Good morning from Mumbai!

Greetings from India!  We're now beginning our second full day here in Mumbai - our trip so far has been nothing short of fascinating.  We arrived here from Amsterdam late on Sunday night local time.  Both of our flights (Atlanta-Amsterdam, and Amsterdam-Mumbai) were on time and otherwise uneventful.  As expected, Alan was able to sleep for a good portion of both flights, while I only managed to sleep a couple of hours on each.  I spent the rest of the time reading and - you guessed it - watching the moving map.  For those of you who have a reason to fly Delta on long-haul flights, I highly recommend Economy Comfort seats - that little bit of extra legroom goes a long way.

Upon arrival, we passed through passport control very quickly, waited about 20 minutes for our bags, and cleared customs with no problem.  We got our first taste of India when we walked out to the arrivals courtyard.  It was at least 80 degrees and humid - keep in mind this was at 11:45pm - but the thing that struck us the most was the sheer number of people waiting to pick up passengers.  We were surrounded on three sides by hundreds of greeters, hotel shuttle drivers, etc, each holding a placard with someone's name on it.  We didn't take a photo of this, but I did manage to find one on the Virtual Tourist website.  Just multiply this photo by about 50, and you'll have a sense for how many people were there!

By some stroke of luck, we were able to find our hotel shuttle driver pretty quickly, and he whisked us off to the Courtyard Marriott Mumbai International Airport.  The hotel is about 15 minutes from the airport, and is extremely nice - in fact, I think it is nicer than most Courtyards in the US (probably more on-par with a full-service Marriott).  Without exception, the staff has been unbelievably gracious and attentive.  This kind hospitality has been a common theme throughout our stay in India so far - more on that later.  The rooms are clean and comfortable, and we feel very much at home.  Here is a photo that Alan took of the room, with yours truly on the iPad (probably playing Scramble, since we have wireless here!):

After an excellent night's sleep, we got up yesterday morning and got our first glimpse of India in the daytime out of our hotel window.  As you can see, every inch of available space is occupied, and there is a ton of urban development underway.  That is the other thing we've noticed in our short time here - everywhere you look, there is a building under construction, a metro line being built, or older buildings being demolished to make room for new ones.  It seems that India really does epitomize the term "developing country!"

 Our agency coordinator (Vibha) has come to Mumbai from Hyderabad just to meet us, and she came to pick us up in a taxi at around 2:00pm so that we could head to the fertility center for our first meeting.  I don't think that anything can prepare you for the experience of driving in Mumbai, which is simultaneously invigorating and utterly petrifying.  The chaotic mix of cars, motorbikes, rickshaws, animals, and people is unbelievable - but somehow, it all seems to work - we didn't see (or thankfully, experience) a single accident.  Here are a couple of videos that we took from the back of the cab - it doesn't do justice to the experience, but is a good representation nonetheless:

It took about 45 minutes to get to the clinic, which is located in a more residential area of Mumbai (if there is such a thing!).  From the outside, the clinic looks a little bit sketchy and run-down - but once inside, we were pleasantly surprised by how modern and clean everything was.  We were shown into an exam room and a PA had us sign a few documents, I was left alone to give a new 'sample' for analysis and freezing, and then I had some blood taken. 

After that, we had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Tandon herself.  She is unassuming and approachable, and we felt very comfortable in her presence.  She spent some time updating us on the status of the donor:  she is doing well, and the egg retrieval itself is scheduled for tomorrow (Wednesday) at noon local time.  We will go back to the clinic at around 1:00 or 2:00pm, I will give another fresh sample, and the embryologist will begin the fertilization shortly thereafter.  The clinic is able to record the fertilization itself and burn it onto a DVD, which means we should be able to upload a copy to this blog!  The fertilized embryos will stay in the petrie dishes for 48+ hours, after which point up to three of the embryos with successful cell division will be implanted into the surrogate.  With any luck, we'll get a pregnancy confirmation by April 18 or so.

Once we'd finished meeting with Dr. Tandon and asked all of our questions, we met back up with our driver and headed back to the hotel.  Alan and I had dinner at one of the restaurants downstairs, and got to bed at around 10:30pm.  We have a full day planned for today - Vibha was gracious enough to volunteer to take us around Mumbai, so she is coming by in a little while to take us out for the afternoon and evening.  We should have plenty of new photos to upload for tomorrow's blog entry (before we head back to the clinic for the 'main event'), so be sure to check back soon for updates!