Adoption Update: Order Passed!

It’s official: We are now the legal guardians of the twins. Woohoo?

Well, don’t bring out the champagne bottles just yet – we’re not even half done.

See, if we were not Hindus (we’re not, really, but by dint of birth and for the sake of convenience(huh?) we’ll let that pass for now), once we were awarded guardianship of the twins, we’d be done. Almost done – apart from processing the paperwork required for getting their birth certificates.

But, since we’re Hindus, and specifically because we’ve adopted from Pondicherry (generally inadvisable, if you ask me), we now have to go through the legal process applicable to Hindus to complete the adoption.

Plus, we have to get the birth certificates.

Only, we can start the two processes in parallel.

Once we get a copy of the Judge’s order.

Which will take only a month.

Only?

Why?

Don’t ask me! I’d like to know why myself.

And then, based on that order, we have to get an adoption deed, which has to be registered. Somewhere. By someone. Yes, we have to be present for that, both of us.

And after that, we get have to get a bone-age X-ray done on the girls. And that has to be done in Pondicherry as well, and certified by the Chief Medical Officer.

Why? I don’t know – the adoption agency actually has the hospital records stating when and where and how they were born and what their birth weight was and that they were full term and all that, so I really don’t know why we need to subject them to an X-ray to tell us what we already know about how old they are.

And then we need to be interviewed by the DC – District Collector? Or Deputy Collector? Or District Magistrate? Somebody like that. And he wants to not only interview us, but meet the girls as well. In Pondicherry, of course, in Pondicherry.

Why? Well, why not? After all, the Judge hardly took any notice of us, so I suppose somebody should, just in case we are child traffickers or worse.

Oh, yes, the Judge. Well, Amit went and stood in the witness box and held his hand out and said “I swear to tell the truth,” and the Judge snickered. Yes, he really did, he snickered. Perhaps because Amit is so tall. Or maybe he caught sight of my haircut. Once he was done snickering, he spent a couple of minutes reading through the affidavit, while the court clerk shuffled through the accompanying documents. The lawyers were talking in whispers amongst themselves, like back benchers in college. The girls were wriggling, squirming, squealing, and flirting with the audience. I never heard it said, but apparently at the end of 90 seconds or so, he passed the order and went on to the next case. I didn’t hear or see any gavel being banged or anybody saying “Case dismissed,” – nothing like the movies at all. But anyway, Amit got to stand in the witness box, so I suppose that justifies the long, long drive to Pondicherry and back.

So we are now their official guardians, but only till the girls turn 18. Every year, we must send to the Family Court, reports of their health and wellbeing, along with school progress reports. Plus, we can’t leave the country with the girls; well, we can take short trips, provided we inform our lawyer and the adoption home first, but we can’t emigrate. And of course, the girls are still not our legal heirs, so if we had met with an accident and died on the way back from Pondicherry (or at any time now), they would  have been left penniless. This, of course, we have to remedy as soon as possible, because you never know, do you?

And meanwhile, the second part of the adoption case, under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, which will make them our legal heirs, could take a year or more in the Pondicherry Civil Court. So that champagne celebration had better wait a while yet, don’t you think.

Adoption Update: “No objection, Milord” (or words to that effect)

I think the toughest part of the hearing on Friday, was leaving home on Thursday afternoon.

First, I spent the morning rushing around packing food, clothes, and getting the girls and self ready for the trip.  Amit coolly stuffed one change of clothes and a toothbrush into his laptop case and left for office, expecting to be picked up on the way out.

I usually don’t pack food for a trip – after all, eating out is half the fun of traveling, right? But then, last time we went to Pondicherry, the kids didn’t get their usual quota of fruit and veg and wound up severely constipated. Severe constipation in a child is, I have discovered, waaaaaaaay worse than diarrhoea. Although I would not have believed that anything could be worse than diarrhoea from the hapless mother’s perspective, it only took one brush with constipation to convince me otherwise. Ugggggggggh!

