Happy Sunday from Mumbai. Andrew here - it has been a while since I wrote a post! We started the day on Skype so that Jenna and Sam could get better acquainted with their Uncle Greg. We've come to the realization that we will (all) go out of our minds if we stay cloistered in our hotel room for the duration of our stay in India, so we've decided to do at least one "activity" each day. After we all had some breakfast, the four of us ventured out to
R City Mall to walk around for a couple of hours and for some lunch. We also bought a few new gender-specific clothes for Jenna and Sam - their first of many for sure! Even though it was just a short outing, we're happy that we did it, and now everyone is relaxing for the rest of the afternoon.
Many of you have asked us questions about our 'exit process' - specifically, what we need to do in order to establish US citizenship for Jenna and Sam and secure their passports so that we can come home. As you saw in our post earlier this week, we spent a fair amount of time at the US Consulate on Wednesday/Thursday to get that process rolling - so here are some more specific details about what we did! If you feel up to speed on all of this, feel free to stop reading now :)
Wednesday - Consular Report of Birth Abroad Interview and Passport Application
Since Jenna and Sam were born outside of the US, we need to obtain a "Consular Report of Birth Abroad" (CRBA) for each of them. These documents are equivalent to the birth certificates that are issued by the states. In order to get CRBAs for Jenna and Sam, we needed to schedule an interview with an officer at the US Consulate - so we were up bright and early on Wednesday morning to make our way there. The US Consulate in Mumbai handles these services for several different Indian states and only schedules two appointments per day, so we were going to make it to the appointments even if we had to walk there!
The US Consulate has its own separate compound in a huge business park, and is like Fort Knox. There are US marines and Indian military stationed all around the perimeter, high fences, and guard towers! US citizens have their own entrance apart from the general area, so we were able to get through security in just a few minutes. In contrast, there was a line of at least 200 Indians waiting to get in for their US visa interviews, and that was just counting the people who were still waiting OUTSIDE the consulate gates - just another reason for us to be grateful to hold the blue passport books!
Once inside, we waited in a small room with five service windows (think DMV). After about 30 minutes, I was called up to present all of our documentation to the consular officer and take an oath swearing that everything was legit. Here is an abridged version of what we needed to provide:
- My passport
- Jenna and Sam's Indian birth certificates
- Signed surrogacy agreement (original plus copy)
- Letter from Tandon Hospital stating that we have no balance due to them
- Completed CRBA and passport applications for both kids
- Signed affidavit stating that we agree to provide for Jenna and Sam until they are 18 (we'll see how they behave) !!
- Proof of residency in the US - this included my old passports, Duke transcript, W2s from the past 3 years, and my most recent annual Social Security statement
All of our paperwork was in order (phew). The consular officer advised that in surrogacy cases, DNA testing is required (which we knew) - once the results are received, the Consulate will process the CRBAs and passports. Once that's completed, the last step is to secure exit visas from the Indian government for Jenna and Sam...more on that later this week. We'd pre-ordered the DNA test kits from LabCorp right when the kids were born, so they were already at the Consulate - luckily, we were able to secure a DNA testing appointment for the next day (Thursday) - of course you can't do the CRBA interview and DNA testing on the same day - that would be too easy!
Thursday - DNA Testing
The DNA testing process involves providing DNA samples at the Consulate, which are then sent back to the testing lab in the US for analysis (in our case, the lab is in Burlington, NC). It takes 2-3 days for the samples to get back to the US, and then 2 business days for the lab to process the results. The lab will then send a HARD COPY of the results back to the US Consulate (that's right, a hard copy), which will then start the process of requesting passports for the kids. Most of the time, passports are printed in the US and then shipped to the Consulate.
I was picked up by a cab at 7:15am so that I could make my way to a local hospital relatively close to the Consulate. The DNA testing itself happens at the Consulate, but the doctor/nurses who collect the samples are from this particular hospital - so before we could get the DNA test done, we needed to actually go to the hospital and pay 300 rupees/person (about $6 each) at the hospital's cash counter. Not only does this seem like a hassle, but of course the cash counter is only open from 8:30am - 10:00am. I made the payment, collected a notarized receipt, dropped off a copy at the hospital's pathology department (purpose unknown), and headed back to the hotel to pick up Alan and the kids so that we could make a repeat visit to the Consulate.
Our DNA appointment was at 11:45am - we were called into the collection room at around 12:30pm, once the doctor/nurse from the hospital had arrived. Jenna, Sam, and I were crammed into a tiny room along with 5 other people - the doctor, the nurse, a consular witness, someone who was filling out all of the collection forms, and a fifth person whose role is still unknown to me at this point. The nurse collected four samples from me by swabbing the inside of my cheek, and then did the same thing to Jenna and Sam. I was understandably nervous about how our kiddies would react to having someone scrape their cheeks, but they both handled it like champs. For some unknown reason, we needed to provide our fingerprints, so I somehow managed to get Jenna and Sam's tiny thumbprints on the paper. Their thumbprints were absolutely minute! Forty-five minutes later, the samples were packaged up and sealed, and we were out of there. The samples have already made it to Memphis and will be delivered to the lab on Monday.
At this point, we're still planning on being home on Saturday, December 22. It is subject to change, depending on how quickly or slowly the DNA results come back and passports printed, but we're cautiously optimistic that barring any unforeseen delays, we can still stick to this schedule!
That's quite enough for now. My apologies if this post is too long and boring - just want to make sure that those of you with a thirst for details are fully satisfied!
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