"Free" Calls

Of course as I am going home the other day I thought, "Hey, I have this Skype (http://www.skype.com/newtoskype/) account, jengineer is the handle."

So this is another option for communicating to those back home. High speed connections should be available at the large hotels. I have read that connection speeds are faster in other countries, I do not know about India. There are other VOIP's that you can use but I think Skype is known big time. Best part is that Skype is free if you are going to another Skype user. So my siblings will be able to talk to us but unfortunately the parental unit will not. One PU would be on computers but the other PU is averse to them so to keep peace they have a 15 yr or more Mac sitting under wraps.

Hey I should see how early this Mac is because the first ones are now worth $$ I bet this one does not qualify as one that was made in the garage.

je

Boo – After your child comes to California

13OCT08 Update

No movement for the past month. We got news that India has over 13 national holidays during the month of October. The courts get back in session in November. Our passports are ready to go just need to send them in for the Visa. I have decided to wait until we get better confirmation of when we are going. Even after the courts give us the ok and they papers get translated there is still some paperwork here in the US that needs to be done. I think I mentioned it before but I forget. It is paperwork that says the state of Texas is sending a child to California and does California accept this child. If our agency had its HQ in California then we wouldn't have to go through this hoop.

Last month I took a look at what it would take to get our daughter legally adopted in California. Some states you can get your child and the next week roll into the courts and get them legally adopted. As it is we will be granted guardianship in India.

It is a 5 step process:

STEP 1

Fill out 4 forms

Adoption Request – Tells the judge about U and your child

Adoption Agreement – not applicable as our child is under the age of 12

Adoption Order – Judge signs it if he approves the adoption

Adoption Expenses – tells judge about your adoption expenses

STEP 2

The Social Worker writes a report – probably just an amendment to the one you already have.

STEP 3

Get Your Hearing

Bring the above forms and your child, a camera and your friends

STEP 4

If this is an open adoption then you need to fill out another form which asks for an open adoption. Not much use for us as our child was abandoned at the gates of the orphanage.

STEP 5

More forms to have on hand

Adoption of Indian Child

Parent of Indian Child Agrees to End Parental Rights.

You may think twice about the last one, as I am unsure if the web site is referring to Native Americans or from the subcontinent. They are referring to Native Americans so the 5^th step is not applicable either.

Looks to me like we can make our adoption as quickly as we fill out the papers and get a court date.

The cost of the adoption has been modified.

je

Beg-A-Thon

Bring Our Daughter Home

There are two ways that we can address our plea to our Family, Friends, Acquaintances and Benefactors who happen upon this plea. Some of you have seen JE' quip which is repeated below. Here is RN's version in JE's words.

Dear Brothers and Sister's. In case you didn't know it has long been on my heart to adopt. During our courtship we discussed adoption and I told my then friend that ever since I was eight (8) I had it placed hard on me that I would adopt a child and raise him or her as best I could. If he was not on-board then he would be kicked to the curb.

We are now 7 months into our paper pregnancy and try as we might we have been unsuccessful in finding grants for the adoption. Unlike health insurance where pregnancies, births and even abortions are covered by insurance here is no such program for adoption. Our first two children cost less than $3000, not including the monthly premiums. Adopting, we have found, will stretch you to your financial limits and beyond.

We are asking, pleading, for your financial support, to help us bring our daughter home home.

Brother Can You Spare A Dime Part 1

HELP!

They are holding my daughter hostage in India. The kidnappers have demanded a minimum of $13,000 for us to get her with a few caveats. The exchange is to take place in a small village on the east coast of India. We will have to make arrangements for airfare, hotels, taxi's, immigration payola, medical treatment etc. The demands are rather complicated. We need to get exit visa's and to do that we have to travel to the far Northern part of the country, Delhi. We have been told that if we meet the requirements in Delhi that we should be allowed to leave with our child. I tried to negotiate a simple fly-in, fly-out exchange but was told I had to do it their way or no way. We knew that getting her home would not be cheap but we are getting stretched thin. Unfortunately there is no type of insurance for this situation, Our only course of action is to ask for help in getting her back. Can you help?

Are you flush? If so we will gladly take a grant (cheeky eh?).