So anyway, there was packed lunch for me and Amit, packed sandwiches for our early evening nibbles, and packed milk and dinner for the kids, in addition to small quantities of apple, mango, and banana for snacking on. The car was invited for 1 p.m. (taxi, of course; I wasn’t going to let Amit drive the whole way while I struggled to manage the twins in the back seat) and  by the time I managed to make it out the front door with the kids awake and walking, and a huge bag of food and diapers hanging from my hand, and a heavy, lumpy backpack full of clothes and toys hanging on my shoulders, it was 1.30. Not bad.

We picked up Amit, made a detour towards an ATM machine, and were heading out of town by 2.30. After various checkposts, toll taxes, and other minor delays, we reached Pondicherry at 10 p.m. None of us had had any dinner. We had given the kids their afternoon milk around 5 p.m. and Tara had started vomiting at 6 and kept it up for a solid hour before (thankfully) falling asleep. Mrini, who was largely ignored in the tension of cleaning up after Tara, keeping an eye out for the next load of puke, and attempting not to get it on our clothes, shoes, or the food bag, fell asleep out of sheer boredom. Naturally, we were not at all enthusiastic at the prospect of waking up either girl for dinner, so once we had reached, and the girls had woken up in the excitement of alighting at the hotel, we ordered a late, late, late dinner from room service.

One rule that we try not to compromise on is to keep the girls awake and active for at least an hour after dinner, before putting them to bed. Consequently, it was close to midnight before any of us got to sleep.

Despite which, we were all bathed, breakfasted, and present at the courthouse a few minutes before 10 the next morning. The kids seemed none the worse for the long drive the day before and were full of mischief. The good news was that the court clerk told us ours would be the first case. The bad news was that there was no sign of our lawyer, even at 10.15 when the Judge was in court and some preliminary business was being completed. Amit had already called her and told her that we were there and that ours was the first case, but that did not seem to unduly perturb her. She finally came up the steps in a leisurely manner, caught sight of us anxiously scanning the steps, carefully avoided making eye contact or in any way acknowledging our presence, and went into the courtroom in a stony silence. About 5-10 minutes later, our case was called, and all four of us found our way to the front of the courtroom. A brief exchange took place between the lawyer and the Judge (in Tamil), and we were told to come for the next hearing two weeks later.

And that was that. Our 30 seconds in the spotlight were over before we had quite realized they had begun.

What was supposed to have happened was that the Department for Social Welfare was supposed to have said that they had no objection to us adopting the twins. What in fact happened is anyone’s guess. Amit says he signed something, but he has no clue what it was. The Judge hardly glanced at us or at our papers. Still, apparently something had happened, and we were to appear for a similar “something” two weeks later.

Oh well – at least it was quick and easy. Of course, there’s the minor matter of subjecting two adults and two toddlers to two car trips of seven hours’ duration each, all for the sake of that 30-second appearance… but if it all gets done and with the minimum number of hearings possible, I’m not complaining.

Adoption Update: Friday the Thirteenth

Thank goodness we’re not superstitious. What kind of date is Friday the Thirteenth for the first hearing to formalize the adoption of our twins?

So, there’s going to be another trip to Pondicherry coming up soon. Too soon, if you ask me.

Does anyone know a good adoption lawyer? One based in Pondicherry, preferably, otherwise one based in Bangalore will do. Our current lawyer is a bitch. Sorry, I don’t usually describe people that way, but there seems no other way to describe her. She yelled at Amit yesterday, again, and he didn’t even do the slightest little thing to provoke her. Unless you consider asking politely for the date and likely time/duration of the hearing to be a provocative question. Plus she’s told us that it is altogether impossible for either one of us to attend the hearings, and get some kind of exception for the other; and that it is altogether impossible for us to request a change of date for any hearing date set by the judge that may not suit us. I don’t know about the former bit of information, but the latter definitely seems like she’s being deliberately obstructive. Can any court be so reasonable as not to have some procedure allowing the petitioner to request a change of date? What if one of us were out of town or scheduled for a medical emergency on the given date? According to Madam Lawyer, the judge would simply dismiss the case. I don’t know much about legal matters, but to me, that seems absurd.

