It's a Girl!

Millie Lynn is officially ours! We met with the Ministry of Women and Children today and signed the paperwork. She is officially a Williams! After the Ministry of Women and Children, we went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to apply for her Passport. They won't be ready until Sunday, May 8, so not much chance of coming home early. The other two couples staying at our hotel also signed their adoption decrees today, so that was kind of fun to all celebrate together. Millie Lynn celebrated by having two big blow-outs in her diaper, which I got to change. I guess I am officially her Mother!

After we returned to the hotel, Millie Lynn and I took a rickshaw to the supermarket. That was interesting, needless to say. Two other families came to the hotel tonight to let their children play. As we were talking the subject of where we were from came up. One of the fathers grew up in Mineral Wells...What a small world!

So that is what we are up to. We don't have many plans until we get Millie's passport. We will go see Mount Everest one day and have Medical Exams for Millie Lynn sometime next week.

We are hoping that everyone at home stays safe and well. I forgot to mention that we began our day be hearing that Sam got stitches on his forehead on Thursday. So now we have missed Easter, Grant's first lost tooth and Sam's stitches. From what we hear, he was a really brave boy! It will all be worth it and we will be home soon!

Ellen and Rusty

We have her!

Millie Lynn is with us in the hotel. Our day started with a meeting at the US Embassy to make sure we have all of our documents etc. Then, our in-country rep., Raj, took us to the orphanage to pick up Millie Lynn. All of her didis (nannies) were there to tell her good-bye. Her main didi cried. You could tell that she really loves Millie. We were there for about 20 minutes and then left. Millie Lynn only cried for about 30 seconds and then she was fine. She loved riding in the car and fell asleep. We played for a few minutes when we got to the hotel and then met the two other adopting families for dinner (in the hotel). They also got their children today. A few specifics about Millie. She is really small. I brought 24 month clothes, but I think she is probably in an 18 month. She has long eye-lashes, just like here brothers. She is pretty calm and like almost everything I tried to feed her at dinner last night. She did not like her bath at all! Grant and Sam will have to show her how much fun bath-time is. Right before bed, we showed her pictures of her new brothers and I can tell that she really is going to love them! We will post more tomorrow! Ellen and Rusty

Namaste! Day 3

Namaste! Today was our 3rd visit to the orphanage. We started the day by moving to a different hotel - The Shanker Hotel. There are lots of American families here. Many who are trekking and two others who are adopting. One is adopting from our same orphanage, so that will be fun once we get the babies that they will be able to play. When we got to the orphanage, Millie didn't cry at all. (Yesterday it took her a few minutes to warm up, but she did well once she got used to us). We were able to hold her right away today, although I'm sure that a little bribery with a piece of toast that I had brought from breakfast didn't hurt. The other lady brought several bags of cheese balls and I literally think Millie ate an entire bag. She couldn't put them in her mouth fast enough. She would take turns walking from Rusty to me and letting us give her cheese balls, too. She is really warming up fast. Right before we left I started playing "Ride a Little Horsey, Don't Fall Down" with her and got a huge grin. We kept playing that and she kept smiling and looking around to make sure that everyone in the room was watching her. Then I started tickling her under the chin and got a full-blown belly laugh. We were really sad to leave her today. I think we are going to have to wait until Thursday for her to come to our hotel with us...they are expecting a nation-wide strike tomorrow so everything will be shut down. (I think that is fairly common, the government is really unstable and people are protesting). Now we just can't wait for Grant and Sam to meet Millie. She is going to love them! We will touch base in a few days! Ellen and Rusty

We made it!

Namaste! We made it! We got to Nepal at 9:45 a.m. and after going throught customs and getting our Visas we were met at the airport by Raj, Gladney's in-country representative. He took us to our hotel and we got semi-settled. Then we went to the orphanage and met Millie! She was really shy at first. I took her some suckers and a book and some balls. Her didis (nannies) were in the room along with a couple of little boys. She cried at first and wouldn't even look at us. Then after we started playing and rolling the ball, she felt more comfortable and the didis left. She finally let me put her on my lap and then walk around with her. Then, Rusty held her and read her a book and she fell asleep in his lap. The orphanage director couldn't believe it! Millie has never really been around men, so that was awesome that she felt so comfortable with Rusty! We stayed for about an hour. They think we will be able to bring her to the hotel with us on Wednesday. After the Orphanage we went to look at another hotel where a couple of other families are staying. Our hotel is pretty dated and does not always have power. Although I think that is definitely a problem in many places in Nepal, many hotels have generators. We will see. We did manage to stay awake until 6:00 p.m. (that was about 48 hours since we woke up in America) and both slept until 6: 00 a.m. I feel like a new person today! Talk to you soon!

Here we go!

We are at the airport, ready for our journey to begin! We leave Dallas tonight (Friday) and travel via London and Bahrain before landing in Kathmandu on Sunday. We will meet Millie either Sunday or Monday and then visit her for 4-5 days before officially adopting her in Nepal. We will keep you posted!

Our Story

As many of you may know, we have been in the process of adopting a little girl from Nepal for over two years. We were matched with a baby on June 6, 2010 and then the U.S. government shut down all adoptions from Nepal. At that time, there were 86 families in the situation we were in...families who had a match, but could not acquire a U.S. Visa to bring their child home. After months of waiting and our Government telling us that they could not prove (or disprove) that our baby was an orphan, we hired an attorney and an investigator and began our own proof that there was no fraud in her case. After submitting our case to the U.S. government and waiting over three weeks, the Department of State finally preliminarily granted our request for a Visa for our daughter on April 11, 2011. So...here we go. We leave for Kathmandu on Friday, April 22. We will arrive on Easter Sunday. The plan is to be in Kathmandu for about three weeks and then bring Millie Lynn home. The hardest part will be to be away from Grant and Sam for so long, but they will be in the great care of our families. We will keep you posted!