Hurry Up and Wait - Reading up on Parenting!

This whole year we weren't anxious about the timing but now that our tickets are purchased and all the logistics are set, the days don't seem to be going by fast enough! Luckily we have several books, including a 500 page book on parenting an internationally adopted child to keep us busy! In all seriousness, I do recommend the book highly to anyone adopting internationally; it's called "Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child: From Your First Hours Together Through the Teen Years" by Patty Cogen. Our social worker recommended the book and another couple we spoke to who adopted a beautiful little girl (http://www.zaleeya.blogspot.com/) from India and they also highly recommended it.


The reading materials have been very interesting....Ryan and I have discovered that process of attaching/bonding is so delicate that it's perfectly ok to do things that perhaps you might consider "spoiling" with your own biological child. For instance, we plan to sleep with Bela for a while; her room is big enough for her crib and a queen bed so we're keeping that in place for now. She is used to having caretakers sleep in the same room as her so we have to be delicate about letting her feel very safe when she gets here. We also need to be very attentive when she is upset or throws a tantrum and cater to her every need during that time so she feels totally comfortable and safe with us. The book gives great advice about how to go about teaching her discipline through positive reinforcement. Negative words and "no's" are ok but should be used sparingly. For instance, "time-out's" should be referred to "time-in's" for instance.

It seems like we can never be prepared enough but the good news is we have plenty of resources to help us and in the end, we have to trust that our parental instincts will no doubt get us through the rest.

Bela's Medical Files

Happy New Year everyone! Can't believe 2010 is already here!! The lunar eclipse and full moon for New Year's had to have been a great sign for a very wonderful year.  Time seems to have slowed down considerably - we can't wait to meet her and hold her in our arms.

Today I sent in Bela's medical records to Feded-Kinkos to get printed. We want to provide them to her new pediatrician before her appointment later this month. There were 100 pages in total!  Ryan and I have been so impressed with Bela's orphanage, BSSK, with the level of detailed medical reports they have kept. They are all in English which was a huge relief in that we didn't have to worry about translations errors. Furthermore, BSSK has conducted monthly check-ups and diagnosed a Thyroid and Growth Hormone Condition. They provided us with these files before we decided to adopt Bela so we knew that Bela has short stature but with medication, would adjust just fine.  They have been very proactive in communicating with us. Bela afterall, was born 2 months premature and her mother was very small in stature as well (under 5' and weighing only 85 lbs). We knew that India would provide medical records in English before we started the process but we were simply amazed at the level of detail and consistency of the documentation.  We are so grateful that Bela has received such great medical care from birth!

Dr.'s and Insurance Updates

In preparation for Bela's arrival, I spent about 2 hours making lots of phone calls to ensure that Bela's medical needs are covered immediately. What was most important to me is that she sees a pediatrician who understands international adoptions and doesn't insist on re-running all tests and re-vaccinating her; some pediatricians we spoke to insist on not trusting a foreign Dr. but Ryan and I have been very impressed by the record keeping of the orphanage's Dr. and don't want to put Bela through more blood tests and potentially cause more trauma to her unnecessarily. So I found a Dr. from our insurance company's web site that is just down the street from us. But before I could even make the appointment, I had to get Bela added to our insurance. Our insurance company allowed us to add her to our medical and dental plan based on the court decree indicating we are now her legal guardians - they didn't even need a copy of it, they just asked us for the date. So she is now on our plan even though we haven't picked her up yet. The process I went through included the following (BTW, everyone in this entire process was very kind and sweet - congratulating us on our decision to adopt)....

1. I called our insurance company first to add Bela based on the final court order
2. They asked me to call my husband's Benefits department
3. The Benefits department asked for the official court order date and added her to our medical and dental coverage from there
4. Her 2010 covered begins on Jan 3rd which is just fine since she won't see her first Dr. until the 29th.
5. I asked about Bela's current medicine to see if would be covered - the Benefits Department then asked me to call the prescription meds company
6. I called the prescription meds company and of course they had no idea of the Indian version of her thyroid medication - luckily the Indian Dr. emailed us the chemical name because she initially indicated that her medicine was not covered - but I didn't take NO for an answer. I asked her to get a pharmacist on the line - he confirmed the chemical name was covered as a different drug name and for only $5/month under our insurance. Whew!
7. I then called our insurance company back to see if they knew of any local pediatricians with international adoption experience since their online search criteria didn't have that info. Of course they had no idea. So I did a search on their online web site for local pediatricians and just started to go down the list, calling each Dr.'s office to see if they had international adoption experience. I got really lucky as the 2nd Dr. I called had that experience! So her appointment is set about 1 week after she gets home.

Whew!!!

Packing for Gotchya Day

 My sister and sister-in-law were gracious enough to throw us a shower back in October to help us get ready for this big day. We received lots of clothes and toys to prepare for bringing her home. I'm sure we've over packed. We've taken plenty of clothes and toys for her. We received her final discharge report telling us her size and weight. Bela is a small girl - at 2 she is the size of a 1 year old in the US. So we had to plan to take items that she could fit into comfortably for her size. In addition, she barely speaks and what few words she knows are in Marathe - a language that neither Ryan or I speak. So we're taking plenty of music, burning kids songs on our iPod and the like. Let's hope we can keep her entertained for 25 hours of traveling! We haven't found a thorough list of what we should pack for her so I'm sharing our list in case anyone else is looking for a starting point...we'll be with Bela for about 5 days in India + 25 of traveling. Given that, we decided to pack the following (the idea was comfort and ease of travel for Bela)....

