Waiting Child

Get Ready!

2009-10-14T22:22:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow are school pictures...oh my. Ours start at 8am. Because that's the best time to ask a preschooler to smile after you've dressed him up and told him not to touch anything and slicked his hair down.

And a violin update. Our Little Prince has asked for-make that pestered us about--a violin. He talks about violins, picks out the sounds they make in the music we hear, mimics being a violin by rubbing his legs together...and of course when we took him to earxtacy in Louisville, he LOVED the listening stations and chose out of EVERYTHING he heard an instrumental CD featuring Bela Fleck (banjo), Zakir Hussain (tabla), and Edgar Myer (double bass), called "The Melody of Rhythm," recorded with who else but the Nashville Symphony. He loved visiting our friends the Dillards and listening to Jonathan and his dad play their way through the house, and he was undone at a recent fiddle competition in downtown Franklin (where, of course, he fell in love with the harmonica). In the car, he wants to hear the Bela Fleck CD or Alison Krauss and Union Station. At my sister's house, he grabbed his uncle's Rock Band drumsticks, and before I could move fast enough to avert the damage he'd make by beating the wall & furniture & cousin Reagan, he tucked one stick under his chin, rubbed it with the other, and smiled, "Look! It's a violin!"

So, we get the hint. Even now, we're trying to wedge our way into Suzuki lessons at the same church where he goes to preschool. And we've picked out the perfect violin, one sixteenth size, of course, so he can grow into it. Good grief. Just to make sure, before we start eating Ramen noodles to finance this endeavor (that's what parents do, right? I thought Ramen noodles were limited to college and first year of marriage!), I asked him again the other day, as we watched Elmo's world feature violins--"YoYo, do you still want a violin?"

"No, Mama."

Well, there you have it, I thought. It has passed. We've begun the cycle of "I must have this, it's what I've wanted to do my whole life," to be replaced 2 hours later with, "No, I never wanted that, I have thought about doing this for ever!"

"I don't want to play violin, Mama. I want to fiddle. Do you hear that there, Mama? That's fiddle music, not violin music. That's what I want to do."

It took Nashville 16 months to get to our boy, but it got him. Hard.

Talking With...

2009-10-06T13:23:00.000-07:00

There's this really weird dichotomy to 4-year-olds. The boy who liked to mush everything together on his plate a few months ago DOES NOT! want his corn to touch his chili. And the grapes he loved last summer will not pass his lips now. Ahhh, to be four. But then, as we talk, if I can sit still long enough, he blows me away.

The other night, we were getting ready for bed, and Shane was coaxing him to finish picking up his toys. "I know you'll make a good decision and clean up," Shane said.

"How do you know I'll clean up?" asked our intrepid one.

"Because you are a smart boy, and you don't want to be punished for leaving a big mess," his father replied.

"But, didn't Jesus take the punishment for me so I don't have to?"

Clearly, he's grounded from Sunday School.

And then today, reading our book before a little nap (he has a yucky cold), he said, "How long will the moon be? As long as this world? As long as you live? Does God know the answer?"

"Well, I don't know how long the moon will last."

"What questions do you have, Mama, that you don't know the answers?"

"Well, how deep is the ocean, and how many stars are in the sky..."

"Is that the only questions? Do you have even more than those? Are there too many?"

"Yes, there are too many for right now."

"Does God know the answers?"

"I guess He does."

"Do you want to snuggle now, Mama?"

Ok, so I know he's not the only kid in the world asking questions or making his parents' little brains go *pop* ! But it is surely an amazing wondrous thing to see his awareness blossom every day and to watch him unfold. I'm so lucky to be a Mommy. I know I have to write this now, because when he's in 4th grade and his feet stink and he doesn't want my hugs and he slams his bedroom door, I'll have to look back on this and say, "It's all the same little boy." And he'll still be unfolding.

can't deny it any longer

2009-09-16T05:33:00.000-07:00

Baby feet are one of my favorite things in the whole world. They're shapeless, funkless, with kissable little toes. The little tootsies in this picture are my niece's baby feet, sprinkled with the cutest possible touch of sand. How sweet are those feet!

