The life I lead

It has been a very long time since I have written. I started a couple of blogs throughout the process, but never had the time to finish them. I'll probably include part of them later on, but I think it is time to update as to my experience. I am returning from a visit home refreshed and rejuvenated. There is something so wonderful about being with the people you love, and just being "home". Before I start I am going to say it will probably be a very long, personal, and emotional write up. I knew it would be, which is a lot of the reason it has taken me so long to write it. So feel free to skip reading this one :)

I left for Hong Kong with a little girl mid October. She was going to have a very complicated and risky surgery to correct some serious congenital deformities, and I was to be her mommy as she did. I met her a couple of days before we left for Hong Kong, and was relieved that at least we got along well and she seemed to trust me right off. We then got on a flight and started our little adventure together, just the two of us. It has been a long, intense, emotional, and rewarding journey that isn't quite over yet. 

We arrived in the hospital after a long flight with my dear child adamantly apposed to the fasten seat belt sign, and had three days to establish our relationship before the true test started. That was more pressure than I had ever expected. A child that young needs security and routine to feel comfortable and safe. What ever she had had of that was entirely disrupted, and it was up to me to find it for her. Not only that, she was about to go through a very difficult surgery. I was informed by multiple people just how crucial it was I establish my authority and gain her trust before the surgery, or recovery would be nigh impossible. If you are unaware, that is a lot of pressure! Most parents have the child's life time to establish that relationship, and I was told it was crucial for her life and recovery to do it in three days.... Besides that, the area I had most trouble with was getting her to actually eat her meals. Needless to say her nutritional status was the priority before surgery. Getting a two year old to put more food in her mouth than thrown on the floor became my highest goal in life and my biggest failure when I didn't succeed. Somehow we managed to work through it. She brightened my life and won me over completely with her adorable smile and personality. I won't say she is a perfect angel, she is far too smart for that. She is extremely bright and has a delightful knack for figuring out how to manipulate people to get her way. I'll never forget the night I put her to bed and was sitting there hearing her sob about being in the crib. I looked at her and told her I knew she was fine and she was just faking it. She instantly stopped crying and started giggling, thrilled at her own ploys. It made me laugh, which just made her laugh more because there is little she loves more than joining in my humor. My laughter is all the affirmation she needs :) We have gown together and learned so much from each other, more than I ever expected.

After working through this process we had the actual surgery. That was a very very very long day. Since I am her guardian, I am the one responsible for her life. I was the one who had to sign all the waivers and acknowledgements and had to agree to put her life on the line. It was what I was there to do, but ultimately I was the one who signed the paper. I had to wait through that very long day, not having any idea how everything was going until she was once again in my arms. I can not fully do justice to the feelings I felt seeing her again and holding her sleeping stitched up body in my arms. I hadn't realized how upset and worried I was until she was back. I couldn't even feel relief. I couldn't feel anything really, because I was too busy feeling everything. I am not sure that I could make it make any sense, but that moment, sitting in her hospital bed with her wrapped up in my my arms because that is the only place she was content enough to sleep, looking down on her little exhausted face, I felt like I broke inside. I felt too much of everything to feel anything. I don't know if it was relief, love, happiness, rightness, fear, worry, concern, hope, it might have been all of them. I only knew it didn't matter because she was back where she was supposed to be, where she needed to be, right in my arms. I can only imagine parents sending their children off to hazardous situations have felt a very similar feeling. It was a moment I will never forget as long as I live.

Then started the very long recovery period. I spent pretty much the entire first night sitting in her bed and holding her in my arms so she could sleep. The following days were similar with more pain and pretty much ran together without much distinction between day or night, morning or evening. I slept and showered when I could and spent every moment concerned about her. I rarely left her bed and no longer saw the smile or any of the little girl I had come to love. The first day I saw her smile again, and later when she started to seem like herself were long awaited and hard won gifts. It was exhausting and stressful, and took more out of me than I thought possible. This was the blog I started somewhere in those days. I think after the second or third night.

