Hurry Up and Wait

Ok, so while we wait a bit for the delivery to actually happen, I thought I'd fill everyone in on our first few days.  Arrived without a hitch.  Moinideen, our driver...wait, did we tell you about the luck we fell into?  Steve spent the three day Rosh Hashanah holiday in Jerusalem and seated behind him at Shira Hadashah was a very vivacious and guy, the brother of the rabbi of Ikkar in LA, Rabbi Sharon Brous.  They reconnected in LA a few weeks ago and when the subject of our impending India trek came up Michael said that he had a wonderful friend and associate named Div who had made it big in IT at a young age here in Mumbai and would probably offer to help us in some way.  Well it turns out Div has supplied us with a driver to ferry us to and fro whenever we need him, anytime and all day.  Plus two mobile phones, and two wi-fi sticks for the macs.  So we arrive and Moinideen is waiting for us and us we get in the car, he hands us a bag with our phones preprogrammed with each other's numbers (Steve Nokia and Steve BB), his number, Div's number, Div's assistant's number, a call center to ask random info for Mumbai, and ourwi-fi sticks for our computers.....and away we go to the hotel.  The heavenly connection between Jerusalem, LA and Mumbai is proof of a single all powerful deity or an amazing coordination of demiurgic angels.

Powai, and Hiranandani Gardens in particular, is a middle class to posh area.  Amid boulevards and business complexes, shops and restaurants there are shanties and slums, meaning that it looks like the rest of Mumbai, just a lot less traffic.  Still, the sidewalks are non existent in places, and there are no traffic lights, and it's still being formed at all places all the time.  But the hotel is very nice, simple and nice.  Tuesday morning, we join Will and Michael of Baby WAM for breakfast and have a very nice and fun time comparing notes on our experiences.  They are a lovely couple from Brisbane (A shout out to you, Daniel!), who were due to give birth the day before us.  There was a very exciting moment when we thought we actually might have the same egg donor, therefore knowledge of biological half sibling half way around the world!  But it turns out not.  Of course, we had looked at the same donor profiles, and picked one in the end that they had used on the first failed go round.  Before we checked, we all decided that it would actually be very nice to know, to be able to maybe one day introduce our little orthodox kid with two dads to his/her biological Aussie (not Jewish!) half sib.  After breakfast, we traveled over to Bandra, to the clinic, to pick up our introduction letter and original contract copy, which we had to furnish to the hospital so that when the surrogate gives birth, the nurses will hand us over the baby.  We also meet Dr. Soumya Ramesh, the doctor in charge at the clinic who took over after we were here last year, and Goral Gandhi, the woman in charge of the lab.  They are both so extremely lovely and it was a real pleasure to finally put faces to the voices that we had been talking to for so long.  Steve asked Goral for something very moving.  She asked if there's anything more she can do for us while we wait, Steve asked if she would ask the surrogate to write or dictate a blessing for the baby, to send him/her off with.  So we'll hopefully have that for the little one, to put in the file.

So we get the paper work, then head out to our favorite restaurant, Little Italy, (a vegetarian Italian place) for pizza.  It's pretty easy to eat here for us, as they take vegetarianism religiously, so there are all these Pure Veg places, that even cater to the Jain population that not only doesn't eat meat, but doesn't eat root vegetables either.  So even in the vegetarian places, you can order a Jain meal.  We've been told that the Jains are very involved in the diamond trade so in Antwerp the chassidim will eat in the Jains' homes.  After lunch (driving, by the way, takes us over an hour to get to the clinic, and then 45 minutes to get to lunch, and then an hour to get back to Powai), we go to the hospital, meet Mrs. Mariamma the social worker, and Nisha the woman in charge of PR, patent relations.  Tuesday night, we go out for Indian vegetarian food at the local food court and I proceed to dump an entire plate of palak paneer, rice and something curry and red, all down the front of me.  Oh, there was a gym visit in there somewhere as well.


Wednesday, we meet up with Michael and Will again and ask them to join us for the day doing a little sightseeing.  First stop was the Haji Ali Dargah, a tomb of a sufi saint, that is sort of the Mumbai equivalent of Mont San Michel in France.  It's out in the water and inaccessible at high tide.  We all trundle out there, Moinideen who is Muslim, makes an offering at the tomb and then we head off to Mani Bhavan, the home of Gandhi.  This Steve and I find very moving.  I asked about Obama's visit and the guard at the door smiles broadly and proudly pulls out the register with the president and first lady's entry, already laminated.