These feet here? I promise they were baby feet just a few months ago. They are my favorite little feet in the whole world. When we were in China, and for a while after we came home, homesickness and separation hit the little prince hard, and when he WOULD NOT let Mama or Baba hold him, the one point of contact he would allow me was to hold one little foot. I held on, hoping that one little gesture told him we loved him even if we weren't much comfort yet. He still will slide one foot into my hand when we snuggle, scrunching his little toes. And of course the funniest joke in the world is for him to trick me into smelling his "stinky" feet.

But clearly, something has changed. The picture hints at it, but even then, I could deny it was happening. No more. The shapelessness has resolved itself into an arch, the sweet little stubby toes have begun to get longer and longer, and there's clearly a ball and a heel. A heel, people! No sweet little blobby foot anymore-it's irrefutably a Little Boy Foot, not a baby foot!

Inevitable, I know. It's still the sweetest foot, but would it have been too much to just let it stay a baby foot a little longer?! I know-if this is how I take the "passage of the foot," I'm in for a world of growing pains. And let's not get started on how I'll embarrass him. "Mom, you blogged about my feet?"

I wonder if there's still some ice cream in the freezer. Guess I'll have to tough it out. I'll be accepting condolences.

Wow-that was quick!

2009-09-04T09:09:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's September!

I spent August in a flurry of canning and freezing, with 16 pints of pepper relish, 10 pints and 4 quarts of pickles, 8 pints of peaches, 2 pints of figs, 15 quarts of green beans, 5 quarts of blackeyed peas, and 7 quarts of corn to show for my efforts. Putting up food is gratifying.

We also managed to squeeze our way down to SC and Florida for 10 days (sans Shane-poor man had to work!). The invitation to visit came from none other than Mrs. Murphey, from Cumberland College days. Mrs. Murphey and her late husband traveled to Israel in 1952 to establish a kibbutz. Instead, they wound up running a home for children of Arabic and Jewish descent, a subsistence garden, a church, and a school. After nearly thirty years, they returned to the States, where Mr. Murphey taught Hebrew, among other things, at Cumberland College, and Mrs. Murphey earned her Masters in Music. They took us under their capable wings when Shane and I first got married, and they carried us through some traumatic experiences.

While we were invited to visit Mrs. Murphey at her timeshare in Florida, the understanding was that she needed some help ordering the memories in her mind and the writings her husband compiled, so that she could begin the task of writing the history of the "Village" she and her husband poured so much of their lives into.

So we went! And I typed and typed and typed, and YoYo climbed Florida's tallest lighthouse and spent lots of time playing in the sand. We got to spend some great time on both ends of the trip with my sister Andrea, her hubby Tyson, and YoYo's beautiful cousin Reagan.

We also have been getting ready for school-YoYo's preschool starts next week, and I'll be teaching art there one day a week!

Oh, and we went to the Williamson County Fair with friends-and I learned my boy is fearless! He climbed aboard his first ride, a flying elephant, and I was sure he'd bail as soon as it started moving. Oh but no! He waved and cheered, and when the ride finally began to slow down and return to the ground, he kept asking, "Why is it stopping?" to the laughter of all within earshot. The three amigos enjoyed rides until 10 pm, when their esteemed parents decided that the best option was to let everyone share cotton candy on the way back to the cars. Oh what a night!

And the living is easy

2009-07-21T09:27:00.001-07:00

It's keeping up with it that's hard. We've put on the miles this summer-a two-week trip to Oak Island, NC; two trips to Indiana for fun & birthdays; a trip to SC before the beach; a drive to Kentucky for a wedding (yeah!); and I know I'm missing something else on this list!

Then the home stuff--peach-picking, swimming, the zoo, fishing, campfires, cookouts, parades, birthday parties in a never-ending stream of cakey goodness, an AWESOME visit with Claire & her family (YoYo's "betrothed," don'tchaknow?!), too little time with Kirsten!, the vegetable garden, playdates...

Whew! We need a vacation!

here fishy, fishy, fishy...

