Home 3 weeks - update

Ok, so we’ve been home 3 weeks and the long-awaited blog entry is here! We are all adjusting to having another girl in our home. Maya is doing very well, is speaking more English each day – she picks up a couple key phrases like “What ..you doing?” and “Just a minute.” She is driving Joel nuts by saying “thank you” every time someone gives something to her and wanting them to reply with “Your welcome.” This means few other words are used at dinner!! Speaking of dinner, she eats basically everything we give her – sometimes (like the mushrooms) even when you can tell she doesn’t like it. Interestingly enough, the one food she did not eat much of was the chicken masala (this is an Indian dish) Ronda made the other day.

She loves her daddy and he has never received quite the welcome she gives him when he comes home! She is very compliant with her Dad and even brushed her teeth a second time the other day when he said she had missed one tooth! This is scary as you never know what her Dad will ask her to do. She and Mommy are getting along well –though we don’t know what “Mommy do lay” means and maybe don’t want to and Mommy is waiting for the night when she will give her a hug at bedtime. She did make a card for Mommy at AWANA the other night and according to the teacher there was no prompting!

The boys are doing a great job helping her – they have been teaching her and Danielle baseball as both girls are going to play t-ball this spring (pray for the coach!) – they play well with her and at other times tolerate her well. She and Danielle play school together, the girls had a tea party with Mom the other day, Danielle helps Maya on the computer, and there have been some precious moments when they’ve been giggling together. Danielle has found the adjustment the hardest with sharing her room and her things and observing Maya getting a lot of attention. But she too is adjusting and does enjoy the times they play together – especially bath time. Maya loves the bath – the first time she had a bath here she was like a fish out of water – in the water. She just kept wiggling around and getting up and splashing down and dumping water with the cups, giggling and was just beside herself with excitement! Fortunately she has calmed down quite a bit but she and Danielle still like to dump water on each other.

She is very energetic and likes attention – I think this explains why she was burping at AWANA last Wednesday. She loves AWANA and Sunday School and does a pretty good job sitting in class. The first night at AWANA I’m not sure how many times they walked her up to the water fountain – she thinks that is pretty cool. Now they fill a pitcher of water for in the classroom! This week she will start attending preschool 3 half days a week. It was clear this past week after the other kids started back to school after a long Easter break that she wanted to go to school. Since she saw her classroom and teacher on Thursday she keeps asking when she will go to school. Tomorrow (Monday) may be a tough day as she does not go to school until Tuesday.

Maya has already attended two gymnastics classes and tomorrow evening will be her third. She is very flexible (we were surprised when she easily put both feet behind her head) and is doing very well. Most of the time, she has no problem following the instructions.

Maya’s first Sunday at church was Palm Sunday and the children were singing in the evening so Maya stood on stage as they practiced in the morning and went on stage with them in the evening! We had a wonderful Easter with Grandma and Granddaddy Shepherd visiting the few days before. Maya was very comfortable with them and gave them both big hugs upon their arrival. Maya also really enjoyed getting an Easter card from her Grandma and Grandpa Gene. For whatever reason (maybe she had never received mail before?) that seemed better than any gift she has received. We had a nice Easter sunrise service at our new church property and wonderful 11am service, also. For dinner we went to our friends and neighbors, the Harkins, and enjoyed a delicious meal and great conversation. Well the kids enjoyed the meal and running around outside – the adults enjoyed the conversation! Monday after Easter Maya met her first cousins and Aunt and Uncle as we visited the Perrys in Johnstown. Everyone enjoyed the day.

We’ve made our first doctor visit (she did not like getting a shot), and Ronda was glad when the lab visit was over this past week. Even though we never changed dirty diapers Ronda is sure collecting stool samples made up for at least some of them!! For days we were following her to the toilet to see if she was having a BM so we could put plastic wrap over it! Anyway, that’s behind us – now we are awaiting the test results. At the lab they took 11 vials of blood! She did not like this (quite a few tears) but fortunately did not fight us either.

We are HOME!!!