BCYSAD Part 2

Ever see those info-mercials about children in other countries needing your financial support for just a dollar a day? Well we are not needing a dollar a day. We easily need over $13,000. Make a real positive impact on a child's life. Help us bring our daughter home. Instead of getting a yearly report on her health and educational progress you can come by and actually visit, touch and be an active participant in making a change in our daughter's life. Brother, Can You Spare Dime?

je

Cost up to date

This is what this adoption has cost up to date. It also includes estimated cost and offsets we have received from family and friends.

je

Notification of NOC 28AUG08

Knock – NOC

For the past two weeks I have been looking at hotels for the trip. Generally there are two methods that the agency recommends for tripping in India. One is to land in Delhi and then take a trip to Agra. the other is go straight to the orphanage city. Everyone recommends spending at least one day on the ground before heading up in an airplane for another day.

Day 1 Land in Delhi 4 hour road trip to Agra.

Day 2 Visit the Taj aka one grand mausoleum.

Day 3 Local outing to the markets to get proper clothing

Day 4 4 hour road trip to Delhi and flight to the orphanage.

Day 5 Visit the locality. Built in 11th century AD, the Stone revetments were considered an engineering marvel of those times. They show us how advanced the technology and skills were even at that point of time. The revetments helped save the city form many floods. That is on JE's list. The artisans are noted for their silver filigree.

Day 6 Pick up our daughter

Day 7 Travel to Delhi

Day 8 US Embassy, Doctor visit to get child clearance

Day 9 US Embassy

Day 10 Sight seeing/rest

Day 10 Get out of dodge

Somewhere in all this RN wants to get a locally made rug. Our in-country guide runs $100 /day. One of the families, suffering from an embarrassment of riches, stayed at $600-800 a night hotels in Delhi and Agra. I think they had to skimp on the orphanage and could only manage something like $300 a night rooms.

Unfortunately our fund raising efforts will not afford us such luxury. I think I have found a nice bed and breakfast in Delhi. The husband is an engineer/businessman and the wife a psychologist. They run only $100/night. Agra is expensive expensive so it looks like about $200/night. Could not find anything cheaper. Our orphanage city a has a real bargain at $50 a night it includes a bed a night stand a loo and "shower area" and nothing else. It does come with a meal deal which is quite reasonable. We might go this route. Only concern is first night where we really need a bath tub to giver our daughter a good scrubbing down.

We recently received some more photos of her. According to our incountry source a group was running fast down a hall and did not manage a turn. She got a good scrape on her noggin. Typical 2 yr old. She has also grown about 7 inches from when we first saw her. Man we got to get her home soon.

Work has been sending JE to training camp once a month. recently they were filling out the schedule for 2009. I called our handler – you know the one that never contacts us unless we make first contact. I asked her if she could get a feel for when this trip is supposed to take place. Well lookey here, two days later (today) she tells us that we received our NOC. Just in case you forgot…

No Objection Certificate (NOC):

A Certificate issued by CARA permitting the child to be placed with a prospective adoptive parents for Inter-country adoption.

Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA):

An autonomous body functioning under Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment to act as a central authority in the matter of adoptions.

That means that they have approved us and our daughter to be placed. YEEEE HAAAAA!!!!! One hurdle down. We still have the courts to go through then translation and certification of the court records then more paper work here then the holidays and end of year festivities of both countries. So we were verbally told Jan or Feb but could be March or April for our travel.

The cost of the adoption has been modified. Look back for the spreadsheet. If you are flush with funds and want to help get her home, drop us a line. The next post will be a sanitized version of our virtual Evite that we sent out to close to 400 folks. JE called it his beg-a-thon.

je

Lagniappe and Shaking

No news on the adoption. Getting the silent treatment until our dossier is reviewed by CARA and we get NOC

SHAKE

Just in case you missed it the LA area had a small shaker yesterday. Not much damage but of course the "news" had to blow it way out of proportion. It was first thought to be a 5.8 but was later downgraded to a 5.4. From the quakes that I have been through unless it is 6.0 or greater they really don't do too much damage. as for figuring out scales…

Earthquake magnitude is a logarithmic measure of earthquake size. In simple terms, this means that at the same distance from the earthquake, the shaking will be 10 times as large during a magnitude 5 earthquake as during a magnitude 4 earthquake. The total amount of energy released by the earthquake, however, goes up by a factor of 32. Check out this for the latest quakes.