2009-05-27T21:00:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day marked a year and a day since we landed in Nashville's BNA airport with our sweet prince. I can't even remember what we did that first day back. I think sleep was involved, but it seemed there was a stream of visitors and well-wishers, too. Shane's folks were in town, and they stayed at a hotel to give our brand new family some space to recover--and then dropped in to make sure we were getting fed and rested. Yeah, grandparents!

This year was different, though. We dug worms out of the compost pile and headed off to the Jones' ranch for a fancy steaks-from-the-grill lunch and finished it off with an afternoon of fishing. YoYo's first time fishing was GREAT! He caught about 8 of the smallest bluegill we've ever seen, but he was so tickled and he loved handling the worms.

He paused midway through the excursion to wax philosophical on us. I had to cath him while his buddy Cole was present, and he asked, "Why do I have a stoma?" Thinking on it now, I realize that was THE OhmygoshwhatamIgonnasaywhenheasksthat moment, but at the time we were just zipping right along, so I said, "That's what God helped the doctors give you-everybody has to potty, and there's lots of different ways to do it." So he turns to Cole and says, "God made all things, Cole. Did you know that? I can teach you that." Cole laughed and said, "Of course He did, silly poophead." I alone was present to see the tale unfold--and it was funny.

As the shadows got longer and the prince tired, we piled into the car and drove away, our tiny fish happy and safe back in their home pond. What a great day to spend with friends!

Of course, the evening ended with us gingerly removing ticks as secretively as possible inside the ER of Vandy Children's Hospital while awaiting labs, but that's what keeps us humble 'round these parts. Looking like Ma and Pa Kettle at the ER.

Of course tonight, my Dad called to ask YoYo about the fishing trip. "Can you take me fishing, YoYo?" he asked after YoYo boasted loudly, "I caught EIGHT FISH, Papa!"

YoYo replied somberly, "Well, I guess you'll have to take us--I'm not allowed to drive yet."

Something tells me it's all happening...

2009-05-26T17:44:00.000-07:00

We went to the zoo last week with friends. What a great idea to take three boys & their little sisters to the zoo together & have a picnic lunch! Of course, only one of the two sisters wanted to be in the photo-when the other one burst into tears & screaming mid-shoot, YoYo looked at her & declared, "That's pitiful."

Sunday nights, the same three boys, parents, & sisters get together with Susan at the home of "pitiful" to enjoy potluck dinner & a few hours of train table time (or TV, or the swingset, whatever). We needed to leave early this past Sunday to make a quick appearance at a high school graduation party nearby. YoYo protested, "I just want to play!" & our sweet friends insisted we leave him with them while we made our grownup jaunt. We joked on the way down the road that it would be funny to "talk someone down from the ledge" if YoYo filled his colostomy pouch to bursting. It was whistling in the dark--worst-case scenario.

You know what happened next. Within 20 minutes of arrival at the fete, a call came on my cell with Ken (pitiful's Dad) saying, "Anna, what happens if..." & the call was dropped.

Oh, no. So the host gave me a land line & I called to find out that the worst-case scenario happened, & it was time to tell my dear sweet Susan via phone how to change my son's pouch. These are better friends than we deserve. A fellow partygoer (a health-care pro) told us, "Take your time, finish your cake. He's fine." We did, & when we got back to YoYo, he had new clothes & still wasn't ready to leave-"WordWorld" was on TV. By the time we got home, we had to change him again.

Monday night, he complained of a bellyache, & then strange things happened with his pouch that raised alarm. We called the right folks & ended up in the Vandy Children's Hospital ER. Until 5 this morning.

Two x-rays, two vials of blood, many tests, & a worn-out YoYo later, we learned he's fine, just a little backed up. The possibilities ranged from that to stoma blockage to liver problems to anemia to scary. Our boy hollered proper when his blood was drawn, & the observation room we had was the size of a Chicago bus stop shelter, but it's all ok. He's ok.

