Waiting for Hari

Getting Julia on 28 Aug 2005

Warning: I am exhausted and not proofing. Read at your own risk.

I must write about our gotcha day before the immediacy dulls. It was as I had said, but so much more intense and lovely and hard. We were late when we arrived at the Civil Affairs Bureau. The agency is on the 26 floor of a building new enough to be filled with new dust and paint smells. It is also hot and stuffy. Our group went into a very large room that was filled with babies and nannies. They lined all four walls and were crying. Cheshire and David saw Julia before I did. She was sitting on a wooden bench apart from th others with the director of the orphanage looking after her. She had on green pants, a yellow shirt, and yellow plastic sandles decorated with plastic flowers. Around her neck was a string with a card attached. It had her picture on it and her name in Chinese characters. Later, I realized that all of the children had them but hers was the one of the few around her neck. She sat, very watchful, one hand on her name card. When I saw her, I couldn’t believe that she was there. She was the same girl from her pictures. Having troubles with all the rules, I went over to her and knelt beside her. David and Cheshire came over as well, and I think the orphanage director gave up making us wait our turn. He pushed her towards us saying that we were her mother, father, and sister. She was hesitant coming to us but was interested in us. I got out the bubbles and we started blowing bubbles. Cheshire joined and she had Julia blowing bubbles as well. Julia’s reaction was hysterical happiness. She was like a two year old, jumping up and down, clapping, and screaming with joy. But she was not crying! Very soon, Catherine, our guide, told us that it was time to go back to the bus and we scooped Julia up and headed for the bus.

Oh, the director handed us a plastic bag. Inside was a gift from the orphanage, the clothes I sent, and the camera I sent. He indicated that the pictures were taken. The bear we sent was also there and that has been a constant companion since we left the Civil Affairs building. The photo album was not returned.

Back at the hotel room, we have her the Bitty Baby doll that I packed for her. The doll has opening and closing eyes which freaked her out. She did not know how to deal with moving eyes apart from hitting the doll with the bear.

We also gave her the butterfly pocket book with the kid jewelry. She loves this and has been dressing Cheshire, me, and bear with the plastic necklaces and bracelets which were inside the bag. She also has a tiny doll without moving parts that is her third special friend.

We ate caraways, raisins, and then went down to the dinner buffet to have dinner. We all managed a little dinner – Julia having fried rice, a few dim sum-like pieces, and some sushi. For dessert there was watermelon and tastes of fancy pastries. She loved all of it. She drank water almost exclusively.

Back upstairs the challenges began. Julia had a screaming, crying meltdown. She cried and screamed for at least 45 minutes. I held her, I rocked her, I let her sit along. She was wild and inconsolable. She did stop twice for her nose to be cleaned up and for her to blow into a kleenex. She is a very good nose blower. When she was finished crying, she motioned that she wanted to go into the crib. She laid down and went to sleep.

What an incredible day! We worried about how young she acted, that she did not respond to her name even said by our guides, Catherine and Cindy, that she repeated a few "words" over and over, and was hysterically happy and later had an incredible melt down. David was very wormed. Now, I have read every story I could find about adopting older kids and international adoptions. I’ve read plenty of books and thought I was well prepared for the behaviors the Julia might present to us; however, when it was my kid doing the behaviors, I freaked! I was just not sure of myself and could not just trust that we had to go through this process of grieving and shock and settling in. I emailed Betty from FTIA and put a message up on two of my yahoo boards. Within what seemed like minutes I had answers that reassured me that this was all normal. I went to bed – didn’t sleep enough – but slept through the night, as did my daughters.

posted by Suz @ 10:43 AM