I left my heart in New Delhi

 

This month we leave for India...

This month we may get to meet our baby...

 

The time went so fast. It seems like yesterday I was undergoing egg retrieval, and meeting our surrogate mother. Celebrating the end of the first trimester, viability, and then 32 weeks.

 

This is such an exciting adventure. It will be my husband's first time in India, and more important we get to meet our baby.

 

 

Now we begin Operation Exit.

 

Our exit manual is underway. We printed out  the forms that we could in advance and filled them out, and are simply waiting to fill in names, birth dates, etc. We decided to go sans lawyer and do the paperwork ourselves. Having a binder where (most) of the forms are printed (so no worries about power outages, computers stalling, printing problems, etc.)  has gone a looooong way in helping us relax about the process. As in anything you do in life, starting is the hardest part.

 

Filling it out early gave us time to gather the info and ask the embassy our questions. For the most part, the Department of State forms are pretty straightforward. The U.S. Consular Report of Birth Abroad ("CRBA") asks you to document all time spent in the United States, which was a little difficult for me because I spent a great deal of my youth living out of the U.S., but couldn't find my childhood passports so documenting vacations spent visiting granny in the States was hard to nail down. But once we figured it all out (thanks Mom!), the rest of the paperwork seemed rather straightforward. And it was much less painful than I expected.

 

The manual also includes instructions from FRRO and U.S. embassy, as well as printed blog post from fellow bloggers:

 

First FRRO visit (Thanks Andy from Dancing in the Rain)

Second FRRO visit (Thanks John and Michael from Our Gemini Dragons)

US embassy visit (Thanks Aaron and Eddy from Starting our family)

 

Huge thanks to all the bloggers. Every tip and insight has helped us so much.

 

 

I feel now that I have a game plan for exit.

 

 And a coach to help call the plays

80's costume party? Or just how we roll on Saturday night?