Home At Last!

We are SO HAPPY to finally be home - one full day later than we originally expected due to all the flight delays in Delhi! Needless to say, it's been a very long few days. We got an amazing welcome home from our friends and family; we are so thankful and overwhelmed with all the love! My cousins and my brother's sister-in-law met us at the airport with big welcome home signs and balloons for Bela - it was so special and something that I can't wait to show her pictures of!

She also got to meet some of her new cousins. My sister made traditional Indian food for Bela and fed us - thank goodness as neither Ryan or I were going to cook (yes, with our role reversal it looks like I am going to have to learn a few basics!). 

When we got to our house, Ryan's parents and sister fully stocked our fridge and pantry with foods for Bela. The house was nicely decorated with welcome home signs and balloons all the way up to Bela's room. Bela is so loved!! Thank you Shyamal, Anita, Nilu, Jack, Sagar, Shareena, Alan, Pilar, Denise, Erika, Stephanie, Sonel, Jay, Mom, Dad, the One-Giving family and of course all of our nieces and nephews who were also very excited to welcome Bela home!

We noticed a little smirk that she gives when she is getting ready to do something bad. This picture on the right sums up her joy in playing at the airport where she wasn't supposed to. The plane ride home was really hard early on - especially for Ryan. That smirk quickly went away as we got on the plane. Bela started to throw a tantrum right before takeoff so Ryan locked himself in the airline bathroom with her and she eventually fell asleep just before the flight attendants insisted Ryan take his seat - whew! Tantrum 1 and counting! She threw her second tantrum when she woke up because she wanted a baby bottle that the child next to us was drinking out of. She hasn't drank out of a bottle for a while now, but the couple next to us were kind enough to give her a clean bottle for her to suck out of. Again it's normal for her to regress a bit from what we understand so we went with it! We won't have any bottles at home for her so we weren't worried about her getting attached to a bottle again - we just wanted to appease her through the flight so everyone around us could get some sleep! So the first 4 hours of the 16 hour flight was really tough with a total of 3 tantrums!!! Ryan was amazing and I was so impressed with how he handled everything. He spent a lot of time locked in the bathroom with her but that seemed to work so again, we went with it just to get through the flight! Welcome to the "terrific" 2's I guess! She still is totally stuck on Ryan and won't let anyone else hold her. Ryan is now an expert in changing diapers, even in the small airline bathrooms! We joke that his time has reduced from 45 minutes (the time it took him to change his first diaper in Pune) to about 10 min now for public bathrooms. He insists on fully unclothing her before a change because the first attempt was very messy. So for now, that's the process until she is fully potty trained.  Bela has been a great sleeper too once she is down so that has been great as it gives Ryan time to re-charge.

Since Ryan had his hands full with Bela, I think I've gotten a pretty good work out lifting and carrying all of our luggage the last 2 days through Delhi, Dubai and now at home. 6 bags and 3 heavy carry-on’s. Thank goodness my brother and his family were also traveling with us. Their help was awesome and our nephew got to spend some time with Bela on this journey. We certainly didn't expect this role reversal but then again, we really couldn't predict what would happen even with all the expert advice. At least she is home now and we can focus on her attachment with me. 

She Laughs!

Today, Bela really started to open up! While she is still completely attached to Ryan and won't even let me hold her unless I am bathing her, she actually started to open up quite a bit. She started throwing her toys and blocks off our hotel room bed and onto the floor while she was playing. While most parents would normally discipline their children for that, Ryan and I encouraged her to do it! We were so thrilled that our hotel room floor was covered in toys and blocks. Best of all, Bela helped to clean it all up after she was done - even pointing out blocks that had made their way under the desk that we hadn't noticed. We noticed that she likes things to be clean, in order and organized once she is done playing. It's kind of interesting seeing how many new personality traits we notice each day - there is an analyst in her for sure!

