Trains, Planes and Feeling Home

"We are here!! Finally it is becoming a reality! Finally we will be parents, I know it!"

The first line of the most cherished letter I have ever received. A letter, written by Duane to me, on our first night in Delhi, as I slept, and as he tried desperately to preserve on paper, the emotions he had been feeling for the past 24 hours. It is beautifully written and I cannot wait to share it with our children some day. Never has something so small meant something so big.

And I am truly envious of his ability to capture the magic of this journey on paper (perhaps he should take over the blog-posting for the week)?

I, for one, am finding it impossible to write about something so much bigger than words.

Last night, I purchased a journal so that I can record the details of each tiny experience here in India. As these experiences tend to evoke feelings that are often too raw and overwhelming to be put into words, let alone sentences, I apologize in advance for the rather "surface" blog coverage of our trip. Once home, I will do my best to reconstruct the details, but as it is an impossible task at the moment, I hope that for now, you will enjoy the "guide-book" version of our trip thus far...

It all started 2 or 3 days ago-- I haven't a clue at this point, but thankfully, this morning, feel that I am finally beginning to recover from the jet lag. Our first stop was Baltimore Penn Station. A huge thanks to our amazing brother-in-law a/k/a resident house/dog sitter for the week for the first class chauffeur service ...

From there we arrived in "lovely" Newark. No need for a sign announcing our arrival-- a "friendly" shove and a snide remark by two fellow passengers let me know that we had most definitely arrived at our destination.

Just enough time to stop for a "last meal" -- hamburgers of course...

After which we snuggled in for a "brief" 15 1/2 hour plane ride...

The plane ride was uneventful-- thankfully, more on this later-- and we finally arrived at Svelte Hotel, our home away from home for the week.

We are loving our accommodations and the service all across India is unmatched. We tend to find that everywhere we go, there are about ten too many workers. And while its impossible to imagine that the businesses are actually making any sort of profit, it sure makes for some impeccable service.

Our hotel is connected to a mall, the same as any we would find back home. It has all the latest brand shops, a movie theatre and several big chain restaurants-- Subway, McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, TGIFriday's.

So far, we have played it safe with the food-- sticking to the above list of restaurants and the fantastic breakfast at our hotel. Boring, I know, but because Duane has a fatal allergy to tree nuts, and because we really need him to stick around (at least until Tuesday) we are religiously adhering to foods which we have eaten before and can pretty much be assured, do not contain any traces of nuts. Of course, in India, even our most well known staples have a twist. McPaneer anyone?

Finally, we had our first meeting with Dr. Shivani yesterday. The clinic is impressive and the SCI team members are just as lovely and pleasant in person as they are via email. We received good news that our expected egg retrieval will be around 25 eggs. Today, we will return to sign our surrogate contracts.

If asked to describe the last 48 hours in one word it would have to be surreal.

Here we are, half way around the world, in a country whose exact location I (embarrassingly) had to look up when I first read about surrogacy in India, and yet... we feel so at home.

It is very difficult to explain, but it continually makes me think of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. It's as if these past three years, I've been wandering around, wearing the ruby slippers, and finally, I have figured out how to get home. Only home, is India. The place, where all along, we were meant to build our family. I didn't know it at the start, and the brick road may have been agonizingly long, but finally, we have found "home." In the words of my husband:

"We are here!! Finally it is becoming a reality! Finally we will be parents, I know it!"