We are home! We arrived home Sunday evening at 5:45 pm after leaving the Dehli airport at 12:00am Saturday morning India time – 1:30 pm Friday EST. It took us 33 hours to get home not including the 5 hours of getting to and waiting at the Dehli airport. 15 hours flying, 15 hours spent at JFK, a night in the Ramada near JFK, a couple hours to check on bags and rent a car, and 7 hours driving home. Our flight was first delayed 5 hours, we sat on the runway for 2 hours, and then when we were finally cleared for takeoff the left engine blew. After that all we can say is Delta customer service and communication there was horrendous. When we finally got to the hotel room it had been 52 hours since we had woke up from our last decent night’s sleep! All that and the kids had been waiting at the airport for us and it took them 2 ½ hours to get home in the snow! A nightmare but Maya did fine – much better than Dan and Ronda!

When we did finally get home we had a wonderful welcome from the kids and Grandma and Grandpa Nelson. They had balloons, dinner waiting, and cake and ice cream. Maya was excited to see her new brothers and sister and warmed to them and her Grandma and Grandpa pretty quickly. The kids played with blocks awhile and after we ate they had a fun time with the balloons, wrestling… Maya wanted Danielle in her bed last night so they went to sleep in the same bed. She slept fairly well, waking once but falling back to sleep.

Day 10

Today is our last day in Delhi, if you don't count the 30 minutes we have until our plane departs at 12:30 am. We went to the US embassy in the morning to finalize Maya's visa. We expected to be done hopefully by 1:00 or so. We got there at 9:30, filed our paperwork, had our interview, and were gone by 10:45 - I think this was a record!!!! Maya is now legal to come to the US, we just need to get there.
We also spent some time Kashmir Cashmere - tourist trap. They sell hand made rugs for only a few hundred dollars - at least we got a free cup of tea. We also visited the "Gate of India" and took some pictures. Finally we came back to the hotel, ate lunch, and are now resting. We depart for the airport at 7:00 and our flight is at 12:30. See everyone soon. Thanks so much for viewing our blog and praying for us along the way!!!!

Day 9

Well, the end is in sight. Today we went to the US Embassy for Maya's Visa interview. We will end having the interview tomorrow and we will need to be there by 10:00 am (IST) which is 8:30 pm (EST [less one day]). We now have all of her medical paperwork done and we anticipate the interview going smoothly. The consulate indicated that we should be able to get her visa by noon tomorrow. Today we also went to a very large mall and went to Pizza Hut. This was the first pizza she has probably ever had. In the mall Maya coerced mommy into letting her drive a giraffe around the center area for 5 minutes. She almost took out a few people, but loved the experience.
Through all the taxi rides Maya graced us with more and more songs. She was certainly taught a lot of them of the past couple years. The best one ended with "I love you", but she sang "I love blue". We ate Chinese, which was pretty good and then had a wild rickshaw ride back to the hotel.
We leave tomorrow from the hotel around 7:00 PM (IST), leave Delhi at 12:30 AM, and get into JFK around 8:00 in the morning. We hope to get Pittsburgh then around noonish. Please pray for our safe journey. It will be so neat to see Maya's expressions as she sees so many things for the first time that we all take for granted; such as snow, lots of green grass, water to drink from a spigot, a sister, 2 brothers, grand parents, a dog, ... I sometimes wish I could get inside of her brain and see what she is seeing.

Day 8

Well, we are on the home stretch. Each day seems like new goals are accomplished and "interesting" things happen. The big event of the day was that we took a flight from Pune to Delhi. We also have finally retrieved our bag we lost on the flight over here. Everything seems to be in order. The flight was nice -- except Maya decided to like to go to the bathroom every 15 minutes. Now we know why the agency gave them milk or water after a meal and not too much in between. Maya did take a good nap on the plane. On the way from the airport we stopped by one of the recommended doctors for the required exam. We were done in 10 minutes. The will now write a report which we will get tomorrow around lunch time - then off to the embassy.
Once we got to the hotel (at about 6:00 pm) we gave Maya the new dresses and clothes, she was thrilled to say the least, especially with her new hair clips and white shoes. We also went upstairs to eat. Maya tried to talk to everyone she saw, but in Delhi they speak Hindi, but Maya speaks Marathi - which we found are very very different languages. We are all ready for bed now b/c we get to go to the US Embassy to process her Visa. We will put up some pictures tomorrow.

