Getting to Know You - Daily Gains and Losses [Adoption Series Pt 3]

When we show people pictures of our son, they are often taken aback because of his fair complexion. He has albinism. Albino is the more familiar term, but it can have a negative connotation so I hesitate in using it. We weren't sure when we met him if he would have red eyes and white hair, which is not uncommon with albinism. In fact, he has blue eyes and light red/blond hair. He actually looks like he fits in with our family.

Albinism affects vision, skin sensitivity and vary rarely can be associated with a bleeding and neurological disorder. We were not sure what to expect when we met him because there is very little on his medical report. It did say that he was afraid of light (which he is). The condition is called photophobia. It's like being woken up by a bright light and not being able to relax your eyes. It hurts. Poor depth perception, nsytagmus (involuntary wiggling of the eyes) and lower resolution vision are some of the vision issues related to albinism.

This post comes off a bit clinical. I'm sorry for that. My mind works analytically and loves observation. You may not see in my observations the emotional roller coaster, the emotional weariness and the grief of letting expectations go. A friend said when she met our son that he was surprisingly average. I take that as a huge complement because it shows how far he's come.

When we met our son, he was stressed and nervous. His nystagmus was in overdrive. The first day he self soothed with his shirt on his imaginary soul patch and his eyes danced eerily. Because of his poor depth perception and lack of vision resolution he had to be dependent on his caregiver and he played with toys very close to his face. He held the toys we brought very close, curving his neck and back to see more clearly. Consequently, we don't think he walked much. He stood up for us on the second day and walked a few steps before throwing himself into our arms, but he was unsteady on his feet. He had a squishy belly and squishy thighs. Since his calves were super strong, we suspected he scooched on his bottom and kicked like a champ.

While other children were running around and enjoying their new freedom, our son sat and played quietly. It worried me. When our son cried, he cried a close mouth cry except when he had a full out tantrum, and then he would flail so much that we tried to keep him from hurting himself. We suspect that the children could have those tantrums in their cribs and not be injured as they would have been on our hotel marble floor. That first night, I confessed to my husband, "He's so broken." My husband replied, "He's who God chose for us." I had to let go of all my expectations and get to know our son right where he was. I had to cheer at every gain and not be discouraged by the losses.

His nystagmus his calmed down so much. Now, I rarely see it. He's got to be tired or stressed out. He still self-soothes on everything he can find that is soft and cuddly. I made him a blanket out of the softest yarn I could find. He's attached to it well, and it signals naps and nighttime. We all walked him down the hall of the hotel holding his hand for long stretches of time. He would walk and walk and walk. He never walked independently in our first hotel room. In our second hotel, he walked cautiously around the room. It filled me with joy. He's still unsure on slopes, grass or uneven ground, but he is making strides. I see them as huge gains, but to the outside eye may not even notice. He's smart, determined and a quick learner. He is almost running now, but only where he knows the terrain. He doesn't play on playground equipment, yet.

He has lots of eating issues. When our son eats, he makes a sound like "yumm" but the "um" doesn't stop. It started out endearing but it became stressful. The noise would go on for the duration of the meal. Baby signs and food security has made meals more manageable. He has transitioned from a bottle to sippy. He didn't eat solid food when we met him. His tongue still got in the way and he didn't know what to do with his bottom lip. He didn't open his hands to put hand held food into his mouth. He didn't use his thump effectively. Now, he'll try to feed himself with a spoon. The dog loves it. Huge strides in a short time.

I could go on and on about how he is overcoming delays. Two things I want to note. When we were at a meal in Xi'an our guide Sherry encouraged me by saying that some kids in the orphanage get attention because they are loud and demand it. She said that other kids are quiet and since they play by themselves they don't get as much attention, but they still need it. "Don't worry," she said, "He'll be fine." She was right. Our son has attached remarkably well. The psychologist at our adoption intake evaluation made a statement that has stuck with me. "Somebody at the orphanage loved him." They did, and we do too.

Everyday we make gains. I can't imagine where we will be in a year. I look forward to it.

Photo Drop Time!

Our guides, Sally and Sherry, in Xi'an

In the new section of Guangzhou

My favorite cling-on before the river cruise

Making it legit and getting a visa

At our hotel in Guangzhou and pretty happy about it

Schedule? What Schedule? [Adoption Series Pt 2]

There were some parts about our adoption process that made my heart race and tears well up in my eyes. There were other parts that lacked the luster I expected them to have. When we met our son it was fairly unceremonious. The room was an office with a desk on one side and a conference table on the other. It was poorly lit with whitish tile. I was nervous. Our guides told us to come up with questions for our child's nannies who would be dropping off our son. The orphanage was a two hour drive from the office. I am sure it was the second car trip my son had taken. The first was to the orphanage from the place he was left, and the second was to this office. There were six families meeting children in this office, from more than one orphanage, at the same time.

I made my list of questions. What does he like to do? To eat? What time does he get up? Go to bed? Please, tell me all about him. I'll be honest. Asking through the translator was difficult. Lots of people were talking all at once in an enclosed space about the size of our family room. The nannies told us his schedule. Eventually, after all the questions, our translator wrote down the schedule for us, and then the nannies left. We were one of the last families to leave the room and go back to our hotel room just a few levels below.

My son didn't cry, but he was nervous. We were nervous too. He clung to an apple slice in his hand that had been slightly gnawed on. My husband removed it from his hand when he fell asleep for the night. My husband also went out to get baby food and apples for him. (Yesterday, was the first time I saw my son eat raw apple. We ended up giving the apples we bought to our guide.) We made it through the first night, but we felt over our heads.