Now that we have Bela's paperwork done with the US Embassy. The plan was to do some shopping, sight-seeing and then make our way to the airport to get home. But we found out this morning that our flight tonight has been "rescheduled" from 4am to 1pm the following day! Delhi has had tons of "fog" the last few weeks resulting in major flight delays. What's funny is that it's actually smog that has been socked in by very cold weather and has caused near 0 visibility in the mornings. It's also much colder than I remember it ever being here - apparently they have been breaking many records like other parts of the world with severe cold temperatures.

So with the extra time, we visited yet another temple today. My mom wanted to visit Laxmi Temple; in Pune we visited the Ganpati Temple (“Please don’t feed my God peanuts to all of you Simpson’s fans”). My mom wanted to bless Bela again and our nephew Ayden. My brother's family and my Dad joined us in Delhi yesterday so Bela got to meet her uncle, aunt, grandpa and cousin for the first time. She doesn't react well to new people yet and pretty much clung to Ryan when they met her – she wouldn't let him go for anything. But today, was truly an awesome day for Bela and her getting more comfortable with us. During our car ride from the temple to the shopping district, Bela started to play in the car, waving at people and started to laugh. Ryan found a tickle spot on her neck and she started to laugh hysterically when he tickled her! We never heard her laugh like that before - we barely saw her crack a smile before today! What was totally cute was that she would lift up her shirt so Ryan could tickle her belly and she would laugh some more. I think Ryan was totally relieved that she showed some humor and started to laugh; I think he thought that she would have a stoic expression forever! :)

It's late here in India - Ryan and Bela are both sleeping heavily while I update this blog. Tomorrow we're going to make our second attempt to leave India. None of our travel delays have stressed out though as everything seems to work out just the way it needs to (i.e. or as my Mom would say - fate and Karma takes over). So with the flight delay, we spend another night in Dubai tomorrow, getting home a day later than expected. But with that, we can pick up Bela's bag that was stuck there before we arrived in India (saving us a ton of money to have it shipped). And who knows, maybe we wouldn't have seen Bela open up so much today if we were traveling on a plane like we had planned. My mom probably credits the temple visit for her opening up today but we're just thankful and so, so, so grateful for little Bela and how she has already added so much joy to our lives. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings in terms of us learning more about her personality!

Daddy's Little Girl

Since we arrived in Delhi, we've been on the go, non-stop. The first full day we had we spent most of the morning at the US Embassy getting Bela's immigration paperwork together. The package the embassy gave us weighs almost as much as she does! The good news is that her Visa and all other paperwork went very smoothly. The security here in Delhi is very, very strict. All cars are being searched before they enter major hotels (including ours) and the security to get into the US Embassy was even more strict. With India's independence day on the 26th of January, India is on heightened alert around all major sites and tourist areas here in the capitol. Bela has totally attached to Ryan. So much so that all I get to do is bathe her and get her ready in the morning - after that, she is totally clinging to Ryan. He has to feed her, put her down for naps, carry her as we go about town, the works! Needless to say, Ryan is going to need some really good massages when we get home!

Bela has done amazingly well considering she left everything and everyone she knew just 5 days ago! She is eating really well and is sleeping through the night. Her taste buds are continuously developing also - she tried chow mein (yes, in India) for the first time, had her first sandwich and even chowed-down potatoes wedges and her first hash brown. Ryan was thrilled that the has another potato fan in the family! Can we be this lucky! We are so thrilled and relieved that Bela has already started to attach to us (because that is such a critical part of her ability to feel secure. Bela even took her first flight from Pune to Delhi on Wednesday and she was a total gem - even with an ear infection. She enjoyed looking out the window when she wasn't sleeping during the flight. Bela has been pretty stoic up until now - not showing a whole lot of emotion except if Ryan leaves her sight -then she sobs like crazy and instantly is quiet once Ryan holds her again. Ryan and I were so excited that she yelled mama in her sleep - giving us a sign that she is capable of speaking. We know she can talk but she has been slow to speak with us. She has even regressed to requiring us to feed her even though she used to feed herself at the orphanage. All of this was somewhat expected given the trauma she has just experienced. But she surprised all of us in being so attached to Ryan - she is totally Daddy's little girl!! 