I almost forgot, we will also have her musical debut - singing "Ba ba Black Sheep" or some rendition there of.

PS - Just wait till you get to hear "Mary had a little man"

Day 7

Maya took a nap after crying herself to sleep in Dan’s arms last night. We were able to wake her to eat a little bit around 8pm and then she went back to sleep around 9:30 and slept soundly but a little restlessly until 7am. We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant and she was a bundle of energy, drank lots of juice, ate a bowl of cornflakes, and grapes. We went for a walk on the streets around the hotel. We spent the rest of the morning in the hotel room coloring, watching TV and just playing around. We ate lunch downstairs and all Maya ate was rice even though she ordered her own dish dahl fry but for whatever reason she did not like it. All day she was very concerned that both Mommy and Daddy were with her. This is a good sign.

In the afternoon we went to the Family Court to answer a few questions from the judge and so she could meet us. The questions were grueling, but we passed. The judge asked “When did you come to India?”, “When did you meet her?”, “Is she happy with you?” and “When will you return?” Then she gave us a head nod and stamped the papers. After that we returned to the hotel so we could drop off our bags so we could go shopping. We bought Maya two cute dresses and got a little something to eat. Maya wanted an ice cream cone so after we ate a couple Chinese dumplings, she got a vanilla ice cream cone. It was probably her first one because she had no idea that you could eat the cone. To convince her Dan took a small bite and her face lit up. The rest is history. We have all laughed a lot, smiled a lot, and just plain had a really good time getting to know each other. One of the most important things we have learned – I guess we figured it out at some point last evening – is that to say “yes” or “ok” Indian people do not nod their heads up and down as we do – they sort of ‘bob’ them from side to side. So we don’t know how many times she said “yes” to us without us knowing it! You can see Maya bobbing her head “yes” in the video. Maya is going to bed now – its only 8pm – this is early for her so I don’t know how early she will wake up. But she seemed ready and is surely emotionally if not physically exhausted – although she took a short nap on the way to court today.

Day 6 - Part 2

We returned to our hotel and she explored some, colored, drank juice, saw pictures of our family on the laptop, did puzzles, watched TV and played around with us. We called our house and she said “hi” to all the kids and both sets of grandparents. All was going really well. A short time after the phone call Ronda and Maya went down a few floors to a small playground. It is for pretty small children and maybe this is why Maya took Ronda’s hand and pulled her down to the bottom floor – I don’t know if she thought she was at BSSK and wanted to play on that playground or what – but when she looked outside she broke down and started sobbing. Ronda picked her up and she clung to her, wrapping her little legs around her. She stayed like this the whole way up 5 flights of stairs and when we got into the room went to her Dad and wept for a while in his arms. It was heartbreaking – knowing she had left everyone and everything she knew. Mercifully, within half an hour though she fell asleep in Dan’s arms. We have had a very emotional day here and she even more so. Still we are thrilled with how well she seems to be attaching to us and accepting both of us. Her grief is to be expected and all we can do is reassure her that she is safe with us and that we love her.