OK...so this is Greenberg taking over the blogspot for a bit.  Goldstein feels queasy and needs to lie down.  The Gandhi House was inspiring, but the Prince of Wales Museum (now renamed an almost impossible to pronounce Hindi name) was interesting and moving in other ways.   All four of us got headphone guides and listened attentively to the learned descriptions of the sculpture, art, and religious iconography that depicted Hindu, Jain, Christian and Muslim traditions in the country.   There were four floors and after an hour plus three of us had reached the fourth floor but Steve (Goldstein that is) was nowhere.  Will's phone rings..."where are you guys?"   Steve climbs up somewhat breathless and says, "We got to go...our surrogate was just admitted into the hospital!"  The aussies were eccstatic, smiling and excited for us.   To me it felt like an electric jolt, an existential shiver.  Steve and I looked at each other and said..."Oh...my God...its really happening!"

OK...Goldstein's back.  I'm rallying.  The museum might be named an impossible to pronounce Hindi name but it's the name that everything is called by here--Chatrapati Shivaji, an Indian statesman.  There's the aforementioned Chatrapati Shivaji Museum, the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminal (old Victoria Station, called CST for short), Chatrapati Shivaji Park.  You get the idea.  We should have mentioned earlier that Will and Michael, the boys for short, have been nervously awaiting their call, and Will in particular has been bothering Dr. Ramesh so much that she is refusing to take his calls.  And when she does, by his retelling, she answers with, "What now, Will."  Anyway, I run up, barely get out the news, Will says "Oh, then we must go," and we call the faithful Moinideen who as quickly as he can gets us back up to Powai.  We quickly pack an overnight bag, grab the baby's stuff, and run over to the hospital to be finally told by the very commanding Dr. Soni that Mrs. Shameem (that's our surrogate) isn't in labor but will be induced on Thursday.  So we head back to the hotel and spend the rest of the evening finalizing the name!  We're still working on it.


Today, we packed up at the hotel fully, came to hospital to do the paper work and get checked into a room.  The room here is great.  Very big, very new, very clean, sort of luxury to be honest, with a very calm and attentive nursing staff, called sisters here.  We also ran out to look at an apartment for our after hospital stay.  Saw a couple that were just fine, but then decided to look at the Marriot Lakeside Chalet just in case, though it's much more expensive.  Big mistake.  The Marriot is heavenly.  In lush gardens, quiet, good vegetarian restaurants right on premises, plus the ability to cook if we want.  Tennis lessons.  We're staying there.


It's now 6PM, still no baby.  But I'm sending this off as I feel it's going to happen any minute.

Big News

We're at the Prince of Wales Museum and I receive a text from Dr. Ramesh:  Call Now!
Our surrogate was admitted to the hospital this evening, birth will probably be tomorrow.
Will fill in details and pix soon.
Here we go...

Kitchen

So finally we're very close to having our kitchen completely done. I know we should be posting pictures of the baby's room, but we're trying to be a little low key with that, so I'll post pix of our kitchen instead. I really should have taken pictures before and after,so you could really see the difference, but this room is going to be so great I may want to move my bed done there, next to our very fancy dishwasher. The anxiety is ratcheting up. Up to this point I've been excited and scared, but happy excited none the less. For some reason today, I got sad. More worried than excited, and very grumpy. Those of you who have known me for a long time are probably saying, "But Steven, Grumpy is your middle name." So maybe it's about time I've hit this stage. I'm kinda thinking it's pre-post-partum depression. Though there'll be no partum for us. We've got the baby suitcase almost packed, still need a couple of items. Also, still unclear about what kind of formula they use in India. I've been asking, to see what may be available to buy. We also want to keep the baby on the same formula he/she started with, so I think I want to bring it into the hospital. So trying to figure that out as well.

Truly can't believe we're leaving on Sunday. Steve and I keep looking at each other and saying, "What have we done???"

How to Wash the Baby

This evening, Steve and I attended a baby class at one of the local hospitals. The room we arrived at was filled with couples of all sorts, an occasional single woman (whose husband couldn't make it) and us, the gay orthodox pair. The room had thin tables across the breadth of it, with plastic infant dolls at every place. On of the first things that the nurses talked about was how to take care of mommy. They of course turned to us before they started and said this part wouldn't interest us much. The next section of the class, they showed us a movie (sponsored by Huggies) about how to bathe your baby. Just about at this point, Steve and I looked at each other and starting laughing uncontrollably. We don't know anything!!!

The class was actually somewhat helpful, if only in making the birth that much more real. There we were, me and Steve, and our own (plastic) baby. The funniest moment was at the end of the evening. We were cutting out a little early, turning down the opportunity to watch a movie about car seats, we and a few other people. Joining us on our way to the parking lot was a somewhat fashionable couple who were having twins, and a very portly crew cut haired man in jeans and flannel whose wife had just begun labor that evening so he came alone. As we said goodbye we all got into our cars, and like in a scripted movie, the fashionable people got into their fancy SUV, the portly plaid man got into his enormous red pick up truck, and we, the gay couple....got into our white politically correct Prius. You couldn't have written it.