So anyway, in the course of shouting at Amit, she said that we would have to be present at court the entire day, from 10 a.m. till about 6 p.m. with an hour off for lunch, because our case could be called at any time. Again, this seems ridiculous to me, but more worryingly, I have NO IDEA how we’re going to manage the twins that whole day. Has anyone ever heard of keeping two almost-two-year-olds quiet and happy in a hot, sweaty, crowded courtroom where they’re not allowed to talk far less move around or play – the WHOLE DAY LONG? Well, I don’t think it can be done – quite apart from minor matters such as afternoon naps and diaper changes. Amit is convinced that if I’m absent from the courtroom for just 5 minutes changing a diaper or trying to soothe a frantic girl, the case WILL be called in that interval, the judge WON’T accommodate my short-term absence, and we WILL have complications like the case being adjourned or dismissed. I doubt that things can be quite so completely arbitrary even in our judicial system (what if one of the petitioners has to use the toilet?), but there’s no reasoning with him.

So presently, we’re trying to get my sister to accompany us for the trip. Let’s see how that works out. Meanwhile, we have four weeks to work on getting a second legal opinion, which I think we really need.

Adoption Update: Papers Resubmitted

Sunday night, I caught an overnight bus to Pondicherry. We still had not really managed to initiate the legalities of adoption – our previous attempt had been rendered null and void as we later discovered that there were certain errors in the petition that would have to be corrected. A month had passed and we were still trying to correct and resubmit the petition.

The task of getting the papers back from the court, making corrections concerning my employment status (now unemployed) and income (now nil), and resubmitting the papers had finally fallen on me. Amit had an important(ish) meeting (teleconference) that he was optimistic of attending from home in the afternoon; besides, I think he’d had just about enough of traveling for the moment.

Monday morning, after a sleepless night being bounced around on bad roads, I was dropped at Pondicherry bus stand at the ungodly hour of 4.30 a.m. I spent three hours sitting in the bus stand, surrounded by recumbent figures sprawled all over the floor, as is to be expected in the wee hours of night in any bus stand anywhere in India. I had my book for company (A Crack in the Edge of the World, by Simon Winchester), so I wasn’t bored, but I wasn’t happy about the volumes of foul tobacco smoke (beedi, at that, which is unfiltered and therefore particularly foul, even in comparison to ordinary cigarettes) that went up my nose and down into my lungs – way more passive smoking that I’ve done in many years combined.

At 7.30, having had idlis and coffee at the local shop for breakfast, I walked out of the bus stand and started searching for the court house. Searching, because the last time I went there we had gone directly from the hotel. Not being very familiar with the geography of Pondicherry, I decided that the simplest thing to do would be to get to the hotel, and then navigate from there for the courthouse. Thanks to this decision, I got an impromptu walking tour of Pondicherry, for more details of which, see below.

Having reached the courthouse at 8.30, I called the lawyer, who said she would come by 9.30. She finally turned up at 9.45, shortly after the judge arrived. She succeeded in locating our case papers and getting the clerk to return them to us, but there was no time to make the changes before the judge was seated at 10. I was rushed into the courtroom, my papers were passed up to the judge, he called Amit’s name, looked up and saw me, nodded, passed the papers back down and then I was ushered out of the courtroom. After waiting a few minutes, our papers returned to the court clerk in the back room, and it was now that the lawyer set about making the requisite corrections. I signed half a dozen times, and by 10.30 it was all done.

I took an auto back to the bus stand, boarded a bus to Chennai, alighted at Guindy, called for a cab, grabbed lunch at a nearby restaurant, located my cab, got dropped at the airport, caught my flight back, spent an hour stuck in evening rush hour traffic, and was home by 7.30. The effort hardly seemed worthwhile for the sake of 30 minutes and half a dozen signatures… but at least I can now describe any of the major roads of Pondicherry.