"This is much harder than I could have imagined, and I thought I was prepared. It isn't the lack of sleep, missing people, being stuck in a hospital and constantly needed, or any of that. That is just as I expected, a lot of work and not fun. The part that is so hard is the pain, not mine, but hers, and not being able to do a thing to help. I spent hours holding her last night screaming and thrashing and looking to me to make it stop. She looked up into my eyes desperately shaking her head telling me no, she didn't like this pain and wanted it to stop. She was so confused! She didn't understand what she was feeling and why. She wanted me to hold her, but would push me away as soon as I did. She didn't know why I wouldn't make it go away. She is so bright! Every time she was hurting she would try to figure out the secret to make it stop. She would try turning every which way and pushing or pulling on everything, but nothing made it stop. What really got me was when she slapped me. She only did it twice, obviously trying one more method to see if maybe then I would stop hurting her. When it didn't change anything she immediately moved on to try something else.

There is such an emotional agony, you would have to experience it to know, in holding a child you love screaming in pain, looking to you for help, and not being able to do a thing.... Witnessing her terror, confusion, and pain, and only being able to hold her.. There were a couple of times throughout the day  I was almost in tears, and at one point, after over an hour with no relief in her distress and an hour longer before we could get any pain medication I was finally sobbing with her completely at a loss and unable to bear seeing her pain. The Italian woman with the her son in the bed next door has been my angel of mercy these past few days offering me assistance and comfort when ever possible. There is only so much she can do, but her support means so much. It also helps that the doctor who has been seeing to her care just as much as I do. It was interesting talking to him because not only does he make all of this possible with the volunteering of his work and fundraising for the hospital stay, but each of these children's care is extremely personal to him. He spends so much time trying to figure out what could possibly be best for them and what all he is able to do. Once he has seen to the initial surgery he continually checks up on their recovery. It is so clearly evident in his demeanor and care for the children that their recovery, health, and comfort are so important to him and he holds himself  responsible for each trial of their healing. As he said, he understands because he has seen all of these children come through and worries and cries more for each of them than I ever could. "

We made it through that some how, and day by day she became more herself and started to heal.  The healing itself is full of hazards and potential risks, but each day is more promising. She does not heal as well or as rapidly as most children, but she is managing. Unfortunately my visit home was scheduled right after this. She had just returned to herself and it was time to leave her. Another nurse came to stay with her the two weeks I was home, and she apparently was doing well the whole time. I have to say I was missing her and can not wait to see her and have a couple of amazing little girl hugs and kisses. The taxi ride after leaving her blowing me kisses and saying "bye bye!" had me questioning how feasible it would be to turn around and go home another time, after I was certain my baby girl didn't need me. 

Now that I am returning from home it is equally hard to leave behind those I love here, but I also can't wait to see my baby girl and give her all the presents I brought from home. I'll love and miss everyone at home, but I also love my baby girl. Leaving home is harder the second time because now I know what it is to miss everyone, but I can't wait for the feeling of finally returning to my baby girl.

Letting go

The time is coming for me to step back and again start something new. I have spent almost two months learning how to be a nurse here and care for my floor of babies. I have gotten to know and love each, but now it is almost time for me to let them go, indefinitely. I have been asked to go to Hong Kong again with another little one. She is in another unit, so the first time I meet her will be when we head to Hong Kong. Together we will go through the many complicated surgeries she has waiting for her there. This time I may be the only one able to be there. I'll probably end up staying there with her for the months it takes her to recover, however long that might be. While I am gone I will be returning my floor to the nurse who had been in Beijing filling in for one of the nurses there.

While I am sad to part with my babies, I know she must be ecstatic to get her babies back. I got to see her re-meet them for the first time since being gone almost two months. That was difficult for me to see, not because they loved her more than I ( which was a legitimate fear I had that might have broken my heart a little), but because most of them didn't even remember her. She knew them much longer than I had. A lot of them she had been with since they were small babies, new not only to us but to this world. Even more than that I couldn't help think of the missing children. I know while I had been here there had been at least two of the babies she would have known and cared for pass away from our floor and another that was taken back to the orphanage. Seeing that really brought home the fact that I am leaving for probably at least two months, and when I get back my babies probably won't remember me. I hate thinking that even worse would be if any of them didn't make it till I came home. I know that is a very real possibility. My one baby returned home to me from the hospital, but he is still very critical and will remain so until he either has a miracle or passes away, and I learned early on that even the lives of the children apparently doing very well here can be gone in an instant with no warning. Now when I go through the rooms I hold the babies a little longer and a little tighter knowing it might be a very long time before I get the chance again, and even if I do it will never be in the same way it is now. I will no longer be their momma, but just someone passing through their lives. 

