[DanRoberts]

My wife and I are adopting a little girl from India. We sent our dossier to India about six weeks ago and are waiting for the NOC. How long does this take, and what kind of time frame is there after the NOC until we travel?
Also, could some of you comment on your travel experience to India, I might have to travel alone.

Thanks

[Terry in OR]

Welcome Dan,

If all goes well you should have your NOC about 2 months after your paper work has gone to CARA so the timeline will depend a little on how soon your agency's partner agency was able to turn your dossier info in. After the NOC you will have a court date. You're getting close to the time the courts close...April and May have closures during the monsoon season..that will affect your timeline. You may have a first court date within a month of your NOC. It depends on what part of India your daughter is in and a lot of other factors. My timeline was acceptance to India in January, CARA NOC in March, Verbal at the end of March and written in May. Travel was end of June/beginning of July.

I ended up travelling alone. Everyone who had planned to come with was unable to and my agency even tried to find other families going at the same time for me to travel with. Women typically do not travel alone in India so I was something of an oddity.

I stuck to arranged drivers and never felt that I wasn't safe. The only time I was truely alone was after returning from Agra. The driver the hotel asked to pick us up didn't arrive. So there I was in the Delhi train station with my 2 year old at 11 p.m. But no worries, I'd read up on the prepaid taxi stands and went and hired a driver.

Good reading is Lonely Planet's India travel guide, read up on transporatation systems, virtualpune, delhi, mumbai etc. .com are all good sources of information. The Ichild site has good travel tips too. You'll likely be going during the hot time of the year as I did. Make sure to have enough water each day. Be sure to check the lids to ensure the bottles haven't been reused. Take toilet paper and medicines. Remember not to brush your teeth in the tap water. I forgot a couple times but fortunately didn't get sick. Antiseptic wipes would be good too.

Cathay Pacific was a good airline.

Let me know if I can be further help!

Terry in OR

[DanRoberts]

Thanks Terry in OR

It is difficult to wait. Everything seems to be taking much longer than we had anticipated. Did you consider having an escort?
Our little girl is in an orphanage outside of Mumbai. I would have to travel to the orphanage to get her, then to Delhi to process her VISA. I don't mind traveling, but I worry about traveling with a small child and trying to navigate through the maze of people and paperwork. How long were you actually in India?

[Terry in OR]

Hi Dan,

I didn't consider an escort for a single moment. I figured if I had to pay for someone to take the trip, that someone would be me! What I worried about was the war and SARS and not being able to go.

If your agency works as wonderfully as the one I went through you shouldn't have a problem navigating. I would say go ahead and do the I-600 state side even though it adds 6 weeks to the wait time. The reason being is that I had to wait for the embassy (which is right next door to the consulate..same building) to give the consulate the I600 paperwork. That took several hours. The less time you have to spend in that building with your child the better. You will be given a list of doctors who can do the exam which for us was just cursory and I think it cost $15.00 US.

I spent 9 days in India and wish that I had been there longer. Next trip I plan to stay longer. We did sight seeing in Delhi for a day and went down to Agra. I left some time in Pune where my daughter lived and at the end of our trip to just hang out. Every child is different and you're probably best going by how your child feels. If mine had been more comfortable I might have tried going shopping the last couple days in Delhi.

Terry in OR

[DanRoberts]

Hi Terry in OR,

How has your "new" child adjusted to life in the U.S.? Will she have other Indian children to play with? Our little girl will be about four when she gets home, I'm a little concerned about the language difference.
While you were waiting did you find it difficult to handle all of the "have you heard anything yet?" questions. I try not to think about how long the wait is, but I just keep saying "no haven't heard anything yet" . I found a web site where CARA post all of the NOC's that it has issued in the previous month, I keep checking it hoping to see our little girl there.....
I appreciate all of your info. There is not much else for us to do right now but to wait and gather information. Another family that used our adoption agency was at the same orphanage where our little girl was. They supposedly took picture of our little girl to bring back to us. We might get them this week

Thanks again

Dan Roberts (in ME)

[ModernMother]

What Terry said is correct. Wait for NOC is usually about 8-10 weeks. Don't be scared off by people like us who have waited 6 months. Ours is a different case and a rare one I guess. Hoping for good news this week!

