Another Small Step...

Ok, seriously NOT so small!! Today - February 24th, 2006 - we completed and shipped our acceptance packet for Maya! Yay!!!

There are so many people touched by our little angel already! We normally have our papers notarized at the bank close to our house. All of the employees at that bank branch (in a grocery so we are talking ~5 employees) have kept up with our adoption journey for the past year and are so excited for us! Every time they see us (which is at least weekly), they all ask how the process is going, etc.

Today, their notary was out sick, so we went to another bank (grocery branch).
All 3 employees at the bank were completely engrossed in our story and sooo excited to see little Maya's referral photo! We're glad they were so happy to be involved - as it took an hour for the notary to notarize all of our docs! I thought they were going to applaud when we signed the last document and put our thumbprint on the last notary file! I could have applauded!! It was a very happy moment. :)

Once we bring Maya home, she has a LOT of people to meet who have helped to bring her to us!!!
I think we should deliver little 'thank you' notes to all of these people! They have no idea how much their helpfulness has meant to us.

The photo attached is of our acceptance papers - being packaged in the UPS Overnight Air box - for delivery on Monday!! And yipes - due to the weight of this package, the docs cost us almost $50 to ship! No matter.. the sooner they are rec'd, the sooner they are shipped off to India and the sooner the court process begins!

You will soon be a part of our family Maya! We love you so much already!

And btw.. we cannot stop looking at her photos! Every angle of her face.. every tiny little feature.. every wavy little hair on her head.. we have them memorized!

New Photos!

As you lay sleeping far away
as still as you could be...
How could you know the joy today
this photo brings to me?
A few short months and you'll be mine, and "I" will soon be "We".
How could you know the love I feel? It's something you can't see.
So have sweet dreams, my precious babe.
Sleep well and tenderly.
Some say that you're the lucky one. How could you know it's me ?
--- Kris Laughlin


A couple of Dillon families traveled to pick up their babies last week... and brought back updated photos of our little princess!! I'm attaching one here. She looks so grown up!
It is so hard now to look at these photos and know that it will be probably 5 months or more before we can hold her in our arms. But the wait will be worth it!

Maya Jasmine

Finally we have decided on the name!

Different people have different thoughts regarding re-naming an adopted child.
We feel that it is important that our child is given a name from her parents. The name she has now - Ruprekha - was given by the orphanage. While we will document this in her Lifebook, and we will never forget it - we feel it is important to give her a new name.

We made the decision to rename her with a name that we find very special - and one that honors her Indian heritage.
I have loved the name 'Maya' for many years. I remember telling Aj how much I loved that name - approximately 7 years ago. I had a roommate for a short time who had the name. This is when he told me that the name 'Maya' was a Hindu name. He also liked the name, so we have actually had that selected for our future daughter for several years.

The middle name was more difficult. I let Aj make the final decision on this, since 'Maya' was initially my idea.
After giving it quite a bit of thought, he finally has decided on the name 'Jasmine'.
{I'm sure that Maya will be happy someday that I veto'd all of the 'Star Trek' names!!}

The meaning of our daughter's name:
'Maya' means 'divine creative force in everything'
'Jasmine' means 'gift from God, jasmine flower'

We are not sure when the attached photo was taken - probably at 3 months. She is teeny and beautiful! We're praying that we get an updated photo soon. Several families, through our agency, picked up their babies in India this week. We hope that Maya was nearby so they could snap a photo or two for us!

Another Small Milestone

We received our acceptance paperwork last week! Very exciting!

We did not have time this past weekend to get the notarized sections completed, but we went through the stack of paperwork and signed all of the non-notarized sections.
One section had 180 pages that we had to sign and date (with date written out). I wish that we were in the month of May rather than February!

I had been told that these papers required more signatures than a house-closing. They were not kidding! Owch.

We are planning to notarize and ship the gigantic stack of papers on Friday due to Aj's work schedule this week.

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We had another education class this past weekend. This class was 'Infant Care', and was held at a local hospital.
4 hrs of infant care information... which sounded a tad excessive at first... but it was a great class!! I would highly recommend it to any first-time parent.