I don't know how long it will be, though, before we're brave enough to leave him & go on a date again. This was the 1st time that we left him with someone other than kinfolk for a date-like moment. As another fellow partygoer declared, "I guess sh*t really does happen!" I shouldn't laugh, but I did.

I do still. I guess it is a light & tumble journey from the Eastside to the park, just to find a fancy ramble at the zoo.

looking back

2009-05-19T22:37:00.000-07:00

Today was YoYo's last day of preschool. Wow. Just wow. He has so enjoyed his classmates--he calls them, "my children." Like he's Moses. One afternoon, he waved as we left, calling, "Goodbye, my children." I was waiting for them to reply, "Au revoir, mon pere."

Which brings me to this time last year. We were in Guangzhou, and so happy to be there. We had an enormous beautiful clean (oh, thank God, clean!) room overlooking the water, and serious bonding time was spent looking out the window together, counting boats.

We had a near-miss with medical supplies. Before we left the US, a BlueSky nurse sent a list of ostomy supplies we'd need. I took it to a medical supply store, & the rep didn't recognize half the items-lost in translation. He decided I didn't need nearly as many catheters as I asked for, and that sterile gloves and swabs were pointless. "It's only a clean procedure," he insisted. He referred us to an ostomy therapist, who gave us a big bag of sample colostomy supplies.

In China we realized how unprepared we were. Conditions required a new catheter every time. YoYo's urologist advised a catheter a day, already unusual compared to the average catheter a week for a urostomy-but there are reasons. We had 30--we needed 80. BlueSky graciously gave us what they could, but we were still short. Then the weirdest thing happened. One night in Beijing, we went for a walk, and three blocks from our hotel we passed...an OSTOMY SUPPLY STORE! Um, the odds.

So we wheeled YoYo in and pulled out our purse-sized case of supplies to show the good Mandarin-speaking-only folks what we needed. Quantity and price were communicated via calculator. Oh, did we feel like we'd pulled off the most savvy operation ever! And then--they were out of the catheter that we needed. THE ODDS, people!

Fast-forward to Guangzhou. By then, we would have been out of catheters, but I had been boiling bottled water to rinse & reuse them (every 4 hours), so that we were getting a day out of each catheter. Even then, we'd be cutting it close. We spent hours in Zhengzhou, then Guangzhou, trying to track down what we needed.

I was so worn out. The trauma a child goes through when he realizes that he has been separated from his family-his first family-and handed to strangers who speak gibberish defies comparison. If that child is a toddler, there's another layer of complexity. When that child is dependent on caths & colostomy pouches and a very clean environment, things start to feel life-or-death all the time. Ride in a cab? Meal at a restaurant? Shower at a hotel? Life or death.

Add the natural disaster, the frequent emails from my employer asking for this task or that information, some grief from our agency, and just the regular weariness from traveling on 4 flights through 3 provinces, and survival is a miracle. Just when it looked like YoYo would develop a bladder infection from the handling he received at the Shamian Island clinic (on May 19, as a matter of fact), Paul Gour revealed (casually, over lunch at Lucy's) that he worked with medical supplies.

Of course he did. And of course, he was willing, even though he and Chelsea had their own toddler-size bundle of terrified with her own set of medical stuff, to arrange for catheters to be FedEx'ed to us from the US if we needed them.

Just the knowledge-that someone we hardly knew cared enough to risk that-was like a big cool drink of calm down. Things were going to work out. We'd cut it close, but we'd have enough. And we were not alone.

We still are not alone. Mercy! (I think I'll go recount my caths now, and maybe I'll use one as a straw, and make a necklace out of another, and weave some others into a placemat. Ha!)

milestones

2009-05-12T19:07:00.001-07:00

A year has officially passed now since Fu Tian You became our very own Tian Yo Caudill. May 12, 2008, will be remembered by hundreds of thousands as the day of the Sichuan earthquake, but for us, it is the day we were born as a family!

Last week, our caseworker dropped by for one last post-placement interview. Now the process is officially wrapped-if you don't count the readoption or the TN birth certificate paper chases!

Having a caseworker who last saw YoYo last summer gave me the chance to see him through a different lens. And I am so thankful and proud of all he has done since coming to us!

