Mission "Twin Retrieval": Flynn and Margot discharged.

It’s after midnight on Thursday, our second day in India, and I’m finally writing the first blog post of our trip.

We landed in Delhi at about 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday and reached our room at about 3:00 a.m.  After some sleep we got to the hospital about mid-morning on Wednesday where we finally got to see and hold Flynn and Margot.  Both of them are doing great.  Since their birth two and a half weeks ago they’ve put on some weight.  Flynn is now 5 lbs. 5 oz. and Margot is now 5 lbs. 13 oz.  So they’re now about the same size as Coco when she was born.  Both have very good appetites and are taking a bottle about every three hours.  Neither has been very fussy, although Flynn has managed to both poop and pee on me already.

Since we still had to pay a visit to SCI to complete some paperwork on Wednesday, including the forms necessary to finalize the twins’ birth certificates, we decided to leave the twins in the NICU for a few more hours.  Still, we were back to the hospital from SCI and then back to our room with the Flynn and Margot by mid-afternoon. 

Papa and Flynn

Daddy and Margot

  

All four of us are pretty tired at this point.  Since yesterday afternoon Ken and I have been mostly sleeping along with the twins between their bottles.  The two of us hope to be on a more normal sleeping schedule starting tomorrow.

Bottle time - every three hours at this point.

 

The process to secure the twins’ passports and visas so that we can leave the country has been a bit confusing and frustrating.  We realized on Sunday before we left that we needed to order the DNA test kits from an approved U.S. provider before leaving for India.  We got that done on Monday morning before our flight and the kits arrived at the embassy today.  There’s been some confusing messages about when the embassy will administer the tests for us, and it looks like we can’t get the tests done until next Tuesday (9/17).  We’ll then have to go back the following day to complete the rest of the paperwork for the passports.  Our hope is that the embassy will have the DNA test results and then issue the passports by Friday (9/20) or Monday (9/23).

SCI did secure the birth certificates today, but they still have to be stamped with the necessary apostille.  That should be done by next Wednesday when we have to present all the necessary documents to the U.S. embassy. 

After the passports are issued - hopefully by Monday, 9/23 - we’ll then get the necessary exit visas from the Indian government.  That process includes only one agency now; two agencies were involved when we completed the process with Coco two years ago.  At this point I hope the entire process will be done by Tuesday, 9/24, or Wednesday, 9/25.  We have to be done by the end of the day on Thursday, 9/26, if we want to leave on our currently-scheduled flight on Friday morning at 3:00 a.m.  Keep your fingers crossed! 

Flynn

Margot