• 4 night-gown/pajamas (including 1 extra for an 18 month size)
• 8 day outfits w/ a mixture of pants & dresses (including extra outfits for 18 mos. size)
• 2 sweaters
• 3 pairs of shoes (we brought one in a size bigger)
• Underwear for each day - since Bela is small, we had a hard time finding 1T underwear.
• Plenty of socks
• 3 bibs
• 6 Books with textures and and pop-ups
• Musical teddy bear & non-musical bear
• CD's and DVD's with kids music
• Portable DVD player
• Crayons and coloring books
• Alphabet blocks
• Bubbles (her report said she loves bubbles)
• Snack Food and age appropriate drinks
• Sippy cups for travel and storage containers for snacks
• Bath items - shampoo, tooth brush and tooth paste, baby oil, etc...
• Medical supplies - kids Tylenol, thermometer, bandages
• Diapers and Diaper Wipes
• Tissue and Anti-Bacterial wipes
• Journals to document the journey
• Plenty of batteries for our camera and video camera

Christmas Day - The Last One Without Bela

We celebrated Christmas with Ryan's family and it was obvious that we are all eagerly awaiting her arrival - which was also apparent from the gifts she received. Ryan's parents were sweet enough to give her a special teddy bear for her trip that would allow them to be there in spirit during Bela's journey home. It was a very emotional moment for all of us.  Our nieces and nephews also gifted Bela their favorite books - they are so excited to have a cousin to play with close by. My family is loving the fact that they finally have a little girl to spoil. Bela will actually be the eldest child from my side of the family and she will have lots of boy cousins to play with so I decided to give her a pink football in case she decides she likes sports like her mommy.  Just 3 weeks till we can go get her!

It's Official - We Are Bela's Legal Parents

We just heard that the Indian courts have provided the final approval for adoptiong Bela. We are officially her legal guardians! We are so excited and amazed at how quickly this entire process has been completed. Almost 1 year to the day when we first hired Holt International (our adoption agency), we are now the parents (legally) of a beautiful 2 year old little girl in India. I heard that just over 400 children are adopted from India each year! Bela is truly special and one of a kind! We are very, very lucky to be her parents. I've outlined our timeline from the day we decided to adopt....

• October 2008 - Decision to Adopt: Reshma finally decides she is ready to adopt! Only a year after Ryan was ready! :)
• September 2008 - Apply for the OCI Card! Reshma files for the OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) card so that we can move up in priority from Adoption Priority 3 to Priority 2 according to Indian adotpion laws. Ryan is not Indian and therefore being priority 3 would give us the option to adopt a much older child only. Priority 2 allows us to get a younger child. Currently, only couples residing in India are allowed to be Priority 1 - which gives the priority to adopt newborn babies.
• October 2008 - OCI Granted: After much back and forth with the Indian Embassy, Reshma receives her OCI card. Woho - Priority 2 status attained!! What was odd is that Reshma's mom didn't get approval for an OCI card for her travels but her US born daughter did...go figure!
• November 2008 - Research for Agency: Ryan narrows down search to 2 agencies who adopt from India.
• December 2008 - Sign on with Agency: We chose Holt International and our application was submitted.
• January 2009 - Home Study Initiated: "Holy Paperwork Batman!"
• March 2009 - We got a Match! Home Study approved AND on our 9th Anniversary, we found out that we have a match - her name is Bela!
• May 2009 - Little Bela: We finished reviewing all of her medical documents and decided to adopt Bela - assignment paperwork underway.
• August 2009 - I800: Application approved for Bela. I am so grateful that the agency has managed this entire paperwork process!
• October 2009 - Bela turns 2! She posed in this pretty red dress for Diwali. I refer to her as princess Bela in this picture.
• December 21, 2009 - She's our's Legally! Final Court Order Received after about a month of delay due to Diwali holidays in India.

Booked our Tickets!

So we finalized our trip today! We had a hard time picking a travel date without having all of the passport and travel documents in hand. The dilemma was that if we waiting for those docs, we would basically have about a week to plan the trip and not only could that get costly, but it would Ryan in an awkward position with his work as well. The agency has been so helpful in helping us pick a date based on their experience. We really wanted to take Bela to visit my grandparents in India but that would add 3 extra days and we didn't want to risk overwhelming her. After all, with my family, we would not be able to control the entire village coming over to visit with her and it could really stress her out. So we're visiting my grandparents and vacationing before hand. That way when we pick up Bela, we are focused on getting her final docs and medical checkup from Delhi and we can then head home immedidately.

Before we head to India though - we decided to squeeze in one more vacation before we pick Bela up in India. So we're leaving early to spend some R&R on the beaches of Dubai. We love vacationing and not knowing when our next vacation will be after we adopt Bela, we've made it our mission to vacation as much as possible this year to prepare ourselves metally and physically for a huge change to our life style. .