Introducing Diwas

Today was a busy day. We started by picking up our son Diwas (pronounced Dee-Boss) from the orphanage, changed his clothes (so the orphanage can keep their clothes), then to the Ministry of Womens Affairs. We were met there by the orphanage President and our Nepali lawyer. Within minutes we were signing the papers and receiving recognition of the finalized adoption from the Nepal government. It was all done quite quickly and without fanfare, but we could not have been happier. The worry of did we do the right thing when we left him here five months ago melted away. While we will never know if it was the right thing to do, it feels like it is now finally working. After the signing of the Adoption Decree we went to the begin the process of obtaining the Nepal travel documents and with the help of our Nepali lawyer we submitted our forms. Then we ran to the medical clinic to begin the exam. Today Diwas was given a TB skin test which will get read in a couple of days.

So what about his name, will we change it? The answer is yes and no. We told the embassy yesterday that we will change his name to Anderson Diwas Brown (Anderson is a family name (Michael's family), and we have known him as Diwas and he has known himself as Diwas for so long that we felt we needed to keep it). The embassy needed to log his alias into "the system". What will we call him? Who knows but right now it is much easier to communicate using Diwas. Since he already has an alias, we figured the picture below fits. So lets hope for a negative TB test (as a positive would be a big set-back) and the quick processing of the travel documents.

Thanks for all of the positive comments, thoughts, and prayers.