My Walking Tour of Pondicherry

• Exited bus stand in front of the pretty pink foot overbridge, turn left.
• 150 m on, passed Mass Hotel on left
• Road splits, HTV take the high road, but it meets again at the next intersection
• Took a brief and unnecessary detour on to cuddalore road; saw railway crossing, thought, “That way lies our agency,” turned back
• Continued on previous path, keeping bus station behind me; passed botanical garden, ornate gate looked inviting
• Saw a familiar-looking left turn and took it – turned out to be Anna Salai; walked the length of it (seemed like a lot) and it eventually turned right on to SV Patel Salai, right in front of Anandha Inn, the hotel we stayed at last time. “Good, I should be able to find my way from here,” I thought.
• Turned right at next intersection off SV Patel Salai, on to MG Road (mistake).
• Walked down it until I met Jawahar Lal nehru at right angles, turned left.
• Entered the French Quarter and was tempted to take a right on one of the inviting-looking streets, but didn’t know which one or where it would land up, so kept going straight till i ran out of road. Then took a right, found a lovely garden in front of me, did a little zig-zag to the left and found the sea – at last!
• Took a right turn onto the promenade, Gaubert Avenue, walked on for another few minutes, found the courthouse.

Time taken – 1 hour

What I should have done – or rather, what the auto did on return and charged me 30 bucks for…

• Get on to Rue De Bussy (Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg) and keeeeeeep going straaaaaaight till you come to the pretty pink foot overbridge in front of the bus stand

time taken – 10 minutes

Well, you live and learn.

Adoption: How Slow Can it Go?

It’s been some weeks already since we went to Pondicherry to file the papers for adoption. Then we discovered that some “minor” (!) details needed to be corrected. Then, the lawyer informed us that for that to be done, one of us would have to travel to Pondicherry again. Then it transpired that first the renewal licence of the agency would have to come through. When that happened, the family court decided to shift to new premises, so the lawyer suggested waiting till that was done. Meanwhile, Amit is travelling again next week, so naturally, neither of us can be in Pondicherry at that time. I’m sure that, by the time he returns, it will be time for yet another advocates’ strike in Pondicherry. After that, probably someone will fall sick or something. It seems like this is never going to get done.

On the flip side, though, at least we have our kids. Reading other adoption blogs, I’m horrified by how much more trouble others have to go through to bring their kids home. So I shouldn’t complain.

Still, I do wish it would all get done and quickly.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

I’m not sure if my account of our trip to Pondicherry to file papers gave the impression of quite how rushed and hectic it was, but it really was. Amit was extremely tense about the whole process going off smoothly and without any further delays. I was only worried about managing the kids and keeping them happily occupied.

Our lawyer, for some reason, thought she was doing us a great favour by asking us to come and sign all the papers at her office on the morning of the filing. She apparently thought that the only alternative to this procedure was for us to come a day earlier, thus she was showing us maximum consideration by sparing us a day. She did not consider that we might actually have much preferred to arrive a day earlier and finish the work at leisure instead of being under such pressure. She also did not appear to have heard of or thought about the possibility of sending us either the actual documents or a draft of those documents by fax, snail mail or email beforehand, so that we could read or even sign the papers well before the date of filing.

Naturally, there were pages and pages of stuff to be signed by each of us, along with filling in our names and addresses in a couple of places. By the time it was all done, it looked like we hardly had enough time to get to the courthouse before 10 a.m. – and if we were late, that was one day wasted.

Amit asked the lawyer for a copy of the papers we were signing, and she flatly refused. Obviously, there was no time to make a copy at that time (it’s not as though her office even had a copying machine), but that was not her main reason for refusing. She said it was not required for us to have a copy at all!

How can that be? I’m signing legal stuff on stamp paper stating something or other, shouldn’t I at least have a copy of whatever it is I’m filing?