Day 2

Wow, what a first day with Bela. After the tears stopped, she went into silence mode. She started to run a fever and her ear infection came back all on the first day! Luckily the orphanage gave us some meds for her and she was able to get a full 11 hours of sleep last night. Ryan and I are used to Lucky sleeping with us, but a kicking, turning and squeeming 2 year old is a different story. I managed to get sleep (Resh) but Ryan really didnt sleep. We got Bela up and bathed her - she is definintely not used to American style tubs. She usually gets bathed with a bucket so that will take some getting used to. She had a hearty breakfast and no fever, which is great. We took her out for the day to visit a museum dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi and to get her some souveniers for when she is older. She walked around and would not let go of Ryan - she seems to be very attached to him right now. After the museum, Bela made her first visit to the mall. While the mall here is no South Coast plaza, it is nice enough that we were able to get some shoes that actually fit her. She had a traditional Indian lunch and would only let Ryan feed her - the good news is that Ryan might lose some weight as he doesn't seem to have time to eat himself :) Bela is now napping at our hotel room at the Westin. We have to take her to a final court appearance where the judge can meet us. After that, on to one of the holiest temples in India - my mom wants to bless Bela there. Whew!! Bela is a very cute, quiet and charming little girl. The tears have stopped and now we're just waiting until she opens up and says a few words to us. Bye for now - on to Delhi tomorrow to get her Visa to come home!

Mission Accomplished!

Today at 9:15 AM we left for BSSK in Pune to meet Bela, which was just a short 5 minute rikshaw ride away. Upon driving through the gates we were greeted by 5 kids who were yelling Momi in Murati. At first I was thinking oh great all these kids think I am their dad. Only to find out later they were asking if I was Jagruti's dad, a darling 4 year old girl getting adopted the same day. The children are all made aware of what is going on, and that was apparent when we finally saw Bela.

After talking with adminstrative staff, we were brought back downstairs into the play area to finally meet our daughter. Right away Bela caught a look of us and started to hide behind the other kids and had a look of "Oh man, they're here to take me!" She is the one in pink in this photo. She was even more cute in person than in the photos and I couldn't wait to go hold her. Unfortunately, she had other ideas and our meeting was not the "Little Orphan Annie story" that I was hoping for. Each time we tried to get close to her to hold her while playing, eating, reading, etc she'd immediately begin to cry and reach for her familar caregivers. As you can imagine this can be very upsetting to adoptive parents, and I was sure affected by it and it made me sad. However, the fact that she didn't just run up to me and instead reached for her current caregivers hopefully shows that she is able to make attachments, now we just need to break her current ones and create new ones, which we both knew would require lots of tears from all of us.

After her lunch at around 12:00 Resh again went to pick her up and of course she wailed and resisted, so the three of us went downstairs and rocked on the swing to put her to sleep. With Resh singing 10 little monkeys to her and rocking, her sobbing slowed down to a gentle snore as she fell asleep in her arms. So we went back to up the nursery and put her in her crib to nap until 2 PM. After her nap, it was potty training time and they lined up little plastic potties for all the kids to "go" and Bela was hanging out with her peer group and I began to play with some of the other kids (not on the potties) and Bela watched and could see maybe it was fun. It's amazing the joy kids get out of seeing themselves on digital cameras. I took pictures of each of the kids and they would yell out the name of each kid as I scrolled through. I began to wave from afar over to Bela and she slowly dawned a little smirk and waved back to me. Sweet, I am in!!

After potty time, we did some more activities (reading, puzzles, etc) and then it was time for Bela to leave the nest at around 4 PM. We were joined by another couple from Norway (Jagruti's parents) and each family had a small aarti (Indian ceremony) to celebrate our adoptions and the beginnings of new families. After that, we gathered up our belongings and Resh held our still sobbing daugther and we began to make our way downstairs, through the play yard, out the gate, and into our awaiting rikshaw.