I don't know what will happen after I return from Hong Kong. Honestly I don't even know how I am getting there. I leave in little more than a week, but I have yet to find out where I am going and what form of transportation I am using to get there. I guess untimately it doesn't matter. I know I am going and they will figure it out for both of us before I leave. After my new little one is recovered and returned I could return here, but the nurses should all be returned and they should no longer have floors needing to be covered. I know they are opening another floor on another unit and that they have a couple nurse who have not been able to return because they have been trying to work out visas. I could possibly help in any of those units that are short staffed, or stay here and help out, or be sent to accompany another child for surgery, or perhaps something else I have not even thought of. What ever it is, chances are very good that I will not be needed to return to my babies. My time with them is drawing to a close and I will need to start saying my goodbyes. If I return here I'll still be able to play with and visit and love on them. I hope I will get the chance to do that, but I am eventually going to have to let go, whether now or later. I will eventually go home, and even if I stayed they would not. Two of my children received presents from their adoptive families this week.

I don't know which children are matched with families or possibly getting adopted, but there comes a point in the process that the families are allowed to send small approved things to the children. Apparently this means that they are very far along in the process. Two of my children recieved little photo albums of their future families this week. I know that it probably didn't mean as much to them as it did to me, at two it is a very difficult thing to explain that the little book of pictures they see is their future family when they have never known a family in their lives. It was both beautiful and difficult (as I realize I say about pretty much everything here) looking through those little books. I want so much for my babies! I look through those albums and see those smiling faces and can't help but ask if they could possibly love my little one as much as I do, as much as I think they should be loved. I wonder if they will realize how absolutely special this baby is and how blessed they are to be a family to that child. Being here they are loved, but they don't have the attention or opportunity or security that they deserve. I wonder if they will have all that and more there. I know being in a family is a wonderful thing and exactly what I hoped for them, but seeing it I wonder if it is enough. I want more than just a family. I want them to have the right family for them. I want them to have all of the the opportunity of loving and belonging they have been cheated of in their short lives. 

All of this has caused me to reevaluate so many things. Not only the part of being here, but the fact that being here causes me to talk to many people about things I hadn't before. I have seen so many different views of adoption and children from so many possible angles. A lot of people have opinions about it, and those a opinions are far more varied than I imagined. I niavely assumed that most people's opinions followed along with my rather simplified view. A child is a child, and every child deserves to be loved, but for few people it is that simple. Perhaps in some ways it shouldn't be. There is the thought of needing to biologically have children of your own, for both a need for legacy and personal need. If you do have biological children should you adopt or not as well. If so before or after having your own children (for the record I hate that phrase. If you are even considering adoption that phrase should not even pass through your mind. If a child you adopt is not your own you shouldn't adopt.) Then there is the question of inter racial adoption, and where and how adoption should be done. After that there is the question of what is the best way of raising an adopted child to feel loved and always to know they belong and what role in their lives the fact that they are adopted will play. I have come to realize that each of these questions can trigger many varied opinions, and I don't know what is the right answer or if there is one. I'd suspect that it is one of those things that every circumstance is different, just as every child is different. 

What I have learned is that I love these children. I can't see them children with disabilities or Chinese children or orphans anymore, even if I tried. I see children. I know that I could take any one of my babies into my home and love them utterly and completely with all that I am. I could, with even the breath of an opportunity, devote my life to making sure that they were always loved and cared for and could have everything I could make possible. I know right now I have nothing to offer a child, but I also know that I want to adopt one day. I know when it came to loving a child it would make no difference in my love how they came to be in my arms. Some day, if God grants me a child or children I will be blessed no matter what struggles they have, what shape, color, size, or origin.