Amit, being nothing if not stubborn, insisted on photographing the documents with his cellphone, which he managed to do without making it unduly late. I tried to hastily scan through the pages – I wanted to be sure there wasn’t a line in there somewhere saying that we agreed to make over all our worldly possessions to the said lawyer, so help me god.

So, in some ways it wasn’t surprising that we missed it. What did surprise me was that Amit actually read the photographic copy of the entire document word for word during the drive back, and he still missed it (and he’s the sort who’ll catch “Foster Care” spelt as “Faster Care”).

It’s not as though what we missed was a tiny little typo error – no, there it was plainly stated that I, the joint petitioner, was currently employed with such-and-such company and drawing a monthly gross salary amounting to exactly so much. (And therefore financially empowered to look after the said children.)

This, on a petition dated 9th April, 2008.

When we had submitted the entire set of documents including our payslips to the adoption coordinating agency in Bangalore way back in April 2007, I was gainfully employed. By the time we got the twins home in September 2007, I wasn’t. This statement – which, by the way, occurred twice – in April 2008 was plain wrong, by well over six months.

The penny quietly dropped into my head sometime on Thursday morning, but even then I didn’t pay it much attention. It wasn’t until I discussed the matter with Amit late on Thursday evening that we both realized just how serious it could be. HOW could we have missed this? We both knew we had read this in the document, it had just not occurred to us that it was no longer true.

After much serious discussion and several frantic phonecalls, remedial measures were put in place. Our lawyer, who was plainly peeved at us not having pointed this out that morning (HOW??), agreed to stop the file in court, and one of us would have to dash down to Pondicherry, legally withdraw the file, make the corrections, initial them, and “appear” (if you can call it that) before the judge to re-submit. The only saving grace was that only one of us need go, which meant that Amit would have to do the dashing, while the kids and I stayed home.

A Long Way to Go

The twins have been with us for over four months. Someone I met recently who had adopted a baby girl in December 2006, told me that the paperwork for their adoption had been completed in four months. They adopted from Belgaum (Karnataka), and had to make one trip back there to complete the process.

For us, adopting from Pondicherry (Tamil Nadu) the process seems to be completely different. First, we were told, we could not even file for adoption until we had completed three months of foster care. I wonder why that is: do they want to give adoptive parents time to change their minds?

Now, after about six weeks of daily phone calls, they have sent the papers to the lawyer, albeit missing one signature. Once the lawyer okays the paperwork and obtains the missing signature, we can actually file the case in the court. That might – with luck – happen next week or so.

The lawyer gave us a rough overview of the entire process. The details are cumbersome, but the summary is that it will involve at least five or six trips to Pondicherry and will stretch over seven or eight months, barring any disruptions to the schedule such as a lawyers’ strike, which are quite likely to occur.

Worse, for every trip to Pondicherry, both parents are required, which means, in our case, that all four of us will have to go. I wouldn’t mind just travelling to Pondicherry and spending a couple of days there; the problem is that most of the time will be spent waiting at the lawyer’s office or at the court – and that will be tough on the kids.

Well, you gotta do what you gotta do. At least by the end of it, we’ll be so used to travelling with the kids that family holidays will seem less like trouble and more like a vacation.

Why Adopt?

Why not?

When we were wondering whether to adopt, and later as we discuss the matter with others, we came up with a whole lot of questions or issues around adoption. Some of them were very relevant to either one or both of us; others were not important; and some lines of thought advanced by other people left us frankly astonished.

In no particular order:

• Gender
• Age at the time of adoption
• Age at the time of being given up for adoption
• Looks and complexion
• General health – height, weight and overall development
• Diseases, disabilities, or congenital conditions, if any
• Date and time of birth or assumed date and time of birth; sun sign
• Marital status or nature of relationship between biological parents
• Reason for being given for adoption
• General health of biological parents – predisposition to genetic diseases or conditions
• Health of biological mother during pregnancy – exposure to/use of tobacco, alcohol, other substances
• Economic status of biological parents
• Caste of the biological parents
• Religious affiliations of the biological parents
• Moral and ethical values of the biological parents (why on earth should this matter? At least I’ve not yet heard anyone wanting to know the political affiliation of the biological parents…)
• Whether or not the biological parents were vegetarians

