Day 5 - Adoption Day

Why would this day be called 'Adoption Day' if we got her yesterday?  Funny little quirk.  You are given your child on Gotcha Day and then you take them home (hotel room, yoga mats, etc) for 24 hours. The following day you go back to the same hallway where you were given the child and you sign the official adoption papers.

When you give up a baby after you sign the papers, you have committed a crime.
When you commit a crime, you go to prison.
When you are in China, you go to a Chinese Prison.

Don't go to a Chinese Prison.

This was a day of very big ups and downs.  Maddy has attached to me (C). I did nothing special. The kids sometimes choose mom, dad, neither or both. Maddy chose me. There are 12 people in our adoption group and probably at least half are 'daddy's girls'.  They speak of several possible reactions of the kiddos to this experience, and we saw all three yesterday among our group of 12.

Some children appear fine. They interact and play with new families with little difficulty. One little boy who was being picked up by 4 ladies did this.  He acquired a harem and rolled with it.

Some children are terrified and scream as if they are being ripped directly out of mother's arms. One little girl did this and her nanny was actually just as attached. She ran out of the room crying. The adoptive family was a set of parents and their teenage daughters. This little girl was absolutely inconsolable until dad grabbed her. Then she was silent and smiling.

Others 'shut down' and appear numb and detached to the entire experience. Maddy did this.  She was one of the last to arrive and we were actually taking pictures for other people when all of a sudden our little one with no less than 5 pig tails (intricately done, we will never replicate this. Ever.) comes  walking in holding the hand of an orphanage girl. Maddy had fallen asleep in the car and had never actually stayed in the orphanage until the night before. Sunday she had been taken from her foster family to stay at the orphanage along with two other kids.  She had been with this family since she was 10.5 months old.  They are the only family she knows. She is two. She does not get that they were temporary and we are permanent.  She was eerily quiet (though we were prepared for this as a possible reaction) and Sarah held her initially. All was fine. Then I got my turn and she kind of latched on.  Understand that she did not start smiling, laughing and giggling. This was a terrified and confused little girl.  We did what all adoptive parents do. We bribed her. Suckers. Cheerios. Worked well.

We went back to the hotel and Maddy and I played together while Sarah went to fill out more paperwork. During this time we got out the stacking cups and they were a huge hit. They were thrown, stacked, stepped on, used as an instrument with which I was bludgeoned... There were smiles and laughter.

She is supposed to nap from 1230 - 130. Not even close. Around 5pm she bumped her head (was dizzy with exhaustion) and I picked her up. Within 3 minutes she is out cold. So we put her down.  Just after 7pm we got worried. If left to sleep she would probably be up around midnight and then the days and nights are flipped.  I seem to remember somebody saying that you should never wake a sleeping baby. We called our guide (they do much more than guide. They are worth their weight in gold. Which is why I use GoldLine. I was a client before I was a custo----oops wrong blog). The instruction was to wake her. We did. She was up until ~10pm and slept until 0630.

Today we took her to breakfast and she demonstrated the origin of the cheeks you have all seen in the picture. She destroyed the breakfast buffet.  Sausage, steamed bread, congee, yogurt, egg.  Smiled and laughed.

Next stop was to sign the adoption papers. Shock. We signed 'em. She is ours (despite her likely strong desire to get away from the horrifically inexperienced bozos who really do not know what they are doing).  That was followed by 45 minutes at a notary office on the 6th floor of a hot police station (no elevator. Awesome). During this time she largely did well thanks to Cheerios. She loves to do that cool thing while being held whereupon she goes from being limp and happy to tonically contracted, straight as a board, and screaming with a head butt to the face in 1/10th of a second.  It is special, and from observations of the group - common.

Lunch break and then the afternoon disaster. We had to go get passport pics taken and then submit the application (think going to the DMV and then the social security office back-to-back with a small screaming stranger). She fell asleep in the car on the way over and so we had to wake her (again) to put a dark shirt on (Chinese insist on dark clothes for passport photos) and then bright flashing lights. Not cool.  This was followed by a trip to the government center to formally apply for her Chinese passport. Our guide pulled strings and we literally skipped over 100 people in line. Then a director came down and saw three American families applying for Chinese passports for 3 infants.  He wanted to 'ask us questions' and so we were lead upstairs and into his office.

Understand that this is well over 2 hours into this adventure tour and Maddy's wheels were fully off the wagon.  He sat calmly and asked us very personal questions about how much adoption costs, why we wanted Chinese kids, who we were working with. He was not mean. He was young and curious.  I pictured Brian Hagenhoff really wanting to 'cut deep through all the paperwork and really just talk about feelings'.  While Chinese Government Hagenhoff calmly asked us questions Maddy screamed, spasmed, and threw things at him (sippy cup and cheesy poofs). I was so proud of her at that moment (sorry Hager, he just kept rambling like your 2:40 voicemail messages before the days of texting).

**As an aside I need to thank two entities**

1. Whoever invented Pirate's Booty.  It is like heroin. This kid needed a fix and powered through two single serving bags in order to stay calm.  Were it not for this elixir-of-the-Gods I do believe someone would have deported us.

2. Shanna Grant for telling us about this.  You will never know the true extent of our gratitude.

Finally came back to the room after that. In all fairness to Maddy, she was actually quite a trooper and really well-behaved for about 90% of the afternoon (I attribute 60% of this time to item #1 above). She was laughing and playing and then all of a sudden her face turned to stone. She walked to the corner of the room and stood there and started to cry. She is grieving.  Sarah rushed to her and held her tight. Maddy fell asleep on Sarah's chest. It absolutely rips your heart out to watch this precious thing grieve.

Two years ago today she was found in Zhengzhou. She spent 10.5 months in s special care unit and was then shipped to a foster family. Now she has been given to a couple of (woefully inexperienced) strangers. It is just going to take time and it is really hard to not have any way to reassure her of this.  She is a lot tougher than I will ever be.

This post was likely painfully long and I apologize. This is your punishment for 1) reading this blog and 2) getting all the pictures yesterday without having to slog through our mushy commentary.

Executive Summary:
Adoption done. In the eyes of China she is ours. Everything we do from here on out is to get the US government to let her come back with us.
Maddy doing well. Grieving, scared, but strong

Sarah and Chris - not yet parenting champs (I have spared you the description of this evening. Of waking her up from yet another nap (yep, 3 times in 30 hours) only to bathe her. She is exhausted. She hated baths before. We suck at giving them. Toxic combination)

This was pre-bath. Notice how she is basically asleep. We woke her up.

til next time,
c