Documenting Our Trip To India Part 3: A Day In Her World

Here we are! Our daughter has been in our arms for 6 months! She has grown so much and changed and blossomed. She still amazes me every single day. She has started calling herself our "beautiful beti girl" and I love it. Beti is the Hindi word for daughter. 

I apologize now because this post is going to be a long one with tons of pictures. 

Let me tell you about the day we met our beautiful beti girl!

Part 3: A Day In Her World

Sleep did come eventually and while it was very brief, it was exactly the rest we needed to prepare us for the day ahead. We woke with mere hours to go before we would finally be in the same room with the little girl who had lived in our hearts for so long! I was overwhelmed with what ifs and insecurities. There was no more time to prepare myself for motherhood. Was I ready? 

We had an interesting breakfast of Toast Omelets which were pretty much flat egg pancakes folded around 3 slices of bread. It actually tasted pretty good.

After breakfast, I sat in the common area of our hotel floor and waited for everyone to be ready to leave. I thought and prayed and got super nervous all over again.
Our appointment with the orphanage director was set for 9:30.

At 9:05, I couldn't sit still anymore. I also thought that we were going to need to account for travel time as we had decided to walk to the orphanage and Google maps had told me it was at least a block away! Google maps apparently needs to revisit this part of India because the orphanage was just next door! My heart stopped as we walked through the gate and started up the stairs. Most of the next few minutes are a blur for me with random images sticking out at me. The colorful pictures on the wall that we had seen in so many of her pictures. Women speaking in a language I didn't know and gesturing for me to remove my shoes. Climbing the stairs to the director's office and literally stopping to stare at a painting of a pink elephant that was in several of the pictures we had seen.

We were led, with our in-country guide, to the "family room" to wait for the director to arrive at the center. I looked at pictures of adoptive families on the walls, smiled at the stuffed animal on the couch, and counted and recounted the gifts, my fingers, toes, ceiling tiles, breaths. Finally I heard a voice that was mildly familiar to me because I'm a research nerd and had found a few videos the orphanage director had made. The director had arrived! And then my mind flashed to an email we had received not long before that told us our daughter rode from her foster mother's home to the center in the same car as the director every day. My baby was in the building. I'm not sure I was breathing as the director invited us into her office. I thought the next moments would probably be very fuzzy in my memory, but even almost 6 months later, everything is crystal clear.

The director has a kind welcoming spirit and our first words of introduction and welcome helped to calm my nerves a little. We recounted how amazingly God's hand could be seen in our story from the very moment it began. Our agency caseworker had gone to India just after learning of Jason's and my interest in adopting from India. Our caseworker met the director and told her about a family who was open to adopting a child who is blind. The director immediately thought of Lakshmi and our family was born! Two years and a few months later we were sitting in her office waiting to meet the little girl she knew God had planned for our family. My mind wandered a moment to imagine the times a head of us and snapped back to the present as the director was saying "Why are we waiting? She is here, now. Please go get Lakshmi." Jason and I looked at each other and both thought..."here we go!"

We heard her before we saw her. High pitched giggles and dress shoes slapping the floor. I barely had a moment to fumble my phone, video camera ready, to our guide. Then she was there in the doorway and the only thing that I knew existed in the world was that beautiful, shy, little girl in a red dress and black "slippers". I said hello and reached for her hand. I will never forget the moment my daughter saw me, the moment that her hand touched mine and Lakshmi's concept of mommy began to take shape. 

I don't think I understood the concept of a breathtaking moment until she touched my hand. And then she found her Daddy! He was smitten from the first second. This was a truly magical moment for all 3 of us. Cora Lakshmi still smiles and giggles when she hears the video of our first meeting. 

After some more conversation where we learned this little genius speaks 4 languages (!!) we went back to the family room to get to know each other a little better. This was when we started to see the realities of what a pick-up trip is and how stressful it can be for the child. She became very cautious with us and started to gravitate more towards her daddy. Though smiles and giggles were still not hard to find.

The director invited us to stay for lunch and we agreed. We wanted to see as much of our daughter's world as possible.