Day 6- Part 1

Today we left for BSSK at 9am. We had received a letter stating that they would pick us up at 9:30 so went for a short walk and when we arrived back to the hotel at 8:55 the driver was here. We found out that you should be ready a ½ hour early in India! We first met with the director of international adoptions – Maina – and she was very informative regarding older child adoption and prepared us for some of what is to come. We also learned from her that Maya has a mind of her own, can be rather naughty, and likes her new name very much (she will fit in well with our family). Then we did some paperwork with the social worker who went through Maya’s file with us. Then it was time to meet Maya. She stayed at BSSK today – and was with a group of younger children in the informal school there. We were introduced to her with the younger children and it did not take long for her to come to us. At first she was very shy but she soon warmed up to us and we had 15 minutes or so alone with her after the child development specialist – Ratanaii - had helped make her feel comfortable with us. She knew right away we were Mommy and Daddy. We gave her a backpack with coloring and activity books and a box of crayons, pencils, and markers. She also liked playing with the bouncy ball. Then it was time to see her bedroom and then go to her school and as soon as we got up to go she took both our hands. We visited the principal and her classroom. We also went to Kapil – her close friend’s classroom to say goodbye and get a photo with him. The school gave us some of her work and progress reports. We returned to BSSK and played on the playground there a bit. Then we went into the informal classroom and did puzzles. Maya ate lunch with the children after this while we sat with her and then we received some special items of Maya’s from the child development specialist including a doll she received as a Christmas gift, some of her work, a photo album, and a puzzle. Dan and I ate lunch with the staff while Maya played. We then spent some more time alone with Maya and she was really warming up to us and began to say some words. After this precious time we met with the social worker and received some visa paperwork. The three of us then met with Maina (the adoptions director) who explained to Maya what would be happening over the next few days. A hotel here and then airplane to Dehli , three days in Dehli, and then an airplane to America. Once we were introduced to all the office staff and they had a chance to say ‘goodbye’ to Maya they held a placement ceremony for us with many of the staff and the children. All three of us had red chalk dust or powder put on our foreheads. We didn’t really understand it – although, we are sure it was a Hindu ritual. It was very short and then Maya was given chocolates to hand out to everyone. Final goodbyes were said and Maya took our hands and seemed ready to go.

Day 5

We spent the morning just relaxing and getting our things together. We still have not received our bag from the airlines. We had a smooth flight to Pune. As you can see from the pictures, the view from our window is a bit different from what we had in Delhi. There are railroad tracks just beyond our hotel and they are quite loud. As in other places, the pictures contrast the living conditions on both sides of the tracks. The other photo is of some boys playing soccer and a couple on a Sunday afternoon ride together. It was 96 when we landed here and was probably in the 80s when we walked. It is tropical here and the streets are lined with palm trees.
Today we finally get to meet Girija. We have been anticipating this day for a long time. On the flight we wrote out some questions to ask that will help Girija in this transition. We are very excited and yes somewhat nervous.

PS sorry this is late, we are having trouble getting Internet in our room.

Day 4

It is Saturday evening. We left for Agra and the Taj Mahal this morning at 5:30am. Our driver was young -22 - and spoke English fairly well- so we were able to ask him a lot of questions about the Indian culture. For instance, women wear saris after they marry - not before - and some grooms will ride a horse and pick up their bride as part of the wedding ceremony. Although Hindus do not eat beef and cows are considered sacred - hence all the meandering cows - they do drink "holy cow"'s mile. Our driver is Punjabi - a different religion and culture - and his marriage will be arranged. So we gathered lots of interesting info. We saw a mosque - see photo, and the Taj Mahal which is a mausoleum - for those that don't know this is a burial place. It is an incredible piece of architecture - made of white marble with beautiful inlays. You can see the photo. To either side of the Taj Mahal are two mosques. You can see Dan trying to lift the Taj Mahal in the photo. We also saw the agra fort and several temples during our 4-5 hour drive each way. We stopped at several tourist traps - a marble store, jewelry store, and leather store. We knew better than to buy anything. We also saw a lot of poverty - its impossible to describe it really - we did have some children knock on our window and point to their mouth and stomach - heart wrenching. On the more humorous side I also had a monkey on my window - some men had trained them and wanted money for taking the monkey's photo. We saw camels pulling unbelievably heavy loads and did I mention the cows? Another thing worth noting is that despite crazed driving - you've never seen the like - we made it back unharmed. Lets just say anyone with a heart condition should never get into a car in India! Red lights appear to be optional for the most part and they like to add a lane or two to the roads. I should also mention that we saw some nicer parts of New Dehli and also outside of Dehli some very modern looking malls. We also saw some American-owned factories - Goodyear and Pepsi... Just one other thing - we had a flat tire! Our driver fixed it quickly but it meant us getting out at a village and receiving a lot of questioning looks. The photo to the right shows the view across the street. So needless to say we understand a lot more about India and we are so thankful we have this opportunity to give one little one a better life and love.