A Beloved's Journey

It's been a long time since I have sat down to type on here. I promised this blog last week but instead I worked on that Friday and then this Friday was Matariki so no 'child-free day' but I've managed to find some time in the slightly warm mid-Winter sun to write the story of the passport. In the process of international adoption every country adopting from and to is different. If you adopt from India to the USA you need to get an Indian passport, while with your child, in order to leave the country. Not so in New Zealand. I needed the adoption papers, a current passport for New Zealand, an exit permit and citizenship for NZ in order to get back home (The USA need most of the other things as well). As it was during Covid everyone entering New Zealand needed citizenship making this a new criteria. There were two types of citizenship I could apply for 'Citizenship by Descent' and 'Citizenship by Grant'. I applied for Citizenship by Descent as that

In writing this particular blog post there will be details that I will be rather vague or brief about. The reason for this is that some of the experiences shared with my daughter are very personal to us and I want to respect that. On Monday 7th March we boarded our Indigo Air plane just before 5am. I was rather nervous about taking this flight. I had flown internationally often enough but I had never flown domestically in another country. A slightly smaller plane on an airline that I hadn't flown with before and already feeling a large degree of nerves with knowing I would meet my daughter face to face that day. It could have been a recipe for disaster (if you know anything about how I fly) but it was amazing. The service from the staff onboard was amazing. I couldn't fault them at all. My aunty and I sat next to a man who was on his way to Nagpur for business. He knew straight away that we were from New Zealand as he had lived in Melbourne for a few years, studying. We were sh

Aunty Sharon and I leaving Christchurch for Auckland We left for the airport at 11am on Saturday 5th March. The check in process was relatively easy and stress free with Air New Zealand being very accommodating and helpful. We arrived in Auckland just after 2pm and took a bus to the international airport. The airport was quiet but I was surprised to see so many people on our plane. At the airport the Emirates staff were unfortunately not so helpful. There was a form that I was supposed to have filled in online. Instead I had printed off the PDF version and filled it in four times for both my Aunty Sharon and myself as I was told we would need four copies. The next hour was an interesting experience as I had to fill out the form on my laptop and find documents in my emails and scan copies with my phone of things that we had in our official documents. To say it was stressful would be a huge understatement. I was close to tears until after 45 minutes one Emirates man (who was more helpful

 The past few weeks have absolutely flown past with organising the last few details of the trip. I have bought all the things that I need for the trip and my bags are packed. I have two more days at work and then 3 days to finish off some last minute things at home before flying out of Christchurch at 1:10pm on Saturday. The closer we get the faster the clock seems to tick down! There is a mix of great excitement in becoming a family and going on an adventure but also a sense of being overwhelmed with the hugeness of those two things. But I know that God travels with us and before us.  Packing was an interesting dilemma. We are allowed 30kg checked luggage for all our flights to Delhi and 7kg carry on. We arrive in Delhi at around 4pm on Sunday and go straight to the hotel to sleep as we have to be awake at 2am the next morning to be at the airport by 3am for a domestic flight at 5:15am. We are away for 3 days and our domestic flight luggage allowance is only 15kg meaning that we need

The title of this blog really lets the secret out, but it's the journey there that is the real story. Near the end of last year I started looking at flights and accommodation as I prepared to travel to India, hoping to leave in early February. At the time there were several depending factors including booking a space in MIQ*, isolating for a week in India and working out who was going to travel with me. MIQ was an interesting dilemma as I had to work backwards and forwards at the same time as when you go into a MIQ lobby you aren't guaranteed the date that you want. At the time isolation in India was just for some high risk countries including New Zealand. In order to book MIQ I needed to know how long it would take to fly to and from India (at the time I was planning on flying to Mumbai), stay in a hotel for 7 days in isolation, get a test on day 8 and wait for the results, work out how to get from Mumbai to Akola (train-10 hours, plane and drive-6.5 hours or just drive-16 hou

I have discovered recently that I struggle to write on the blog when things are hard. And lately things have been hard. I knew I needed to write another post months ago. I eventually started writing this one almost two weeks ago. It's time to finish it. Over this time there have also been some amazing highs amongst the lows so I recommend you prepare a relaxing beverage of choice as this is a long one. In my last adoption update I talked about having my first court hearing and the only thing changing being the date. Well, that happened a few times, 5 to be exact. Different reasons were given such as 'other matters being dealt with in court' and 'emergency holiday' (that was my favourite). Each time it was disheartening but then I would remember that we were still one court case closer to being approved. I managed to prepare the new document they asked for, got it printed at the local printer and set off to the notary to have it signed. While signing it he noticed th

 I sit here writing this blog with a latte in my hand. Those of you who know me well have just gasped as coffee is not a usual drink for me... and this one is not a single shot (my usual choice when I do drink coffee). It's a decaf! But this is not my latte. It's Stacey's. It even has her name on it. Let me tell you how I got Stacey's latte and how this relates to everything about Christmas. Today I was supermarket shopping at my local mall and because I live close I had walked down. I bought some food for the week and supplies for our family Christmas dinner. Many people were leaving the supermarket at the same time and crossing the entrance to the supermarket in order to leave the mall. This left an older lady standing with her trolley, on the other side of this stream of people, waiting to enter the supermarket. Everyone was in a rush, it was raining, children had finished school and Christmas is coming. I saw. And I stopped. I indicated to the lady that she could go