Ranjit Day Six

Today was an emotional roller coaster.  What’s new, right?!?!

Woke up at 4:30 to get the kids up and ready for the airport.  Grabbed a car at 5:00 and headed off.  Leaving Pune was an emotional thing for me.  Jack also said it felt very real now that we were taking him from the town where he has lived.  Being a car ride away sort of feels like babysitting in a way but when you’re staring from the window of a plane watching a land you wonder if you’ll ever see again fly by it’s very breathtaking.  I found myself tearing up and asking God to help me be the best I can be for this child as I take him away from everything he knows.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, adoption is not God’s first choice.  We are doing what we can to love our child and to give him life to the fullest but if we lived in the world God wanted us to every child would be with the one He gave them to.  Heartache, loss and hurt can turn into love, joy and peace but they still began as heartache, loss, and hurt.  That wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice.

Ranjit was ecstatic about the airplanes and flew around the airport with his hand in the air pretending to be an airplane.  I bet you can imagine how much airplane mechanic, pilot daddy felt about that :).  He happily got on the plane and let me buckle him.  He chewed his gum to help with the ear popping and was really very good the whole time.  He has a bit of a volume control problem but very quickly learned that he needed to be quieter on the plane.

As soon as we landed I kissed everyone goodbye and scooped up Ranjit and two folders of paperwork and headed off.  Our driver was waiting for us right when we walked out (thank you God for answering our prayers!) and then we were off to the med appointment.  We arrived right around 10 which was really good timing for landing at 9:05 and going through some pretty locked up traffic.  You can feel everything building around here with Diwali coming up next week.

At the med center I wasn’t exactly sure where to go but finally figured out there is an immigration department in the basement (which there are no signs for on any of the other levels).  I was told by others to check in and then they may forget about us so to make sure to keep checking.  Well God went before us again because right when we walked in they gave me a form to fill out and then got everything ready and within a few minutes we were going up to the nurse’s station to be checked in to see the doctor.  I checked in with her and then had a seat.  Not five minutes later the doctor comes out from seeing a patient looks around the crowded waiting room then spots us.  He asks Ranjit’s name and then goes into the nurse’s station.  Next thing I know it’s our turn and we’re in seeing the doctor.  It was amazing to get called back that quickly and I felt bad for the other people waiting.  I had heard that the embassy gives special treatment for adoption cases but I guess the med center puts us at the top of the list as well.

The doctor barely looked through Ranjit’s file, made a few notes, barely checked him over and said OK, he needs his TB test since he’s over a certain age.  I asked almost everyone I came in contact with if we could just do a chest x-ray instead of the skin TB test but they said no, they have to follow protocol.  Rats :( but it was worth a try.  We were taken by a nurse to another room for the skin test.  She put RJ on one of those round doctor spinny chairs which made me nervous because he’s a little unstable balance wise as it is.  I sat all my things down next to his chair so I could comfort him if he cried.  No tears, no flinch, nothing.  Tough kid.  She said come back in 48 hours to get your medical certificate for the visa.  I double checked the instructions and then walked out of there with my head held high because we had made it to the appointment early and got in and out within an hour…….. I savored that for about 10 minutes.

Now I had two plastic folders of papers with me; one I brought, one the orphanage gave me.  In the pack from the orphanage they had all of the original documents bound in the middle and two sets of copies of documents; one for the med center, one for the embassy.  While I was in with the doctor I gave him the pack for the med center and then put the embassy pack away.  I knew I did because I remember thinking, “I’m just going to out this away so I don’t lose it because I know I don’t need this one here.”  We got back to our driver and we start down the road and I decide to get everything out and ready for the embassy as we’re on our way there.  No embassy packet.  No where to be found.  I franticly search through both folders flipping through every document.  I start looking under the seat of the car.  The driver starts to wonder what I’m up to when I start to almost hyperventilate.  I finally said “go back!!”  He looked at me like I was crazy and I repeated myself and begged him to go back.  I knew the pack for the embassy must’ve fallen out somewhere on the road or in the doctor’s office.  I remembered putting it away but it had disappeared.  I kept looking through everything while the driver tried to turn around which was a story in itself with these crazy one lane but two direction side roads that they have going on here!  We finally make it back to the med center and I scoop up Ranjit and run in looking everywhere for the documents.  I ask the nurse, doctor and immigration office and after I finally get them to understand what I’m asking they all say “oh ma’am you left at hotel.”  No people I did not leave it at the hotel, I saw it 30 minutes ago and I haven’t even been to the hotel.  I must’ve looked pretty desperate because the doctor even came down to the immigration office and personally escorted me to the exam room so we could look for the papers together.  Still nothing.  He kindly tells me that if they turn up they’ll call me but you know from reading previous posts how reassuring that was to me with their phones!

I sadly walk out of the hospital with no embassy papers, only my originals which I’ve been told time and time again not to let go of.  It’s not just a matter of going to the local kinkos here to get copies either.  There were two sets of originals, one for me and one for the embassy.  Copies wouldn’t do.