Closer

So we are getting very close to lift off. We've been shopping, we have our tickets, our passports, our lodging (almost). Our friend Tamar took us shopping at Target last week and we bought the necessaries--onesies, swaddlers, socks, hats, bottles, pacifiers, diapers. During the Target spree, we ran into the entire spectrum of the Cincinnati orthodox community, a few of whom were confused. And this was at 10pm on a school night. I haven't really told you about us and the orthodox community here. I let an article that Steve wrote and that came out in the Jewish Week, give you a peak. It's not really about the community per se, but that's its jumping point. It's a good read:
http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial_opinion/opinion/cost_standing_idly

One thing about Cincinnati that's been great, besides the Poupko/Fisher/Smith clan, is that everyone (outside of the few in the ortho community) has been offering to give us stuff that they aren't using--cribs, changing tables, clothes. By far the largest contributor has been Tamar Smith, but there are big kudos due many people. So thank you.

Today I decided to wash all the baby stuff so it's ready, and I had a mini freakout holding the little clothes up and thinking, "soon they'll be an actual creature to fit these." It's all surreal. I'm also not sleeping well at night. I keep waiting for the phone to ring, and waking up every couple of hours. High anxiety.

The kitchen renovation is almost done. Yippee! And it looks great. Very excited about that. It should be complete by next week.

One thing for anyone else doing this, make sure that when you apply for your visas, you just say your applying for a tourist visa, and don't say anything about the baby process. I made the mistake of putting on our applications that we were going to complete a surrogate birth and pick up a baby, and the outsourcing company that handles the visas, said in that case I would have to apply for a medical visa, and go through a much lengthier process. I eventually just got them to send back our passports and I reapplied, not mentioning the baby.

New Kitchen/New Day

We are in the middle of an awful kitchen renovation. It has taken us many many months to come up with a plan and it is finally being implemented, but of course not in the smooth fashion I had imagined. Steve was in England at Limmud Fest and then on to Israel for Rosh Hashanah so he managed to miss all the dirty work, meaning I spent days upon days putting together gobs and gobs of Ikea cabinets (that are all piled in our living room at the moment), clearing out the front of the basement, and moving all the kitchen stuff out all by myself while (or whilst) he has been out having tea, scones and clotted cream, and then davening with at a great minyan (prayer group) for the New Year. I meanwhile, was stuck in Cincinnati at Golf Manor Synagogue. I have yet to tell you all the sordid tale of our Jewish life here in the conservative burg of Zinzinnati, but that will have to wait. Our due date's been moved up a bit, so we're now due on the November 17th, which is like, tomorrow. All's good, the baby's growing, B"H, and we have plane tickets for November 7th. Still looking for a place to stay in Mumbai, trying to save a little by not staying in the hotel. Hopefully we'll find a cheaper serviced apartment. Another question, as far as spending money goes, is whether or not we should upgrade ourselves on the way back from India to business class. Besides the miles, it's costing us a bit as well. And then there's the thought that maybe it's cruel to the other business passengers to fly business with a newborn. When I asked the agent who was helping us with the tickets, she said, "You do what you need to do." Truer words.

Half Way Crazy

I am so bad at this posting thing. It's been another month since I last wrote, but things are going beautifully, B"H. We are officially past the midway point, and everyone's feeling well we are told. I've been going through the craziest of mood swings with the whole thing. Panicked that we won't be good parents, anxious that we're not taking care of all the things that need to be taken care of. I started writing here to not only tell about our parenting adventure but the adventure of putting two gay orthodox men in the middle of one the most conservative cities in the country, and THEN have them be parents to boot. That part of the story is as nutty as you can believe. I'm going to, on the advice of our dearest friend Arna, let Steve put the whole thing into a book. It's a story of rejection, of outsiders upsetting the status quo, of know-it-all big city guys who think the rest of the world should be like New York. And thankfully because of the Arna, Bobby and the rest of the extended Fisher and Poupko clans, of true friendship.

So I've taken care of few particulars that need to be done. Talked to a lawyer to start the ball rolling so that we can sign a joint custody agreement, basically legally making us both parents. They don't have second parent adoption in Ohio, as a matter of fact, Ohio is one of the few states that have actually passed a law making second parent same gender adoption illegal. But joint custody is how everyone is going around it. And we need to set up estate planning stuff, etc. Soon we have to start sort of setting up what'll be the nursery. We're also trying to figure out what to do about the name of the child. Saddling it with Greenberg-Goldstein just seems cruel. Goldberg? We thought we could change our names to a commone one for all three of us, but then Steve and I would have the exact same name, so that idea was abandoned. Anyway... Here are a set of the latest ultrasounds. Can't believe we're this close!