As with all kids, the ride quickly put her to sleep and we arrived at our hotel where we gave her a bath. The sobbing had been replaced by a look of "oh man what is happening to me" and she allowed us to bathe her and dress her. We were all still in a state of shock and sadness. Resh's Mom and I left the hotel to go get Bela some food from the orphanage at around 6 PM and when we came back Bela was up playing with her books and crayons. After her play time, we tried to feed her but she had only a few bites and it was clear to us that she knew how to say "NO" with huge side-to-side head shakes. I am sure the trama trumps any hunger pains she may have had.

At around 8 PM, Bela's eyes began to get heavy (as did ours) and we put her night dress on and she quickly fell asleep in the middle of the bed. It was a long hard day with lots of tears of sadness and joy, but Bela is finally ours and we can look forward to waking up with Bela tomorrow. Let's see how tomorrow goes....

Only 24 Hours To Go!

Today we arrived in Pune at around 11 am, we are just less than 24 hours away from meeting our beautiful daugther, the suspense is killing me. Apparently there is some big militiary guy coming to Pune beause the place is loaded with military and escorts at that airport. Pune is a much different city than the other cities I've been to in India (Surat, Mumbai, etc), its clean and non-congested - I guess the two go hand-in-hand. There isn't a lot of touristy stuff to see here, but its the education center of India with many large well know India campuses.

We were greated by our driver and taken to the the Westin Koregon Park, to a very friendly and helpful staff and we were escorted all the way through to our hotel room. I think we probably met at least 15 staff members personally before entering our room. Very nice service indeed. One thing however is that there are metal detectors to get into major buildings, its probably due to what happened last year in Mumbai. It did seem strange to have my bags go through x-ray to get into my hotel, but we felt safe even without that. The lobby and rooms are all top notch and I can't wait to sink my head into the kingsize "Heavenly Bed" that Westin offers, however knowing me I'll be up all night thinking about tomorrow so I probably won't get much sleep.

After our check-in, we went for a little city tour on a rickshaw and we had a meal at a local establishment called, McDonald's. I had the McVeggie and it is pretty dang good, I wish we had it in the US. Then we went over the the mall to get some items for Bela. Inside the mall was a movie theater, food court, etc. We bought tictkets to see "Three Idiots" at 3:30, and the cool thing is the seats are pre-assigned like at a concert or sporting event. But the movie did not have any subtitles, but as long as the whole movie consisted of the words Hello, Good-Bye, I am hungry and thirsty, cat, dog and, Henglish (1/2 English/Hindi), and counting to 10 then I would be just fine.

Before the movie started, we had our driver take us to some local street shopping where we got some items for Bela and our nieces and we ate charred masala corn - yummy!

In India!

Well we're finally in India after enjoying 4 beautiful days in Dubai. We had a great time seeing the sights and visiting the tallest building in the world in Dubai. We reached Mumbai, India on the 13th and realized that we didn't receive Bela's bag. The bag was lost and we spent the next few days hunting it down. We won't get it until we get home so we had to rebuy things for Bela while we were in India. We have been at my parent's village in Gujurat since the 13th - getting to my grandparents home at 4am after a long 6 hour drive from Mumbai international airport.  We spent the last few days replenishing items for Bela so we can arrive in Pune with the things we need. We will leave my granparents home tomorrow morning at 3:30am to catch a flight to Pune afterwhich, we will finally get to meet Bela on the 18th. So far the trip has been great other than the lost bag - but at least we know we will eventually get it. Just wished we had it now. I guess all the effort we put into preparing for Bela on this trip was somewhat in vein as we were able to replenish the necessities in a few hours for less than $50 here. I guess it's also fitting that Bela will be wearing all Indian clothes when she leaves here.  Everyone has been in good health - we've spent a lot of time visiting family and friends here in India (and shopping). Everyone is looking forward to seeing pictures of us with Bela.   Next post will be from Pune, when we are with Bela.