Patience? No Thanks.

Yeah.. that pretty much sums it up.
Today is Devika's 9 month birthday. We are no closer to bringing her home.. and our hopes that she would celebrate her first birthday with us are pretty much extinguished. Not that it isn't still possible, but its looking unlikely. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best eh? Frankly I am hoping we have her home by Xmas.
We found out recently that our friend, the judge, in Kolkata.. has decided that he wants to sees a copy of the orphanage's renewed CARA license before he will grant any further guardianships.
So now we are stuck. The orphanage is going thru the renewal process.. which just takes time. CARA (India's Adoption governing agency) is requesting more info/details from the orphanage.. and the license is still in process of being renewed.
We aren't worried that it WILL be renewed.. we just know that sometimes these things take time. A lot of time.
It is India. Nothing seems to move quickly in that country.. except maybe the crazy traffic. And the monkeys.
It's hard at this stage - when we only need the judge to say 'yes!' and we can start to plan our travel. Our child is waiting for us! She needs to come home and be with her family.
I can understand the judge wanting to make sure that everything is legal, etc.. but for gods sake. CARA already reviewed that portion.. so let us bring our child home! It isn't in our hands, so we can just pray that this is resolved ASAP and that ISRC's license is renewed so that we can move forward. Not just for our family.. but all the families and children who are waiting.

In other news, we just returned from a little trip to Vegas. :) DH and Maya joined me for the first part of the week - spent our time doing kid-friendly activities (eg..rainforest cafe, lions, awesome pool at the Hilton timeshare). My mom and sister joined me for the last 3 days - girls weekend! Was very fun! Mom had never been to Vegas, so I'm sure it was quite the experience for her. I loved how the first time we left the hotel and walked across the street to grab the monorail.. there was a VERY blatant 'escort' selling her 'wares' to a guy in a car on the street. We had to walk right past her - as she was shoving her bootie in the car window. Welcome to Vegas Mom!! Omg.
Maya had fun though.. she loved the monorail (of course!). Only bad thing is that she thought that she was Ms. Meet-N-Greet (I hope there is no career at Wally-World in her future - haha), and felt the need to chat-up all of our fellow monorail-riders. Her latest fav DVD is Elmo Goes To The Doctor.. and in one of the scenes, the doctor asks the patient to 'take off his shirt please'. So Maya gets all hyped-up on the monorail and starts pointing at people and yelling for them to 'Take off your shirt! Take off your shirt!'.
People were asking exactly what type of establishments we have been visiting with our 2-yr old?
Sigh.
News from the gene pool: my brother was just diagnosed with an extremely rare jaw tumor. Not malignant (thank GOD), but very large and a major issue. He's having surgery in June.. and might have to have up to 1/2 of his jaw replaced with metal. Only 54 people in english-speaking countries have ever been diagnosed with this!! Poor guy. Completely bizarre.
And.. mom had a PET scan today to check for active cancer cells. Praying all is still well.
It's a good thing that I'm not passing along our genetic make-up to my children. Seriously.
Well, HAPPY 9-MONTH BIRTHDAY baby Devika/Satarupa! I hope you were given an extra milk-biscuit today. We love you!

{btw.. date this post was completed was May 13th, not the 7th. I hate how blogger doesn't update the date.)