LAGNIAPPE

I didn't bring lunch yesterday so I walked to a Japanese place down the road. They have a great chicken teriyaki and veggie bowl, $5.36 out the door with extra ginger. A teenager was there counting out scrunched up dollars and spare change. What was wanted was $5.36 and what was on hand was exactly $5. I asked if she really wanted the bowl as I highly recommend it. A quick nod was what I got but she said she would get the bowl with no veggies. Can't have that, I said, get the bowl and here is the change you need. I then walked out. 20 steps down the sidewalk there was a commotion going on. One guy was acting like he had been stung by a bee. Literally jumped out of his seat and hopped 5 feet into the parking lot. I almost spilled my drink taking it in. I stopped and then noted the slight rolling motion. Ah earthquake, rolling not hard hitting, nothing big, keep it moving. Neophytes acting like they never experienced an earthquake before!

The wife was Jonesing for a pizza from Catalano's. It is a hole in the wall place in Long Beach. We have been going there for about 10 years or so. We have been in a habit of calling it Dave's (who is the owner) rather than by its proper name. This does sometimes get us into trouble when we don't have a menu at home and are looking for the phone number to call in an order. Case in point I told the wife to phone it in and I would pick it up on the way home. They have a very limited delivery range and they are definitely not in the neighbourhood. By the way they are not listed in the yellow pages under Dave. Maybe I should add them to the phone list…The past few times that we have been in Dave was either out on a run or had gone home for a break. When I got there he was there too. I said hello and that I would be right back as I had pics of the phamily. I showed him the eldest child the youngest child and said and this QT pie is waiting for us in India. He knew about the problems we had getting the first child going and knew that adoption was in our vocabulary. He was speechless when he saw our newest child. I feel as though I have robbed Dave as he said this pie was on the house.

Random act of kindness.

je

Why Adoption

The question is multi-faceted and for each person/couple that decides to adopt the reason will vary. Both my wife & I are over 40, married for the first and last time and understand the reality of aging eggs and the "challenges" of fertility issues. Politically correct enough, don't worry I am not but I gotta pull you into this tale somehow.

ADOPTION in The Vocabulary

During our short courtship one of the items we discussed was adoption.

Meet Joe Engineer.
Yep he is a state licensed engineer.
My glib reply was yeah if we produce an ugly looking child I am all in for adoption. After all we live in the city where plastic surgery was perfected LA-LA-Land. Adoption is a two way street. For me adoption was definitely in my vocabulary. During the end of the roaring '60's mom was on a hotline for women who thought they might be preggers and didn't know what to do. We took care of a friends child during the day since the child was 3 days old. Not quite adoption but for our family this child turned up to be considered our sister. She had two sets of parents and two sets of siblings.

Meet Hellooo Nurse.
As in The Warner Brothers and Their Sister Dot cartoon – She is a state licensed Nurse.
The wife, on the other hand, had adoption placed in her heart at an early age. During the summers she would stay with her grandparents. One day her grand mother asked her to tell her about her dolls. She went on to tell her that one doll was a owner and manager of a large corporation, somewhat similar to her grandmother, another a banker and her adopted daughter was a doctor. This out of a girl at the age of 8. When asked where the child was from she said India. Why India, because she looks like us was the reply.

Rubber meets the Road

Three years into the marriage we were well onto our way to determining just how committed we were to the concept of adoption. Fertility issues were in full bloom. Suffice it to say that when our out of pocket expenses hit over $15,000 the plug was pulled. Dang we could have adopted and been parents at the end of the year and few months of probing poking drugs and false starts. Now it is time to start looking seriously into the adoption route, more on that later. Of course a few months later we are pregnant and the adoption plans are put on hold. A year later I am asked if we can still adopt and I say yeah. Little do I know she is pregnant, little does she know. We start to whittle down adoption agencies, make our choice and voila, congratulations in 9 months you will have another child. We talk to our adoption agency and they say no problem so the ball is rolling.

Recently our child has been identified and she will be the middle child.

What this is NOT

So due to disclosure rules, signed a contract a bunch of this may be generic but it is definitely a ride. Once you sign a contract you are pregnant on paper and the gestation time can be anywhere from 1 year to 3 years depending on the country you adopt from. The information here is really just a story. Not sure if I can even tell you what agency we are using as we are still in the process of the adoption. I will link you to some of the sites we have used and probably tell you why we did not go with one agency over another.

The Not List
Not – a great resource site
Not – a non biased look at adoption, defeats the purpose of blogging
Not - gonna name names

The Will List
Will – let you see the hoops and barriers that we have had to overcome
Will – let you see the fun use of your $$, yep sometimes it is our government at work
Will - sequence events as they have happened
Will – have run on sentences, some poorly structured paragraphs

je