There might be other, more arcane considerations: the kind of car the biological parents drive, or whether they prefer Pepsi or Coke. For Amit and me, only the first six points mattered at all, and of them it was only the matter of diseases, disabilities, or congenital conditions that could be a gating factor. While we did consider and discuss the other five factors, and have some preferences on them, we did not consider turning down an option on any grounds other than health. Yet, I can understand other people being concerned about some of the other issues as well, and I can understand many of these being important enough to be gating factors for other people.

All said and done, it is not an easy decision, and finally there’s only one motivation that is strong enough to override all the considerations against adoption: the fundamental desire to have a child. People have often said to Amit and me what a noble thing we have done by adopting our kids; but they completely miss the point. In our case, as in many cases, there is nothing “noble” about it. We adopted purely out of the desire to have kids – a selfish desire, if ever there was one. Once that desire is strong enough, it no longer matters whether the child was born out of wedlock, whether she was born to people of a different religion or caste, or whether she is a saggitarian, a taurean or a scorpion. Nothing matters except that she will be yours and you will finally be a parent.

Twins at Home!

I have never noticed a city I visited less than I noticed Pondicherry on this trip. I knew my way to the orphanage, and that was all. I even had to have the beach pointed out to me along the way, I was that preoccupied.

Meeting the twins at the orphanage, I could not say there was any instant attraction or bonding. When we held them, they cried, as we had been warned they would. All the same, the younger one, Tara, settled down quite quickly, though Mrini took a while. She was the first to throw up on me, politely favouring me with her attention on our way from hospital to orphanage on Tuesday. Now she has turned out to be a clingy and somewhat whiny baby who always wants to be held. She sucks her thumb and forefinger all the time and seems a little withdrawn, scared, and a bit of a “mommy’s-girl” – she follows me around like a puppy on all fours and cries if Amit picks her up. Tara is all smiles, the adventurous one, and loves Amit. The only problem is that she is being fussy about her food, eating very little and obligingly vomiting on her feeder if coaxed to eat more than she would like. They both have stuffed noses, and Tara absolutely hates having her nose wiped. She loves being bathed, though, and Mrini hates it and howls fit to bring the neighbours down if her hair is washed.

They are sometimes very cute together – if they are in the mood, they will go crawling off towards some particularly enticing object, pull themselves up using whatever furniture is at hand, stand shakily for some minutes with their backsides wobbling, then sit down together, plop, on their bottoms, turn around and grin at us. Tara bullies Mrini by pushing her, pulling her hair, and telling her not to suck her thumb. Mrini meets most of these advances with a stern and somewhat skeptical look, as though to say, “What would you know, you’re fifteen minutes younger than me.”

All said and done, they are a proper handful. Two handfuls, actually.

Hmmm… we have been inundated with phone calls. My parents, who never showed any real signs of being doting grandparents have, according to my sister, been staring cross-eyed and photos of the twins and wondering whether 7 a.m. is too early to phone and find out what the twins are getting for breakfast.

Right now, Tara and Mrini are having their afternoon nap, and Amit is sprawled out next to them, also having an afternoon nap – he hasn’t been able to sleep at night, though the twins seem to be getting a good eight hours.

Life has changed radically all right – from being DINKs (double income no kids) two weeks ago, we suddenly find ourselves as full-fledged SITTs (Single income, two toddlers).

Photos? Well, they are in the camera and two cell phones. The only question is, when will I get them out and on to Flickr??? Your guess is as good as mine.

Yes, Twins!

We got our babies! We drove back from Pondicherry yesterday afternoon. It was all relatively smooth sailing, medical tests were all clear and the girls took to us without too much fuss. They’re sleeping for the moment, but it’s time I went and woke them up for dinner. I don’t think I’m going to be getting much time on the computer in the coming days, but will try to post some photos eventually. Thanks for all the best wishes!