Pictures & The Embassy

Thumb sucking! Aww! I love it.

First bath- she LOVED it!

Post- bath in cute duckie towel.

All clean and lookin' pretty.

Mommy's 1st attempt at girlie hair, clearly I need some lessons!

How do you get them to sit still?!

The gods have smiled on us and we had a very easy and quick Embassy day. We started out today by getting our immunization waiver notarized (those of you traveling later do this before you leave the U.S.!!) and then headed back to the doctor's office. To put it simply our experience at this doctor's office SUCKED! I would not recommend him (he's the first one on the Embassy list and the one the embassy will recommend because he's closest- well, maybe not since I lodged a major complaint against him today). He had completed the exam on Riyani yesterday and told us to just stop by this morning with the form and we'd get our papers. 45 minutes after we hand in the form we're still sitting in the waiting room. He is happily sipping tea and reading the newspaper while his desk agents are dealing with other customers. I went up and very nicely asked what the hold-up was, he told us the Embassy had to send someone over, that all papers were ready to go but they were waiting on that person. 45 minutes after that I'm practically frantic wondering how in the world are we going to get to the embassy and get all our paperwork done and if we have a morning interview tomorrow and our paperwork isn't ready by the afternoon we'd miss our flights. The doctor still claims that they're waiting on the Embassy. I was practically in tears and asked- Why? Why does this process only take 30 minutes for everyone else but takes hours for us? He told me if I'd had the paper the day before it wouldn't have been an issue, that it's my fault. I told him we were in a big rush and really had to get to the Embassy right away. Miraculously right as I was making a fuss the girl behind him hands us our paperwork and he says 'There you go. Done.' Whaaaaat??? No embassy person came, no papers were delivered. I swear that man was messing with us (and during our visa interview the interviewer was shocked and said that it never should have happened). Anyway, I know many other families have used him and had no trouble, but think twice; it literally took us hours for no reason at all. By the way it was only one packet (not 2) but we were fine with it at the Embassy.

BUT the great news is that our embassy day was fantastic! We were in and out in under an hour and a half. I'm not exactly sure why our experience was so different perhaps it was the complaints that Amy and Heather lodged or maybe we were lucky but here's my advice to future travelers: (This is for after the USCIS immigration filing which will take you through the same area to a different room.) Once you're through security (you'll be in a very hot, very crowded outdoor waiting room) ALWAYS go to the guy at the desk and get a ticket (even if you're initially put behind a strap- get a ticket!) as an American your ticket should have an A or a J on it and you should be able to proceed right inside the (air-conditioned) building. If they don't lead you right in show your passport and nicely ask if you can proceed to Citizen Services. You'll probably have a J ticket and they'll show you the J counters and ask you to wait in the waiting area till your number comes up. If it doesn't come up in 15 minutes or so go over to American Citizen Services (it's in the same room) past Counter 24 and ask one of the tellers there. We weren't sure if Riyani's name/file were linked to our ticket number so I nicely asked. The woman behind the counter went back and asked and less than a minute later our number was called and we filed our paperwork. She asked us to sit for 20 minutes. Then we were called to a different counter and a wonderfully nice woman gave us an oath, asked us a few questions, had us sign our names and told us our packet would be ready in 15 minutes. That was it!! We were done. Oh, one other thing- the Help Desk can call your car for you (it's right there in the same waiting area). One woman said she couldn't do that until I told her I'd done it twice the day before, then she asked a supervisor who said for citizens yes. So basically our experience was once you get to American Citizen Services the people were fantastically helpful. One other note- if you can, file the I-600 a day before (or before you go to Kolkata) I think filing this yesterday really helped us speed through today. And today the Embassy was markedly less crowded so try to avoid the first day of the week if you can (usually Monday but because of Memorial Day ours was Tuesday).

We also ran into Heather, Nathan and sweet little Piyashi at the Embassy today and got to chat a little and now that we have a free day tomorrow hope that maybe we can catch up with them for a little shopping and sight-seeing!

Riyani is still doing amazingly well- she loves sweet things- fruit and jam and chocolate chip muffins (I know bad Mama!) and bread. She also loves soup (we had 'Cream of Vegetable' last night but it was actually a brothy, Chinese-like very yummy soup with bits of vegetable in it). She also ADORES other children and will always put her hands out to them wanting them to hold and hug her. Some of you from home have asked how big she is- I know the pictures look like she's got some chub but she's really tiny- she's in 6 month clothes, some 9 month but they're loose. We're having a blast with her and are back to happily enjoying India but really can't wait to get her home to her big brothers who she is just going to love!