The little prince knows his alphabet & phonetics, and in the last month he's started sounding out words to guess how to spell them-on his own! He's learning to dress himself, and he can hop, skip, & jump. He loves LOVES to work and play outside. He likes to paint and loves to watch things grow. He also really likes to watch the birds at his bird feeder, and has declared his favorite is the chickadee. He sings all the time, and he says he wants to play the violin (who knows how long that will last).

Two weeks ago, we watched a production of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" at Christ Presbyterian Academy. During the 3+ hours, YoYo was riveted. He watched the whole show, and asked so many questions. There was a small instrumental ensemble which provided beautiful music for the production, and he was mesmerized by the instruments. He asked about each change in mood or tone in the music, and he talked about when it sounded sad and when it sounded fast.

He amazes me. And he asks SO MANY questions. I can't keep up-I have to admit, I get impatient sometimes, because I'm not quick-witted enough to make it easier on myself or to anticipate him. He claims he wants to know. Nana told him Saturday, "You have so many questions!" His reply? "I know-there are all these questions in my head at the same time, and I have to ask all of them. And God will give me even MORE questions, Nana!"

He's turned us upside-down.

And we couldn't be happier.

Mother's Day (after)

2009-05-11T20:09:00.000-07:00

So, by this time last year, I had my first Mother's Day-and so so many beautiful emails and prayers for a lovely one from friends! That brings me to this-and I'm overdue, but I was without internet this weekend precisely because I was celebrating my (little) sister's first Mother's Day!

So, a belated Happy First Mother's Day to Andrea! I imagined a lot of stuff when I was a kid (I hear that snicker), but I never seemed to imagine what it would be like for my sister and me to both be Moms! And she is such a good Mommy-with a sweet sweet beauty of a blue-eyed girl. When I asked YoYo the other week if he'd like a little brother or sister (so maybe we're talking about another adoption-not that that's a surprise, right?), he said, "I have a sister." I asked, "Who?" assuming he'd name Zhi Jing or another friend from BlueSky, or even one of his buddies' sisters. He said, "Baby Reagan is my sister, silly Mama." Oh yeah, pal, right where she's totally harmless-8 hours away!

And Happy Mother's Day to my favorite Moms-first to my Mom, whose mothering AND friendship I'm thankful for (and proud to lay claim to!), and to my Mother (in-law or outlaw?) Jane, Shane's Mom, who from the start loved me just as much and as closely as she does her two kiddos. Who knew a Mother-in-law could do that?

And to Shari, the coolest Mom, my sister (in-law/outlaw!), who is so so fun to hang out with and a trusted pray-er all in one gorgeous package. I know she looks younger than I do, but yes, that high school girl is her daughter, thankyouverymuch.

And to Rinda Smith, Chelsea Gour, Phemie Tan, Lisa Florian, Katie Songer, Stephanie Garrett, Lisa Landers, Katy Parks, and Tricia Jones, I'm watching all y'all, and taking notes, because there's so very much to learn, and I know I'm surrounded by a cloud of witnesses-who better to learn from than women one admires!

And to Vickie Foltz, you amazing woman-this was the first Mother's Day since you left, and I'm learning that a Mother's teaching in the life of her children continues to unfold long after she leaves this earthly home. Thank you dear friend for sharing your wisdom with so much vulnerability.

Being Born

2009-05-02T08:35:00.000-07:00

Remembering how we felt on our first day was refreshing, like a clear pool of cool water. When I remember Day 2 in China, it feels a little more like the feelings I've had since. That's when we saw YoYo's ostomies for the first time. Watching his care routine, all the thoughts about one child's worth, about adopting a baby nobody else would want, and any place where I was tempted to think we were nice people for "doing this" (whatever that means) were entirely flushed from my head and replaced with, "What the HELL were we thinking?!? We can't do this! Who did we think we are to try to care for this little boy?"

