Parenthood...Days Two & Three

This our newest favourite photo of Noah, aged five days in our hotel room at the Renaissance Hotel with his teddy from Aunty Nadyne. Every time we look at our little boy our hearts fill with overwhelming love for this little person. He is so utterly perfect and we can't stop with the kisses! Life without him in our lives is now unimaginable. Strange how a child can have such an affect us it's parents in only a matter of mere moments. Our baby boy is here for life and we are so in awe of him. We have done a little of the required paperwork and formalities to arrange Noddy's return to Australia but more is to be done. For those of you out there doing surrogacy in Mumbai, we'll include a little bit of info you may find helpful & some cute pics included!

We have almost all of our paperwork to send Noddy's citizenship application off to New Delhi. We are going to use Blue Dart couriers located at the galleria at Hiranandani Gardens. Other couples have used their courier service and they are both reasonably priced and reliable. We visited the ICICI bank branch also at the galleria at Hiranandani Gardens and obtained the bank demand draft to send along with the citizenship application. The fee charged by the bank to do this was Rs110 & we double checked the exchange rate at a cyber cafe across from ICICI bank. Dr Sudhir has arranged our signed and notarised affidavit and we have met with Pratik who reviewed our surrogacy contract. He was kind enough to come to our hotel to do this for us and this was covered in his standard fee. We also learnt from another Aussie couple in our hotel that the High Commission are also asking for a letter from our hotel stating that Noah is staying here with us until further notice, thanks Ken and Mike.

Last night was especially exciting as SI had seven babies attend their first combined 'baby party' at a fantastic restaurant in Powai, Saffron Spice. Parents and babies from Australia, the USA, Israel and Belgium attended this wonderful extravaganza and the entire SI team were there to celebrate with us. Drs Sudhir and Yash went to so much effort and it was an amazing night with memories to last our lifetime. It was great to meet so many new parents of surrogate babies and again to see Greg, Rob and their little girl. It was also an opportunity for some secret kisses between Noah and Addison watched over by the ever caring Dr Yash. Noah also received a beautiful outfit from the docs which both Darren and I adore. This should fit him in time for his 1st birthday. All the parents chose to give their babies and Indian name and the 'naming ceremony' was lovely and heartfelt. Noah's Indian name is...Ansh which means a part of me or oneself. We left the restaurant around 10.30pm and were unabe to get a taxi so Noddy had his first auto rickshaw ride back to our hotel. Both Darren and I were laughing at how no one would dream of doing this is Australia. Here we were weaving in and out of mad traffic and Noddy on our laps in his travel bassinett.

There is a public holiday in Mumbai this Wednesday so hopefully we will have Noah's birth certificate Thursday or Friday at the latest. When can then courier his documentation to the High Commission to process his citizenship application. It is then a matter of waiting and then applying for his passport and finally an exit visa from the FRRO office. The latest we have heard from Aussie couples is that the FRRO really is not as bad as expected. Yes it is very busy and hot but exit visas have been issued in a matter of hours with the help of Parashaar (My Man in India). This blog entry would have been posted much earlier but time is no longer our own. Noddy is sleeping well, anywhere between two and a half to four hours at a time and feeding from 50ml to 100ml each time. He is so good to his daddy and papa & we love him so.

Noah, Addison & Dr Yash (LEFT)

Drs Sudhir & Yash & the SI 7 (RIGHT)