[Terry in OR]

Hi Dan,

Gouri has adjusted well. Foods have had to be introduced gradually. She still is not fond of green items and doesn't eat some of the stuff I was told she ate over there. I think she's just exerting her independence which is what she did from day one. She started eating chicken after she saw my siamese eating it. Guess she decided it wouldn't hurt her if the cat ate it! A lot of it is normal 2 year old behavior.

After about 4 days together she decided I was all right and became velcro child. I had to carry her everywhere. She still likes to be carried a lot but has become more independent.

The only English she spoke at 22 months was mama and bye bye. I couldn't say that she understood much more. However, she said her first English sentance after being here only about 6 weeks. I used some basic sign language with her to help her make herself understood when she didn't yet have the verbal. Signs for food/eating, thirsty/drinking. Nothing real complicated.

The older children in her building knew English well so perhaps there won't be too much of a transition in that department for your daughter. It'll depend on her particular situation.

It was hard waiting! Everyone around me was just as excited as I was and wanted to know the minute anything happened. It is a lot of hurry up and wait. You're doing the right thing to find out all you can now. Once your travel call comes things will just rush at you and you will be glad for all you did beforehand. You might start gathering items for your travel. Things like travel tp, a lock and at least a 6 foot chain to lock up your suitcases, travel pillow. Anything you don't already have. I had 2 suit cases and a carry on. For the trip over I put one inside the other. For every day items like toothpaste I put one in each bag in case something got lost. I also made sure that my paperwork would fit into the carryon. You don't want to take any chances on not having it. Look into the shots that you may need to get. Is your daughter's room ready? If not, it is good to busy oneself with that. Join an adoptive parents group in your area.

An idea for you, if there's any chance of your family doing a life book for your daughter, you might want to print out the NOC listings when her name is posted. I did that then cut out the date and the line listing her.

She does have Indian playmates. I have several friends who are Indian and several who have adopted Indian children. Its a good thing. We have started a play group here in our area that meets every few months for various activities.

I hope you get your photos soon. Another family took photos for me as well. They are extremely valuable to me as a few weeks later my daughter was moved to a toddler unit and I never got to meet the ayahs or see the place in the photos. I saw a different building and met different ayahs. Without the kindness of that other family, there would be a less complete picture of Gouri's history.

Well, I've gone on long enough. All the best to you!

Terry in OR

[spaypets]

Dan, I pm'd you.

But just to agree with Terri -- India is a fascinating country. I'm so glad we went (we were scared of SARS and the war too -- we went last May). We originally chose India because of the escort option, but became convinced that it would be terrifying for a child to be handed off to people over and over. We are so glad we went.

We stayed in Mumbai and found the Indian people, particularly the hotel staff, very kind. The hotel picked us up at the airport and we hired a car through the hotel to travel to the orphanage.

DD was 18 months old so was in prime language acquiring mode. I think she had heard some English at the orphanage. At any rate she was speaking within days of coming home. She's right on target developmentally and has been pretty much from the start.

As for the wait, let's just say it took longer than we thought and it was not my finest hour. I wish I had acted with more grace. We had several delays -- ultimately the whole process took about 6 months from the time we accepted our referral until we picked her up. But she was so worth it.

We told people that we would let them know when their was news.

We too got photos and a video from other families. The video was wonderful because when we traveled we weren't permitted to tour the orphanage for fear we were carrying SARS. it's the only record we have of the baby rooms.

[DanRoberts]

Thanks to Terry, ModernMother, and Spaypets.

All of the information you give is very helpful. ModernMother-what is the hold up with your NOC?
Did any of you find any travel deals to India. I called about tickets the other day and they run 'bout $2K from Maine or 1.8K from Boston. Are ther any "adoption deals" that anyone knows about??? With the high cost of adoption, every little bit we can save helps...

Good News! We are supposed to be receiving two new pictures tomorrow(3/31) of our little(3.5 y.o.) girl. We're so excited!! We are also supposed to be getting a psychological report on our little girl, what is that all about! Our caseworker says it only applies to "older" children, not infants. Anyway, anything we get is better than nothing.

What kind of foods to children in India eat? How do you adjust them to American food, that must be difficult.

Thanks again

[ModernMother]

To be honest we aren't really sure what the hold up is. I think (but this is just what I think, not necessarily fact) is that it's because we have 3 biological sons allready and are disrupting birth order. They had questions about her medical needs and kept sending her for more tests. So we are trying to be patient but the waiting is so difficult. Like I said, we are an exception, NOT the rule. Though I'm glad I didn't know we'd be waiting so long when we started out. It would have been even more difficult.