It rained in Xi'an for almost the whole week. It felt like Seattle in the Fall. Xi'an happens to be the home of the Terracotta Warriors as well as having one of the oldest and most intact City Walls in the world. Both of them were fascinating. It was important to see the local sights and to be able to share them with our son. Due to the rain, we had our day of rest and then two days of sightseeing after a paperwork day rather than jumping right into sightseeing. That was good. Either way the days were packed.

Having the nannies write down our son's schedule was futile. He had lived a scheduled life in the orphanage, and we blew his schedule completely. We fed him different foods. Most of the children were food insecure. They ate almost everything and anything. Crinkled packaging elicited a response often desperate. Wake up times, napping, regular meals - gone. Travel in buses to new locations. We brought a stroller around the world only to find, our son didn't want to be put down. Poor kid.

Looking back, our son went from the orphanage to two different hotels before coming home and any hopes of reestablishing a schedule. We took him all over the countryside at a variety of times, we fed him a variety of foods, and we gave him naps whenever. We messed up the world he knew. We didn't even speak the same language. The only constant in the two weeks of travel until we got home was us. I am thankful he learned to trust us.So thankful. I can't even imagine how hard it was for him to go from the normal and routine of his first year and a half to what we introduced him to. We learned a lot about him and he of us, but it was hard.

Photo Drop...

The last full night in a crib until we came home.
The next night he woke up screaming and then he co-slept.

Carrying him up the Xi'an City Wall steps. Our arms hurt, often.

The City Wall was beautiful,
 and I wanted to go back to walk/run/ride the 8+ miles all the way around it.

Wild Goose Pagoda Fountain Park

At a Terracotta Warrior Replica Factory

The Terracotta Warriors Pit 1: Amazing. Wow.

My name is Mom, and I have jet lag [Adoption Series Pt 1]

Adoption is a crazy long paperwork trail attached to the beginning of a long relationship with a child. This is a series on how it was for us at the end of the paperwork and meeting our son. I need to qualify and say that I can only speak for myself. My experience may be a little different than my husband or my daughter who went too. Our experience is definitely different from other people's experiences. Now that I've had a little time to process and to sleep I am able to see a little more objectively. People have asked how our trip was. That's a hard question to answer. It can't be answered simply. It was sweet. It was hard. It was a whirlwind.

Since the first week of October is a national holiday in China and the third week is a sales convention in Guangzhou where the only US consulate in China issuing visas is located, when we received our travel approval in the last week of August our agency worked to get us an appointment at the consulate in September. We had just under two weeks to get our own visas, our ducks in a row and head out. In hindsight I am thankful for the Labor Day weekend within that time because we could do nothing that day. It slowed us down.

I am one of those people who doesn't relax on a trip until I get on the plane. We had lists of papers to bring, gifts, money, and a booked itinerary. I relaxed a little and but not all the way. We arrived in Beijing late in the evening after a 13 hour flight to find out that we would be sightseeing early the next morning with the three other families from our agency, Children's Hope International. I appreciate all the in-country logistics that our agency did. If my body was in the right time zone it would have gone much better. All of us woke up at 2 am and stared for a while. Sweet jet lag.

Our day of sight seeing included Tienanmen Square, the Forbidden City, a jade shop, the Great Wall, the Olympic village and a tea shop. On little sleep, I was a zombie. I found it ironic that the Forbidden City that the Emperor only came to three times a year has thousands of people visiting daily. Definitely not what he had in mind. It was all fascinating but so hard to appreciate in my fatigue.  My daughter fell fast asleep after the Great Wall where she boasts walking more than 1100 steps. I boast a drool spot on my leg. Yes, I took pictures, but I 'm saving those for her wedding.

By the time we got back to the hotel, I crawled into bed with my clothes on and slept. No dinner. Up at 4 am. Somewhere in there I changed. Exhausted and still jet lagged. We got up early again that morning because we flew to Xi'an, the capital of the province where our son's orphanage was located. After checking in, (we are thankful for our CHI coordinator, Amy) we took one of the most turbulent flights I've ever been on. One and a half hours of the one hour and fifty minute flight was bouncy. We were in the back. One other family traveled with us, and we all were praying for safety. And for the flight to be over. I am not a good flier. I am a terrible turbulent flier.

We arrived in Xi'an around noon, met our guides, met other families, checked into our hotel, and exchanged money. That afternoon we met our children and took them with us. Excitement and exhaustion were overwhelming. Our son traveled two hours from his orphanage to meet us. All the children had different manifestations of stress. Crying, withdraw, fatigue. It was hard, but it was sweet. It was a moment all the parents had been waiting for. We all knew that things take time and that this was just the beginning. Our son laughed with the toy we brought him. This encouraged us. The next few days included more paperwork and logistics. I am so thankful for our guides because I was Out Of It. Sherry knew everything we needed to do, she was patient, and she was gracious. She had been doing this for five years every week from March to October. She was training our guide, Sally, and she knew that we were there for the children. I eventually got in the right time zone, but it took at least one nap. The whirlwind wasn't done. I had just gotten my bearings.

Photo Drop Time!

Yum, Mexican food before traveling.

Tienanmen Square

Forbidden City

The Great Wall
(1173 steps for B and S. Umm, less for me)

Olympic Village - Bird's Nest
(My daughter asked "What's that?" I replied, "You were sleeping.")

Hello son!