It was a very monumental day!

But I am drained. It has been an emotional day to say the least.

We started out our day very early, waking up at 5:00 (not because we had to but because that’s just when our eyes popped open). So we had plenty of time before 9:00 to finish packing and eat breakfast.

Our translator and facilitator got to the hotel about 9:45 (they hit traffic so were running a little behind) and we headed out to the Ministry of Education. On the way there, we stopped at a “moving bank” to change our money out (this was not a shock to me, thanks to my new friend Adrienne, who told me about their experience with this).

We were not at the MoE very long…in fact, we went in right away and sat down with the director of the regional MoE. She asked us some doozies, but evidently we answered well, b/c she told our translator & facilitator that we passed her test. A test? Wow…but we passed, so that’s good. We left with our official referral, so that’s definitely good. First stressful thing of the morning? Check.

We were probably there a half hour (parking, director visit, bathroom break & all) and then we were on our way with 2 stops: one to let the translator drop off some documents and one to let the facilitator get the oil checked in her car. We had a 3 hour drive ahead of us, so she needed to be sure her oil was okay.

Then we were on our way.

Three hours later, we pulled into the orphanage city and stopped at the hotel to drop off our bags. The social worker was supposed to meet us at the baby home but she had the day off and will actually meet us tomorrow morning to talk with us and answer questions…but the orphanage director/doctors were expecting us so we went on to the baby home.

Begin Stress #2.

To begin with, let me explain. This orphanage is actually a children’s hospital with one wing that serves as a home for children without parents. In this wing, there are about 30 babies/children and quite a few caregivers. We didn’t get to see a whole lot, but we were really impressed with what we did see – the few interactions we saw seemed loving and they seemed to have fairly good toys. You hear this all the time, and it sounds clichéd, but it didn’t seem like they had a lot but they seem to do well with what they’ve got. Hopefully we’ll see more tomorrow or later.

Anyway, back to our experience. First, we met with the hospital director. We talked to her for a minute and presented her with our authorization to meet our referral. Then, we wound our way back to the baby home wing, where we met with the orphanage doctor. She told us that our referral was taking a nap and that they would bring him to us in a few minutes. She also wanted to let us meet him first so that we could ask questions about him & his medical file tomorrow, after we had actually seen him (on the flipside of everything, I am actually quite grateful for this arrangement). She also told us that he has a “strong will” and “does not like everyone he comes in contact with.” I think she was preparing us for him to be very unsure, and probably cry with us.

Which is exactly what happened.

The big moment arrived, and one of the workers brought him in to us. We were still in the doctor’s office, and it was a new place for him. He could have cared less about us, but he seemed to enjoy exploring and to really like the doctor – I would go as far as to say he seemed to have a very healthy attachment to her. When he first came in the room, he looked confused (new place, new people) but the doctor got down on her knees and he toddled over to her, smiling and cooing, and threw his arms around her. When she set him down, he toddled around, exploring for a minute and then went back to her (his safe ‘home base’) before going out to explore again. We were down on the floor but couldn’t keep up with him b/c he just wasn’t interested. I was okay with that, but felt a little weird because I was feeling that we actually NEEDED to be doing something with him.

When we finally got his attention, we held it for a minute, and then he really realized that he didn’t know who these strange people were…I think the doctor had stepped out for a second, and he realized he really WAS alone in a sea of people he didn’t know in a place he had never been. And that is when he got upset. Very upset.

Another doctor came in a minute later and he went right to her. As long as she was in the room, he was okay – but she, too, finally left, and he cried and cried. It didn’t help that we didn’t know any of his language, other than his name.

It was like ALL my training left me. I have worked with children for…well, I guess as long as my youngest brother has been in the world…I have a DEGREE in Child Development. I am working on a Master’s degree graduate level child development courses. What happened to me?? The moment that child came in the room, I felt awkward and like I didn’t know what to do. The moment he started crying inconsolably, I felt utterly helpless. Our facilitator finally said, “If you will pick him up and actually stand up, that might help.” Crazy! Why didn’t I think of that?

Standing up with him didn’t help very much – we were able to distract him long enough to calm him down a couple of times, but then he would look at us, hear our strange language, and start crying again. I don’t know how long we were in there…probably around a ½ hour…but I was exhausted and sweating like crazy. So was Nathan. FINALLY, our facilitator said we probably didn’t need to keep him worked up – and I completely agreed. A caregiver came back in to get him, and he quieted down almost immediately. (Come to find out, they actually had to wake him up from his nap to meet us – so we had interrupted the little guy’s sleep. I’m sure that didn’t help matters at all – but I hope our next visit(s) will be with a rested and happy baby).

Once he left, I had tears. I tried, but just couldn’t hold it in very well. We were both tired, hot, frustrated. We knew that our first encounter was normal. That helped a little bit. But you can know about all this stuff and talk about it till you’re blue in the face, but when you actually experience it…… someone recently told me that she had not been prepared for the sheer emotion of this first trip. I thought I had been prepared. I really did! But as N says about the Basic Training experience. You can think you’re prepared all you want, but once that first drill sgt. starts yelling in your face…..you realize that you never were quite prepared.

So I say all that to explain that it really helped for us to know that his behavior and our feelings were all normal…and expected, even…but a logical part of the brain had to keep repeating that mantra b/c the emotions just took over.

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ANYWAY! From the baby home, we went to the grocery store and got some food for lunches/dinners and then we went to the hotel. After we got back to the hotel, I had a good cry in my husband’s arms…we looked at the pictures we had taken (not very many this first day) and I watched the short video we had shot. I cried again, and then we made us some sandwiches and ate a small dinner.

Please don’t think this was a horrible day. I don’t mean to make it sound like it was – writing this out has been very therapeutic for me, so I had to write out all the emotion I felt through the day. It was stressful, yes, but horrible, no. The little guy is precious. That is a very good thing. His hair is not white-blonde, as I had somewhat expected, but it is light. He has grayish bluish greenish eyes (yes, it’s possible!). And he is a CHUNK. I realize that he was wearing thick clothing, but based on his chubby cheeks, and how heavy he was……I’m quite positive that he is a chunky little guy. I can already tell you that the clothes I brought to try on him probably will not fit. I brought a 12 mos. outfit and I’m quite certain that he could go bigger than that! I’ll have his newest measurements when I come home, though, and that will probably help in buying clothes.

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So. What happens from here? We will visit him again tomorrow. As I said, I hope he will be rested at least… … we will more info on him and get to ask lots of questions. We haven’t made a final decision on accepting his referral, but we are feeling positive toward the idea.

For now, I think I’ve gotta try to get some rest. I will try to update tomorrow. But y’all will all be awake while we sleep tonight…please pray for us and pray that tomorrow is a day where we make some more headway with the little guy! Thanks! We love all of you!