As I walk closer to the driver he asks if I found them and I can’t speak.  I’m trying so hard to hold myself together for this little one walking with me.  Finally I can blurt out a sad “no” and the driver looks confused and empathetic for me.  He says “hotel??” and I said “no, embassy.”  I thought I would just beg them to take copies or something but I was not giving up on this today.  I gain my composure and make an $4/minute call to Jack’s cell phone.  He answers and I LOSE IT!  I bawl that I lost the papers and tried and looked through the folders 10 times on my own and probably another five at the request of the med center and the driver and they have just disappeared.  He told me we would figure this out and we both agreed to pray.  I calmed down and then heard a little voice say “mommy?” and I see a precious little hand held out for me to hold.  He didn’t say anything else, just wanted to comfort me.  I just knew I would have to keep praying for a miracle.  My prayers went something like this “Lord please I beg you to give me a miracle.  I have no idea what happen to these papers and they seemed to have disappeared into thin air.  I’m not sure what you want me to learn from this but I’m ready and I trust you to help me make this happen.  Help me protect this little boy and get him home.  Please please let me open my eyes and see where they are, reproduce them if they’re lost and also protect us if they’re lost because there are copies of all of our passports in there.”  I said this over and over and when we were pulling up to the embassy I looked through everything one last time.  Still no papers.

I checked in at the little folding table outside the embassy (thought it’d be a little fancier than that) and found out from the guard that Obama won the election.  Interesting way to find out.  Then everyone wanted to know my opinion on that and I didn’t think it was really the time or place to talk politics so I gave them one of their famous Indian bobble head non-comital answers and went on my way.

There was NO ONE in the embassy.  I walked two long hallways and found the spot I need to be in and waited for someone to come to the window.  I looked at Ranjit and told him we needed to pray and he immediately took my hands in his and we prayed together simply that God would give us what we needed to bring him home.  I decided to get out what I did have for them so I opened up the folder and there were the papers.  I’m not kidding and I would not make this up.  I searched and searched and even did it in front of others and I could not find them, then they were there.  I’m not sure exactly what happen but I’m so thankful and Ranjit and I sat praising God together.

We were called to the window and gave them what they asked for which was basically everything I had just found and nothing I had brought from home.  They wanted originals and copies so again thank you God for bringing those documents back.  We paid and then waited again to be called for our interview.

The interview wasn’t much at this point.  He also asked me what I thought of the election and inserted another bobble head move, and then he asked about the med certificate.  Since they insisted they had to follow protocol and do the skin test, we don’t have our full med certificate so we could only do a small part of the visa process today.  I knew this going in.  I knew we’d have to go back with the med certificate on Friday to finish and get the visa.  What I wasn’t prepared for was for the officer to say “I wouldn’t purchase return tickets home yet, we’re closing early on Friday.”  He said sometimes this end of the processing takes 2-3 hours and they are closing at 3 (which I think is crap because they’re closed Monday and Tuesday for holidays).  SO I beg you again for your prayers.  God has been so faithful in answering us when it comes to Ranjit and we’ve seen that full well in the biggest way for me today.  His TB test can be read at 10:45 (I’m going early just in case they’ll decide not to be too strict but probably not) and then I will head straight to the embassy asking favors to the front of the line (if there is one) to hopefully get this processed on Friday so we can still come home on Sunday with the rest of the family.  If not we stay until Wednesday when the embassy opens again.

I didn’t take the news too hard actually.  I think after the panic of the losing the papers it gave me perspective that staying a few extra days wouldn’t be the end of the world compared to wondering how I would get him out of the country  at all.  Maybe that was God preparing me.  I hope not but it’s out of my hands.

Ranjit was such a good boy all day.  Quiet as usual in public and seemed to ignore people who wanted to talk to him in Hindi or Marathi.  He’d turn to me and I’d say it in English and then he would comply or respond.  Found that funny :)

We finally found our new home in Delhi and met up with Jack and the other kids.  The house had lunch ready which was GREAT because we were starved.  I think the early flight, all the appointments and especially the sight of me crying did Ranjit in.  He wouldn’t eat or talk or really make eye contact with anyone, even me.  I tried and tried and then just scooped him up on my lap and held him and started eating my lunch.  After awhile he finally came around and drank some water and started to eat.  It was a late lunch and I know he was hungry.  I hate that I forgot to pack him a snack and that he had to feel hunger today in these early days away from the orphanage.  He’s back to his crazy little self this evening though.

Our new place here is BEAUTIFUL!  Sandwich and Leslie, Shalini says hello!! :)  It’s a big beautiful guest house with eight rooms, two of which are ours for the next few days.  I’ll post more about it tomorrow and share pictures on the facebook page.  Meanwhile, tonight I posted pictures of our walk through the money park.  Check those out and praise God for His faithfulness to us today.