Waiting for Hari

Beijing - just before day 4

The plan for today is this. We are to be checked out of our rooms and ready to leave by 8 am. Pampered as we are, we left our check luggage outside our doors last night for it to be collected and sent on. I could get used to this kind of travel.

Our flight to Nanchang, Jiangxi Province is at 10, and we will reach our hotel close to 2. Then we have a little while to prepare ourselves. Unpack, load / charge cameras, walk in senseless circles around the room. I will unpack the bag that we brought for Julia, put clothes in a drawer, take out our few toys, figure out what to bring with us to the Civil Affairs Office. Families getting babies might bring a bottle with formula, a soft toy, bubbles. We well not have a bottle, but perhaps a small container of cherios or a tiny box of raisins. The aim is to ease the transition from old to new life for our daughters.

On the bus yesterday, Catherine told us that there are four kinds of babies received on adoption day: The happy baby who immediately smiles and is satisfied with her parents. This child must learn to smile only for her parents, and not any adult who comes into her sights. For the parents on adoption day, this child is the easiest. She forms a relationship quickly and this way of behaving served her well in the orphanage where her sweet smiles gained her extra attention from overworked care givers.

The crying baby, who takes one look at our big noses and wails! This is a hard baby for her parents because she might be crying for days! Not too many, Catherine tried to comfort us. But this baby is a smart girl because she knows that her life has changed and she has lost all control. Parents will have to prove themselves to this child before she rewards them with her smiles.

The serious baby, who just looks at her parents and considers her new situation.. She is ready to reward a good parent with smiles but she is wary about this change. She too realizes that a big change has taken place but she is calm as she considers her new life. This baby can scare her parents because of her demeanor and presence, but she too is smart and ready to reward her family with smiles as soon as she feels safe.

Then there is the baby who knows she is in need of love immediately and attaches, probably very physically, to one parent – usually the Baba or daddy. This child responds to her new circumstances by finding one person to depend on immediately and might only giver her smiles to that parent. This child is very hard on the feelings of the other parent and needs patience and understanding until she decides to expand her world to include 2 parents and a larger families.

This is, of course, simplistic, but a lovely story. It does sum up so much of the reading that I’ve done and also reminds me of the story of the 4 kinds of children that we tell at the Passover Seder. From the few pictures all of the parents have of their children, there is no way to tell what we are in for.

Back to the day. The only official document we need to bring to the Civil Affairs Office tomorrow is our passports. The adoption procedure with stamps and signing and fingerprints goes on 24 hours after we receive our children. Very sensible, that it almost makes me laugh out loud. The Chinese officials prove that they know something about adoptive families!

We will arrive as a group at the Civil Affairs Office and go to a room. We probably will hear the cries of babies when we arrive. They should be in another room close-by waiting for us. Julia is coming from her town which is about 3 hours from Nanchang. I thought that this was a far distance and would be so hard on her; however, the rest of the babies are traveling 5 hours to get to Nanchang.

When all is ready, the babies and Julia will be brought into the room one at a time and names will be called. We will not need to listen for Julia’s name as she is the only child of the group but I can imagine very easily not recognizing the name called or the moving child from the still photos. When our child's name is called, we move to the front, they check out passports for identification, and we are given our child.

We have no idea how this will play out for us because we cannot physically take her in our arms to claim her. Perhaps we will find a corner of the room to introduce ourselves and try to win Julia.

At some point, Catherine will be employed to ask questions of care givers. We are encouraged to have a list. I will also ask her to have the care giver tell Julia that they approve of us and want her to be happy in our family.

When all the children unite with their families, we get back on the bus and head to the hotel. There to try our hands at incorporating this child into our families. The group expressed wishes to all be on the same floor of the hotel and close to each other, and although we are in a different situation with an older child, I hope that this is given us. I wondered about the group birthing experience and this is what it is. Of course, we could do it alone and many special needs families go to the Civil Affairs office alone, or the child is brought to their hotel. But I am grateful for this group of strangers who have been thrown together by the gods, our membership determined by the date our documents were first sent to China and the province that our child came from. These families are becoming special to us, and whether we would be friends if brought together in other circumstances has no bearing on the circumstance that we will be together when we receive our beloved daughters.

posted by Suz @ 4:51 PM