Well, we are back from China. (I'm done with the secrecy. Other people don't bother maintaining it despite them saying we should and at this point, I'm too broken to care anymore.) The trip started out well. We met the other 4 families in our travel group and they were all amazing! We had a few days in Beijing doing tourist stuff like shopping for jade & silk and, of course, conquering the Great Wall! (That is so much harder than it looks, btw!) I quickly learned I needed to carry TP in my purse because none of the public restrooms had any. I was glad for my hand sanitizer, because soap was also scarce. #Thingstheydonttellyou. After a few days in Beijing adjusting to the time and culture, we all split up and went to our local cities.
Our daughter was already waiting for us when we got to our hotel. That was a strange feeling to finally see the person you have been pining over for years! She was NOT in a good mood! 3 people from her orphanage brought her (including the driver) and she pretty much hated one of them. This lady was relentlessly annoying her! Our local guide was translating for us and apparently, this lady kept telling our daughter not to jump because nobody would love her if she did. (Later on, she actually took our daughter's hand and used it to hit our daughter's face and then wondered why our daughter didn't like it!) So, I went over to meet our daughter and she went back and forth between hitting me and leaning back & laughing as I tipped her upside down. We thought she might be overwhelmed by all of the sounds in the large marble foyer, so we moved to a smaller, quieter hallway and she calmed down a bit while we asked for important words in her local dialect. When Dirk held her, she immediately took to him! I guess she likes guys more. Once we ran out of questions, we went up to our room to get settled. She calmed down as we held her and played with her. After a while of that, she got off the bed and began exploring the room, which was amazing to watch! She was completely blind and didn't even seem to notice lights, except for the camera flash on rare occasions. She expertly tracked her way around the perimeter of the room and investigated everything she found along the way. Her feet were incredibly agile at picking up and feeling anything she might find with them. Very cool! That first day was pretty good. She didn't hit much once we came to our room, so over-stimulation was blamed. She took a while going to sleep that evening, but once asleep she didn't stir until morning. (Though she did wet the bed. The next day we bought diapers for nighttime use!)
The next couple of days were pretty mild. She loved to be held and carried, but would also walk holding our hands. In the room, she was more comfortable walking on her own because she had already learned where things were. We saw a lot of the tourist things in the local town, such as a large pagoda by the river that is supposedly famous because of a classic poem. While we did these things, she was great! She didn't have a big appetite and would just pick 1-2 things to eat each meal, but they evolved. For example: the first breakfast was bacon & banana, the next breakfast was banana & hashbrown, then just hashbrown. The orphanage workers has told us we would need to feed her, but she seemed to prefer to feed herself though we still fed her a bit. She seemed to get a little bored when we stayed in our room for a while, but she loved to be tickled, thrown in the air, & flipped upside down.
Then we took a day to visit her orphanage. Well, we didn't actually go inside because they wanted us to pay them $500 for "permission". No thanks! I've seen pictures online and it isn't impressive. We did go to the gate where she was supposedly found and took a family picture there. We also went to the main market street for lunch. I finally had to conquer my fear of "squatty potties" there because there was no alternative. (A proud moment, let me tell you!) She ate very well for lunch, probably because the tastes & smells were similar to what she was used to. The owner of the little restaurant came up and wanted to hold her. She was reluctant to go to him but once she did, she supposedly asked him for a hug. :-( She never asked us for hugs. On the way to the hotel, she took a nap on my lap. (No laws in China, so babies just sit in laps. We were lucky to at least have seat belts that day!) That evening, as we were getting her ready for bed, we had our first problem. Something about the sink seemed to set her off and she screamed, cried, & hit at us for 2 hours before falling asleep from exhaustion! She was screaming for her "Ye-Ye" (Grandpa) and was shouting in Chinese that "Baby is here!!" (Children are called babies in China) That was a rough night. We attributed it to the difficulties of hearing, smelling, & tasting everything that had been familiar to her and not being able to understand why they had been taken away again.
The following day, she didn't wake up. We finally woke her up at about 9:40 so that we would have time to get breakfast before they closed at 10. She was in no better mood. She cried all through breakfast and wouldn't eat anything, though she did drink 2 glasses of apple juice. Once we had scarfed down a bit of food, we came back to the room so she could calm down again. She pretty much passed out on the bed and just slept on & off until about 2:30pm. I thought she must be depressed. Finally, we called the local guide to see how much mourning we should let her do and whether we needed to try to get her to do something so she didn't sulk the whole day away. She came over right away and tried to feed her something for lunch, which made her upset all over again. The guide was very concerned about her not eating. By the time dinner came, our guide was determined to get food in her somehow. We went to the restaurant and she got some rice. I had to hold our daughter's arms (and she is STRONG!) and Dirk held her head while our guide crammed rice into her mouth. She HATED it!!! She ate whatever was in her mouth, but every bite was difficult and I was nearly in tears because I don't believe in forcing food, ever! She was in no danger of starving and, if she was, rice isn't exactly nutrient-rich. Finally I got her out of the chair because I couldn't handle force-feeding her anymore. She calmed down almost instantly and laid her head on my shoulder. Our guide then told us that she suspected our daughter had some serious mental problems. That is something that NOTHING can prepare you for! She had called our agency guide, who was in Guangzhou with other families, and he suggested we get a brain scan. She told us that a brain scan would show nothing, but that our daughter's behavior is not normal and we needed to consider giving her back. Daggers in my heart. No way, I thought! I could never do such a thing! If our daughter was more handicapped that we thought, it wouldn't matter because she could still feel love, I reasoned! She left us to think it over, explaining that we would need to know by 7:30 the following morning so that we would have enough time to get to a doctor and get the letter that would allow us to terminate the adoption before our flights that same evening. We had less than 12 hours to decide our daughter's fate (as well as our family's!) and we needed to pack & sleep still.