 The director also gave me a gift that I'm not sure she was even aware of. In the middle of trying to know this little girl and seeing the beginnings of grief in this child that I loved, I got very overwhelmed and decided I needed to step back into the directors office to gather the things I had left in there. She was busy so I apologized and tried to hide the overwhelmed feelings that were beginning to spill past my eyelids. As I reached for my camera on her desk, the director touched my hand and simply said, "how are you, darling?" I melted into the chair because I needed someone to see me in that moment. I needed someone to see past my walls and my need to keep everything and everyone together and see that part of me was falling apart. She took precious moments out of her day to talk to me: a mother who had no idea what she was doing. She told me that more than anything she could almost visibly see God's hand bringing our family together. That she could tell I had always been Lakshmi's mother. She gave me a gift of peace that I could not find for myself in that moment. 

We went downstairs to where the kitchen was and we were told it was time for Lakshmi to have a snack. Lakshmi's teacher, S, sat Lakshmi on the edge of the table, told her to fold her hands, and fed her rice. I remember barely being aware of voices behind me (the childcare workers) saying, "the mother should feed" before the spoon was placed in my hand and I was in front of a hungry child I barely knew and I had a brief moment of panic when I realized "the mother" was me! I  managed to feed her without making any monumental mistakes and we set off on a tour of the center.

Our tour started in the room where most of the smaller children and children with special needs were eating a snack. We got to see how fearless and social our daughter is as she twisted away from the childcare worker holding her hand and ran to her friends' voices. She knocked over a couple of kids in her way, but the kids seemed to expect this from Lakshmi. The children laughed and sang and we were ushered into plastic chairs at the front of the room to watch them.

We then followed a very excited Lakshmi to the basement school room and watched part of the songs and learning exercises S was doing with the children. 

Someone came and told us that the lunch was ready. While we ate lunch, Lakshmi was taken to see the doctor visiting the center because she had a cold. Our lunch was delicious!! Rice and vegetables, sliced cucumber, and bottled water. You could tell it was made with so much love as the hands who made it anxiously watched us from the kitchen area for approval. We of course thanked them profusely and Jason gave them many thumbs up!

Lunch ended as Lakshmi was brought down to us and the childcare workers began to say their goodbyes. I was able to take some video for Lakshmi to listen to later and those are treasures to her now. 

My heart stopped as a woman I never expected to meet came into the room. Lakshmi's Amma, her foster mother, had come to say goodbye. She brought a suitcase full of Lakshmi's clothes. We went back to the directors office to talk and those moments will always be cherished ones for me. I won't go into detail because words cannot do justice to the experience. Amma will always be a part of our family.

We did our best to get a family picture by the pink elephant. Then it was time to go to the RIPA across town to sign the official papers and take custody of Lakshmi.

We drove across town to the RIPA, another orphanage. I experienced a little culture shock on the ride because there are no car seats in India. Lakshmi was content to move from person to person in the van. The two orphanages were very different. The RIPA was much larger and set on a government property. When we got there, we were led to an office and much of the rest of that meeting was a blur. I was suddenly responsible for a cyclone of energy who was getting tired and hungry. I think I signed something at some point. I know were were finally given all of our court papers and all the passport photos we needed. I tucked everything away and we headed back to the orphanage. Right about the time we arrived, the sky opened and the rain just poured. The driver dropped us at the door to our hotel.

We got out, rushed upstairs to our room, and then we were there. A family of three. I think we all realized it at the same time and had completely different reactions. Jason started smiling and almost couldn't believe we were there. I went into "get it done" mode and started trying to make sure Lakshmi had everything she needed. Lakshmi screamed. Her grief set in almost the moment we got to the hotel. We expected her to grieve and knew she needed to. I just don't think we had a clue what it would look like. It looked like a terrified little girl who didn't want us anywhere near her. She didn't want comfort and she sure as heck didn't want me to change her out of her wet clothes. She wasn't going to let me anywhere near her very wet diaper. She just wanted to stand in the corner and cry. I finally just held her even while she fought me. I held her and cried right along with her. I sang every hymn and lullaby I knew until she finally fell asleep. And then she peed. Right through her already soaked diaper and all over me. 

 Yes, in this beautiful picture we posted on Facebook to announce that she was finally ours, I am covered in urine.

That confirmed it for me....I was finally a mom. I closed my eyes and slept with my beti on my chest.