to believe it's real. The kids were less impressed, but we got lots of photos so that they can one day prove they were there. Ravi liked all the monkeys roaming the grounds the best. Maybe they'll go back later in life when they can appreciate it a little more. Also, if we ever get back, I think we'd love to take it in without having to manage young kids. After spending a couple of hours there we grabbed breakfast and hit the road back to Delhi by about 10. The drive back was rough. It was much longer with traffic and it was hot, not to mention the tired and hungry kids.

The rest of Saturday was spent packing and getting ready for a very early flight Sunday. Our flight left at 2:50 AM so it was a second consecutive day with a very early wakeup call… Or maybe I should say a late wakeup call since it was 11 PM.

Shortening the travel saga back home to a couple of sentences doesn't do the difficulty justice, but that's what I'm going to do. It was an incredibly exhausting 20+ hours of air travel and layovers. The kids were great though and just went with the flow. We all got some uncomfortable sleep (not nearly enough) and watched a few movies. Immigration and customs in Chicago was a tough wait, but we made it (barely). We met our friends Thomas and Sam who were nice enough to bring my car down to the airport. Saving us from $100's in parking costs or the misery of tacking on a 3-hour bus ride back to Madison.

Since we got home Sunday afternoon we've mostly been trying to get our rest, get healthy, and get on a routine. It's been rough at times. The jet lag really took a long time to get over, at least a full week. Neither Ravi nor Anandhi slept through the night for several nights. We were all waking up in the middle of the night hungry, waking up at 2:00, 3:00, or 4:00 in the morning, and trying to avoid falling asleep at the dinner table. Ravi went right back to school and managed well. He needed some routine after what we'd been through. He's a real trooper and in the frustrating moments need to remind myself just how resilient this 5-year-old is. Anandhi has been mostly happy and easygoing. Again, for how much has happened to her in her short life, it's amazing to see how she just keeps on adapting. She has some strong lungs though, and if she's not happy we know about it.

Over the last few days in India and since we've been home we've been reflecting on our trip. The trip felt quite a bit different than when we were in India to bring Ravi home. We had so much help this time around and had to fend for ourselves much less. It was great, but in some ways, it felt more like we observed India than we got to experience it. It's a bit hard to explain, but Leah and I both noticed in the last few days of our trip had a bittersweet feeling. We were so happy to be heading home, but it just felt like we missed out on some experiences we had hoped to have. Our trip felt like it was over in the blink of an eye; though some days and car rides felt like they would never end. It may not have really seemed like it, but things went remarkably smoothly, considering how many pieces needed to fall into place to get us home. We made tons of new family memories and obviously gained a new family member, so we'll never forget it.

With all that said, I do think we made the most of our time in India, especially given everything we were dealing with. It was hard navigating the adoption process, international travel, parenting, sickness, and exhaustion. Add in an infant who we didn't know yet to the mix and you're really just living minute to minute. All the paperwork, stress, time, money, and general pain were worth it though. We loved the food (Well some of us loved most of the food Ravi isn't going to be getting spicy food from Swad any time soon). The people we met were very friendly and excited to share their country and learn about ours. We've also seen so much of the natural and man-made beauty that the country has to offer.

One last thing, we've been calling our daughter Anandhi throughout the blog posts. This was the name she was given in the orphanage, we're going to keep it as her middle name. We've decided to give her a new first name of our choosing. It took some time, but we've settled on Nisha (pronounced like Nee-Sha). So welcome to the family Nisha. Since we got home she already had a chance to meet many family and friends in person. We can't wait for her to meet everyone else. So we'll see you all soon. We can't thank everyone enough for the gifts, meals, messages, time, and everything else they've given to us from the beginning to the end of this adoption process. I could go on and on, everyone has been so generous, but I'll spare you all an even longer post. Love you all.

-Ryan, Leah, Ravi, and Nisha