When we got back to the room, we first focused on getting our daughter into bed. While we got her ready for bed, we considered her symptoms and I suspected autism. I even called my step-mom who works with mentally disabled kids and talked things over with her. Once she was asleep, we began our long, painful discussions. At first, I wouldn't even consider leaving her because I would consider myself no better than her biological mom who abandoned her and I knew I could never live with that decision. Dirk argued for our family. He knew that if we brought her home, I would have no time for our other 3 children and that wouldn't be good or fair to them. I would find a way to make it work, somehow. I just had to! Hours pass and we emailed pleas for prayers from friends & family. Some responses were less than helpful, but most sympathized and were very supportive. That helped since we didn't feel so alone in this decision. We got a call from a worker at our agency and she apologized profusely for this situation. Apparently, this is only the 3rd or 4th time this agency has had this happen in over 10 years. She played devil's advocate and gave us some new perspectives on the situation and then let us talk about it some more. Eventually, we came to the agreement to leave her there. Dirk was still coming at it from the perspective of our family. I was coming at it solely from her perspective. She really missed her Ye-Ye and seeing how happy she was in her local town, I couldn't bare to take that away from her. She might eventually get over it and be able to adjust to a new life, but she might not. She might never be able to get past that loss. And, if she isn't good with change, we are not the family for her right now! If we had adopted her, she would have come with me to the US for 10 days, then back to Germany for a few months, then a permanent move BACK to the US. That was going to be difficult enough for a completely healthy mind, but I don't think hers could handle that. So, after making our decision, we went to bed for a few hours of restless sleep.
The next day was, by far, the hardest day of our lives! In short, we took her to the children's hospital in that city. (In short, LONG lines, TONS of people crowding for their turn, a boy peeing in the middle of the floor on purpose, etc.) The doctor said she had severe mental problems. I asked about autism and she said it was likely more than autism. (I interpreted this as autism and something else. Dirk interpreted this as something worse than autism, but not actually autism. Either way....Bad news!) We got the required note, then went to the office to terminate the adoption. The worse part was that this entire time, our daughter was just calmly being held. She even wrapped an arm tightly around my neck at one point like a half-hug. It made giving her up that much more painful. Once the paper was signed, we went back to the hotel to wait. The orphanage workers came around noon. This time, a different lady came so I didn't have to worry about that nasty lady anymore. This lady gave me a hug and they told us many times how sorry they were. Sobs. :-( As for our daughter, she went to the main orphanage director pretty easily, but did hit him once or twice. (Aside from that first day and the huge fit, she had not hit us anymore) She didn't cry or seem upset. To her, we were just 2 people who she spent a few days with. Nothing more. That hurt.
Dirk already had a ticket home because he was planning to come home that night anyways. I wanted to get home ASAP because there was no longer a reason to be in China. For me to leave from that city either that same night or the next would have been $4,500! No thanks! So, I used my scheduled flight to get to Guangzhou and our agency guide called travel agencies and managed to find a flight from there the next morning for only around $850. Much better! That evening I didn't want to see any of the other families because I thought seeing them with their children would be too much. But, one of the families found me anyways. That ended up being a great thing! We talked for hours and they encouraged me and helped take me mind off of the situation, even if only for a little while. I went to sleep around 1:30 am and needed to catch a van at 6. I set my phone alarm for 5, or so I thought. It went off at 4, but I didn't notice it until I was completely ready and as awake as I was going to get. The flight home was long and depressing, but I made it. I was excited to see my kids again!! They were already in bed when I got home, so I had to wait to see them. The next morning, I was hoping for them to be excited that I was home, but they acted as if I had never left. That was sad too. To top everything off, our youngest won't give me hugs & kisses anymore!! Those were the best! :-( I hope he will forgive me for leaving soon and that we can do hugs & kisses again soon because that is breaking my heart too!
Every day Dirk & I wonder if we made the right choice. SO many people are telling us we did and nobody has told us that we didn't, but it still doesn't feel right. You may notice, I always refer to her as our daughter, despite the fact that we left her in China. That is because she still feels like our daughter. Our leaving her doesn't feel permanent. I have emailed our agency to see if they can get her a proper medical exam and let us know what her needs really are. I am hoping that after reviewing those, we can prepare for them properly and then return to bring her home for real. Perhaps that's unrealistic. Perhaps we will get the report and there will be no way for us to take care of her needs. In that case, at least we will have peace about our decision. So, that's where we are now.
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