Flying Carpets....

Where do you go to buy carpets : well when in India : Flying carpets of course :+)
During our only free time on this trip before we pick Maggie, we decided to use it to try to find some carpets for our home. Bob and Maggie Daigle set us up with a carpet shop in New Delhi : Its called "Flying Carpets (owner is Nitraj Dhawan) on E-17 East of Kailash, Delhi.
We had a great experience--learned a lot about knots per square inch, the difference between silk and wool carpets, the dying and washing of the carpets--it takes between 8-9 months for a hand made carpet to be made. The different patterns on the carpets represent where the carpet is made--carpets made in Pakistan have different patterns than those from Afghanistan. We had to sign the back of the carpets that we purchased--quality control--so that when they arrive home we can confirm that they are the ones we purchased. Still struggling with jet lag---was crossed eyed at 6:30 pm and wide awake at 3:00am.

Mary ready to "haggle" with the carpet guy.

Nitrataj Dhawan and his assistants with Mary at the Flying Carpet

Mary was asked to autograph each carpet....

Flight to India

Exhausted but excited, we arrived at our hotel at 1:45 am local time on Friday morning December 11. (We had left Starkville Mississippi at 11:50 on Wednesday Dec 9th).

Our flights were uneventful but long. We flew on Delta from Mississippi to Atlanta then on Air France from Atlanta to Paris to New Delhi.
The Paris airport was in disarray; we were stuck in Terminal C for couple of hours before we boarded the final leg of the trip -- this terminal didn't even have a water fountain and the boarding process was a complete chaos

Our adoption story.

We are Mary and Thom Francis. In a few days we will be meeting our daughter Maggie for the first time at an orphanage in Orissa to bring her home and become part of our family. This is our story:
We started the adoption process three years ago. We picked the best adoption agency (in our opinion) -- Wide Horizons for Children from Waltham, Massachusetts. Then spent the next year completing our dossier for the India adoption program. The paperwork was extensive and through -- thanks to all our family and friends who helped. We couldn't have done it without you. We submitted our completed dossier in August 2008. Then waited -- the typical time for a referral of a child from India is between 2 to 3 years after the dossier is submitted to the Indian authorities. But we must be extraordinary applicants? : Someone in the Indian system must have liked our qualifications or thought that raising a child in Mississippi is good or the stars must have lined up that day on our behalf.
On Mary's birthday --February 3 2009 we received the call from our adoption agency that this little beautiful child in Bhubaneswar Orissa was going to be our daughter.
What an amazing birthday present!!!

For those following this blog who are also going through the adoption process, this is our timeline:
Dossier sent to India in September 2008.
Referral -- February 3, 2009.
NOC received -- April 7, 2009.
I-800 approved -- April 13, 2009
Article 5 received -- April 29, 2009 then waited for the guardianship.
Orissa courts closed for summer holidays in June and
additional week of closure for the heat wave.
In October, Mary's India visa expired and applied for a renewal.
After unexplainable delays and obvious frustrating moments with questions of continuing the process --
we received the guardianship notice on November 11th!!
The orphanage applied for the Indian passport on 23rd.
We will be leaving Mississippi for New Delhi on December 9th!!!

......Mary and Thom Francis