We were given info on basic baby care - feeding, bathing, diapering (yes - Aj changed his first diaper! whoohoo!! .. first of thousands.. haha), etc.
They gave us some great info on child safety (did you know that 39 babies in CO died last year from suffocating on a crib bumper??), tips on selecting a pediatrician, etc. A pediatrician came in and talked about baby illnesses.. what to look for.. etc.

Soo.. all in all.. not a waste of time. And very beneficial. I was impressed that the woman teaching the class made a point to explain how certain things would be different for Aj and I, as our baby is being adopted. We were the only adoptive parents in the class.

I wish that all of our education classes would be this interesting and informative!

Our Happy News!

January 25th - We received 'THE CALL' from our agency!

A referral of a little baby girl named Ruprekha. She was born on October 9th, 2005. She was a preemie - though we don't know exactly 'how' preemie. Her med info said 34-36 wks. She was probably born at home.. and was dropped at the orphanage when she was 1 day old.
She weighed a little over 1 kg at birth... was 43 cm in height... with a head circumference of 31 cm.
At 3 months, she was 3.3 kg.
At 4 months, she was 4.3 kg, 54 cm in height, and her head circumference was 37 cm.

She is potentially (and probably) a carrier for Haemoglobin E - which is basically a mild form of Thalassemia. Thalassemia is a common blood disorder in Asian countries.
When she is 6 months, they will retest and confirm that she is a carrier. This should not cause her any health problems, other than possibly occasional mild anemia. She also will need to ensure that she does not have a child someday with a man carrying a thalassemia trait.

Other than that, she is relatively healthy! She is teeny and malnourished.. but that is to be expected.
We reviewed all of her medical information with a pediatrician at the Children's Hospital's International Adoption Clinic. He (along with a pediatric hemotologist who was also consulted) felt like the baby was growing at a reasonable rate and had hit developmental milestones as to be expected.

After reviewing all of her info, and discussing this with our family, we felt that this baby was meant for us!

On February 10th, we accepted her referral!

Welcome to our family Maya!

How We Got Here

Ajay and I have been trying to add to our family for ~five years. We traveled through the looong journey of infertility treatments - tests, procedures, medications, surgeries (could fill an entire blog with that information!). Nothing worked and it was time to move on.

Luckily, both Ajay and I have always been interested in adopting a child (or children). We had even discussed this interest prior to getting married.
In February of 2005, we made the decision to begin a new journey - one with a brighter light at the end of the tunnel! We researched and decided that we would adopt from India, using Dillon International Adoption Agency.

In April, we began the arduous process of completing paperwork, filing gov't forms, having our backgrounds checked thru police and FBI, home study interviews, adoption and parenting eduction classes, etcetcetc.
This process did move along relatively quickly for us - no major snags. It did take us forever to complete our Dossier (the compilation of documents to be sent to India). We needed documents notarized by notaries in several different states - some then needed authenticated by the County Clerk - and then all of them needed to be authenticated by the Secretary of State in all of those states. I swear, we must have paid somewhere between $3,000 - $5,000 for FedEx shipping of envelopes back and forth!
Our poor FedEx delivery guy - we kept him busy!

Our Dossier was finally completed in late October, 2005... and on it's way to India!
Yay! We were finally on the list!

Around the time that we were completing our dossier, we rec'd the referral of a waiting baby in India. It was a baby boy named Prasun. We reviewed his medical information and thought that his special needs would be managable. We considered accepting him and were very excited.
Unfortunately, we got a bit emotionally involved too quickly. After a couple of weeks, we received new photos and information about the baby. It turned out that his special needs were much more severe than we were initially informed. After much consideration and prayer, we decided that he was not a fit for our family - nor were we a fit for him. We, unfortunately, were not able to accept him.

Though that process was horridly painful for us, it also taught us to slow down and not get immediately emotionally invested. This is not an easy thing to do when you have been waiting so long to have a child!

Luckily, at that point, our dossier was in India and we were now #1 on Dillon's NRI (non-resident indian) waiting list. Hopefully it would not be too long of a wait!

Welcome To My Blog!

I thought this would be the best way to keep everyone updated on our adoption journey. I find myself emailing and emailing and emailing... and then forgetting what info I have sent and to whom... so hopefully this will work!

Welcome to our blog! (and yes, I say 'OUR' blog.. but I think we all know who is going to be writing everything!)