[spaypets]

Northwest Airlines has an adoption discount of about 40 percent.

Our daughter (who was much younger than yours) ate bananas, dal (lentils), carrots and teeting cookies at the orphanage in addition to formula. While at our hotel, we ate a lot of Indian food with her, but there wasn't much adjustment. I suggest ordering both Indian and American style food while you're in India and introducing the (much more boring) American food to her that way.

[ll_bay]

Generally the fares posted on the Internet to India are about the worst out there. And for many families, the so-called Northwest and British Airways adoption airfare turns out to be a rip-off too, since the discount is off a FULL-PRICE ticket, and almost none of us would ever dream of buying a full price ticket. Your agency should have travel agents they recommend. Erle d'Penha at Azumano travel is a wizard at India travel and will get a way better deal for your child's fare than most. I had good luck with another agency too, but would have to look up their name. PM me if you're interested.

FWIW, I second the recommendations to travel to India. It's an experience you'll never forget, and very do-able in terms of juggling everything as long as you build in "down time." We did it with TWO kids, ages 3 and 6, at the same time and we're still here and in fact planning to adopt again!

[Terry in OR]

Foods that Gouri would eat were anything with rice, roti/wati (a flatbread a bit thicker than a tortilla and comes under several names depending on where you are), Marie Gold biscuits were a God Send (we know them as Marie Lu cookies. I recommend waiting and buying them in India as they are so much cheaper there--3 pkgs for $1.00). She drank warm milk and would eat eggs also and Cheerios which I had brought with me. She would not eat bananas which she had eaten and liked. That was just her exerting her independence. Other items I took were raisins, Cheezits, pudding, applesauce, and fruit cocktail cups. I ended up eatting those items. Also took Strive sports drink powder to guard against electrolyte loss and Nutrilite protien bars which are durable enough to withstand the heat. Food that the children are exposed to isn't necesarrily as varied as what we are acustomed to. I started out ordering special stuff for her separate from what I ate and then she wouldn't eat it so switched to just ordering for myself and getting a variety to let her try.

I also used Azumano. Likely you'll be going through Europe..Amsterdam I believe is the preferred route. A travel agent is the best bet for the best fairs. They can also help you with any side trips like the one I took to see the Taj Mahal.

Glad you're getting new pics and info!

Terry in OR

[ll_bay]

Our daughters may not be the norm, as they are fantastic eaters. At first, however, they preferred rice, chicken, broccoli and bananas. And for breakfast scrambled eggs and peaches and cream oatmeal. I was so sick of those things after the first month I could've screamed! But during that time we also found they'll eat absolutely any fresh fruit, and most vegetables whether raw or cooked. The longest was introducing American milk (very different, and we tried every tip given to make them drink it including serving it on the warm side and/or with sugar) and different meats. We branched out in meats by color (i.e. turkey and pork first) and called everything "chicken" as in "chicken beef." For a while we offered chicken along with beef or ham or whatever, and gradually removed it. Now they'll eat any meat at all, cooked any way you can imagine. The other thing that took a long time was for them to try and like pizza and pasta. So we offered chicken then too, then one day they had pizza and another spaghetti and devoured it and have never looked back! They try new foods willlingly now, and rarely refuse to eat or give us a hard time.

Something I think was really key was to take the food transition at their pace. They were 3 and 6, and so had long-standing dietary habits. We felt it was important to work with those, hence the long period of the same meals at first and the offering of familiar foods along with new ones. Here it is a year later and we don't have to do any of that anymore. We now have the "eat what you're given" rule and it's not a problem, though we never force them to eat more than they're hungry for. However, if they ask for something specifically and don't want to finish it, they have 2 options, finish it then or at the next meal. Rules like these have made food a non-issue for us. They eat well, nutritiously, and the right amount for their ages, though I am sometimes astounded by how much that is! My girls are teeny, but eat like longshoremen.

Sorry to be so long-winded. HTH

[vibhag]

NWA has adoption fares.. you can call at 1-800-322-4162. 50% off adult round-trip fare and 10% off regular fare for one-way for child. Hope that helps anyone looking for deals for travel to India.