Monday July 13, 2009

Monday, groups and individual families flew out of the Beijing Airport to their child’s province. A provincial visit completes the necessary steps on the Chinese side of the adoption. We stayed in Changsha, in the Hunan province, in southeastern China. Much of the area surrounding Changsha was filled with beautiful and lush green mountains.

On a more hilarious note, I was confident we would not be the only westerners in the airport, leaving from Beijing. Think again! We were once again a spectacle, as Chinese business men gave us a once over, attempting to decide why a group of Westerners were flying out. As we boarded our flight on Air China, I was seated next to an elderly Chinese woman. She was quite curious about this large Western girl next to her however did her best to not overtly stare. As we were landing, I took out my nametag which we were supposed to wear for much of the trip. It stated the adoption agencies name in Chinese and English. As I put it on, she grabbed the tag and read the Chinese characters. As she understood why we were flying to Changsha, her face lit up and she gave me the thumbs up. According to our guide Sherry, this meant “lucky girl,” referring to our daughter.

After arriving at the airport, three families adopting, (including Tom and I) with children in Hunan province quickly found our guide and boarded a bus, for the Sun City Hotel. Sounds like Atlantic City. A vision of elderly women playing slot machines ran through my mind as we lumbered through busy streets in this city of 6.5 million. Our hotel was beautiful, and it felt very bizarre to stay in such beautiful conditions with the rundown apartments surrounding our hotel.

We boarded a bus to drive to the hotel. Our bus is what one might picture in a place like Changsha, Hunan. As we boarded a bus with dingy curtains and too much dirt on the floor our provincial visit began. Despite the lackluster conditions of the bus and the lack of air conditioning, this bus looked like a chariot, because it was about to end 3 years of waiting and bring us to our daughter a few hours later.
As we entered the opulent hotel on the other sided of town, Tom quickly spotted a small boy carrying a bag of chicken’s feet. We assume this was a snack. Luggage was unloaded and gifts for the babies nannies were unpacked. We were told to give simple gifts like Bath and Body works. We included small bottles of Bath and Body Works, Burt’s Bees Wax, and Jelly Belly’s. All items which are made in the United States and unavailable in China.

We left three hours later to meet our daughter. Stopping to pick up diapers and formula, we once again created what I referred to throughout the trip as an international incident. Bizarre Westerners picking up formula, rice cereal, and bottled water suddenly became the most interesting thing going on in the store. People surrounded us and chatted about us as we walked around the store. Help with selecting the correct formula, and the discussion that ensued between store clerk and our guide, was cause for the gathering of another crowd.

Our guide made us privy to the fact that we were only the second adoptive group this year to come to Hunan province. Plus, we did not see a lot of Westerners or Europeans milling around the area. We assume the public display was one of genuine curiosity.

We left the grocery store and headed to the civil affairs office. Heading into an alley in our ramshackle van, I could not imagine going into the building and meeting our daughter for the first time. Three years of waiting had come down to this moment in my life. All the paperwork and months of waiting for God’s timing had come to this place on earth. An elevator took us upstairs to a short hallway. When we entered the room, I searched the room for Sidney. I looked directly to the left of the doorway, and there she sat on a wooden bench with two men. My obvious reaction was to start sobbing. Trying to get control of my emotions was not an option at this point. I had been crying since we got on the elevator. Each family was presented with their child. As we waited for our turn, my arms ached to hold this little pint sized girl in boys clothes and jelly sandals.

When our turn came, Chen Ningxia was no longer a person on a piece of paper and let me pick her up without even so much as a tear. We noticed that Sidney’s issues were a bit more than what was shown in the paperwork. We knew this was a possibility as referral information can be very sketchy. Sidney’s beautiful little face was curious when looking back at this strange person. Sidney’s was much shorter on one side and one hand had webbing between two fingers. While this was, honestly, shocking and a bit scary, I knew that I had not flown around the world to a place like Changsha, Hunan for just anyone. This was my daughter.

We signed temporary guardianship for the evening or what the Chinese refer to as the “Period of Harmony.” For all practical purposes, Sidney, at that point, was a complete stranger, but it was instantly natural to be her mother. I felt like I had known her my whole life, and she was at ease around the both of us. She slept soundly for 12 hours the first night we had her.

In a way, Sidney did seem scared and timid. After all, she was thrust into a strange situation and had been through a very tumultuous day. She had never ridden in a car and was taken 4 or 5 hours to the Civil Affairs office. She had never been out of the orphanage, for that matter, yet she was a trooper through and through.

That night I watched Sidney drift off to sleep and thought a lot about her mother. What brought a mother to leave such a beautiful child in Chenzhou Hospital No. 3? Suddenly, I remembered a topic our guide brought up on the bus while we were touring Beijing. Health care is available in China from the government, however anything outside of the ordinary is unavailable. For example, a set number of procedures is available under government heath care. A set number of surgeries are available. Our guide told us 25 surgeries are available for various health ailments. Anything outside of this number is not available. Procedures are not available without large sums of money. In addition, this set number of procedures is available in larger cities, given more doctors with necessary medical expertise. In the countryside, the coverage is available but not the medical staff with the necessary expertise. Children in orphanages do receive the necessary surgery, and mothers are aware of this information. If children are abandoned, under Chinese law the operation has to be completed. The plight of Sidney’s mother suddenly became clearer. She probably abandoned her to give her the necessary medical care which she could not provide.

That brought me to another thought. Tom and I have discussed on several different occasions that it is probably not the mother who abandons the child but equally a father or relative who takes the baby from the mother. We have the outfit her mother left her in, and it was obvious her mother cared deeply by the way she was dressed. A warm fleece coat, worn but warm fleece pants, and a warm hat with bear ears. She was also left in a public place, and as our guide confirmed in Beijing, she was left in a place which is common for abandonment, a hospital. Obviously, whoever left her knew she would be found quickly in this very public place.

After Sidney was asleep, I also went through the items which were given to us by the men from the orphanage. In addition to the outfit in which Sidney was found, we received her finding ad. Advertisements with lists of babies are placed in the local newspaper, looking for the person who abandoned the baby. An ad of this type is one of the many reasons it takes so long for a child to become part of an adoption program. A couple of months passes before the child is considered officially abandoned. On the same sheet listing a much younger Sidney are other children. One child, in particular, struck me. She was at least 3, and was abandoned by her mother. I am not sure who this girl is, if she was placed for adoption or most likely will spend her life in the custodial care of the Chinese government, however I will never forget her face.