Gotcha Day!

A gray smog floated over the city this morning, reminding me of the dreariness of living in an orphanage and having no family.  With no sunshine in sight, I decided to make my own by taking in as much positive thoughts and joy as I could.  One positive, we didn't oversleep.  Two, our guide is excellent.  Three, Lydia is happy and content to do whatever we need to accomplish.  Four, my hair dryer works.

And five, today there is one less orphan in the world!  The perfect joyful thoughts to cut through the murky smog.

At breakfast today, it was discovered that there are several other families here meeting their children today as well.  Because Zhengzhou is the capital of Henan province, most all of the nearby orphanages bring the children here to meet parents and complete the initial adoption process steps.  This is very different than when we got Lydia, where we were the only family and we met her in the orphanage.  I already knew that things would look way different, but was not really prepared for the chaos that we met at the Civil Affairs Office.

Others families left the hotel earlier than we were appointed to meet Vivian, so I initially thought that they must strategically stagger the meeting times so that it would be more controlled.  I also thought I read, "you will be taken to a private area where you will meet your child"  I'm SURE I read that...but that is far from what happened...

I had requested to hire a videographer for the morning to document the Gotcha moment and to make a keepsake DVD.  Lydia just loves hers; it is a priceless item at this point and also allowed us to fully enjoy the moment without fretting about getting everything recorded.  Two young men were with us throughout the drive to the gov't office and also came back to the room with us...they have a video production company and supposedly produce commercials, etc., so we'll see!  Hopefully it won't be cheesy.  It was clear from the get go that they had never witnessed anything like this and were truly touched by what they saw of all the children and eager parents-to-be.  All of our children this morning have some sort of special need, so I believe that their hearts were tugged.

When we arrived, it was a huge sterile white room full of people.  Several families already had their child and were completing paperwork. Others were milling around watching everyone, waiting for their child to arrive.  The children are driven in from all over the province, so some were traveling pretty far.  Vivian came from Luoyang, which is a 2.5 hour car drive.

We found ourselves waiting for her arrival.  With each van that pulled up, people would eagerly look out to see whose child it was.  I really don't like being a spectacle and soon realized that all of these complete strangers were going to be taking part in our special moment.  For me personally, that was a little disheartening.  It was hard enough being filmed by a professional crew, but to have everyone else watching me was kind of freaky....like giving birth in front of a room full of people...okay, maybe not that extreme, but still.  I don't like sharing intense emotions with onlooking strangers.

However, when that moment came and our guide excitedly announced, "It's her!  She's here!" I didn't really care who was there.  I was in awe watching her little self climb out of the big van, in a tattered little outfit, clinging to her nanny's hand.  She looked so tiny walking up those steps.  She stared straight into my eyes as they walked to towards me and I just could not imagine what was going through her mind.  Would she scream when I took her? would she act oblivious?

Jason was taking pics and I knelt down to pick her up.  She let me and watched my face intently.  As I squeezed and loved on her, she was totally fine, and I thought "wow, that was easy, this is going pretty well"  We knelt down together to meet Lydia and to talk to her.  She was fine..until Lydia picked up her hand to hold it...she looked around for nanny...nanny was not nearby....then it hit her what was happening.  She made a huge scrunched up sad face, which turned into a piercing wail, which turned into flailing, kicking and screaming bloody murder....crap!  not going as well as I thought....

In my work, I am often faced with flailing little people and this seemed no different.  I was determined to hold her tight and close me and make her experience it, no matter how ugly or painful (i.e. rather than facing her away from me so that she couldn't see me, etc...I made her stay in my arms until she realized I was all she had to cling to).  My main concern was not the fit of terror, but that she was going to fling her head back and bang in on the wall or the concrete floor.  Offers of suckers were tossed down.  Nanny scolded her and told her to stop crying (I think) and offered her a package of cake (which was promptly flung across the room).  Well meaning van drivers pushed pieces of wrapped candy in my face, hoping that it would make her content.  I hated to tell them that a little sugar was not going to ease that fear and rescue her from the pain she was feeling.  

It was a very long 15 minutes.  I can take little ones screaming in my face, trying to bail out of my arms, even kicking me and trying to hit me, but the most heart-wrenching thing I have ever experienced, was when she screeched out "Ayi! Ayi!" (or Nanny! Nanny!), realizing that the woman who she trusted deeply was walking out the door and leaving her with me. It was quite chilling and I truly felt like I was responsible for her heart-break and had no way possible to make it better.  She didn't know it at the time, but I did...that she would never see that woman she had grown to love again. And the more challenging thing that I knew...that I would have to replace that woman by earning her trust and finding some way to make her realize that I would never, ever ditch her....

Poor Vivian!  Looks kind of like a smile, but that is crying

Finally, the officials could take no more and rushed us through the adoption decree photo; I signed papers while semi-restraining her in my arms and we bailed as fast as we could!  

As I walked down the steep stone steps outside the building, I felt the reward....her arms wrapped around me so tightly, hanging on for dear life.  We were carting her away, and she realized that I was somehow her comfort.  What a relief....so thankful it ended up that way.  She was immediately quiet and rode in stone-faced silence back to hotel. She is so gentle and sweet....so far :)

What an emotionally draining morning...the rest of our day was much happier (even though she won't let Jason or Lydia touch her) Poor Jason is not one to put himself in the middle of trauma-induced meltdowns...I think he was content to be behind the camera lens (to be continued...)