It reminds me of places in the Tanakh where a person emerges for just a second from the obscurity of time and their really great moment of faith or stupidity is noted forever. A fellow teacher used to always remind me of a moment he thought I spoke in faith without fear, and the way he recounted it brought to mind that Biblical manner of storytelling. It's probably more accurate (honest?) to assume that if I had one of those Tanakh stories, it would be the moment when the enormity of YoYo and his "stuff" loomed so large it cut the legs out from under any intentions of faith or love or noble deed that I might have cherished. Chelsea Gour has been such an encourager in that respect, reminding me of the good and the room for hope-redemptive feelings.

I can't find how to write this next bit. We're still afraid. I'm still afraid, especially when I think about grade school and boys' bathrooms and locker rooms and all my stereotypes about boys and meanness. Love of friends helps ease the way. I hope I can get outside of my own head and be that friend to another.

The photo? It shows YoYo's response to our fear-and maybe it's prophetic.

happy birthday to family

2009-04-30T20:59:00.000-07:00

The songs in your head are now on my mind...

Of course it hardly seems possible that a year ago, we were ready to land. Dr. He and an assistant met us at the (enormous) Beijing airport. We were so tired, so unprepared. We allowed our lives to gallop right up to the minute we had to leave, and the only quiet moments to ponder, to even try to still ourselves, were the ones in the plane. Mercy.

Of course (again) nobody is ever really ready to be a parent, but I thought the years of waiting would give us an edge. Boy is that funny! Walking into the foster home, looking through the dim interior for the baby we would be taking home, was maybe the weirdest naked feeling ever. Struggling to understand the language, overcome with emotion (and more than a little fear), not knowing what would happen next...and then we saw him!

It was more than good to have a week at BlueSky before joining our travel group. I'm sure every adopting parent would covet that luxury. For us, it made the difference between survival and crisis. I learned how to use a catheter and colostomy supplies from some incredible volunteer nurses (American and Swedish), and I practiced under the watchful loving eyes of the ayis (who gave great advice I will never be able to translate). I was so scared I wouldn't remember all the instructions, and that it would cost YoYo his life. We spent our mornings around the dining room table, sharing peanut butter sandwiches with our little boy, wondering if he knew what would happen next. We took turns rocking him, stole him away from the other children for snippets of bonding time without attracting attention. We took walks around the block and navigated our first store outings without translators, we took him to our guest apartment and read stories to him and gave him snacks and napped. It felt like we were doing something wrong (at least to me), or like we were playing house, pretending that this little one was ours. I kept thinking any minute that someone would approach to demand whose beautiful boy-child we'd taken, and I would not have the language to explain he was ours.

Everyone at BlueSky was so gracious to let us ease into being with him, and I guess to let him ease into being with us. The parties and gifts and care lavished on us made me wonder when they would find out that we are really just teachers and not royalty. They were so happy for us, and I felt guilty to know we were taking their little Prince-even though I could tell myself again and again that the timing was just. I could almost believe we were their fairytale people, and then the strain of all we were learning medically and the fear of what may come would overtake me and I would lash out at my dear selfless husband in private for tiny nothing things. Oh, bittersweet, that labor brings joy and pain to life and commits it to memory.

Two of the kindest gifts came from the nurses. Gunilla had lovely flowers in the guest apartment when we arrived. Forever and ever those will be the first flowers I received as a mother. Then wise Tammy stepped in the day before we had to take YoYo from BlueSky, and she insisted we go to the Orchard for one last date before parenthood consumed us.

She sent her driver (!) to collect us, and he carried us to an estate which had belonged to a very old family. It was seized in the 40s, but lately has evolved (somehow) into a privately owned restaurant. The gardens surrounding it are lush, sections of the orchard are intact--it is breathtaking. It was somewhere during the elegant meal that parenthood dawned on us, and that epiphany carried us through the remainder of the journey. Tammy was able to give us the moment of quiet stillness we needed before plunging in. I thought of her this week as I transplanted creeping sedum to my beds of iris, now a riot of color. I first saw creeping sedum banking iris at the Orchard, and I echo the combination now, in my garden, in thanks to Tammy and Gunila and Sunila and Dr. He and all of BlueSky.

Though the hope for another child and the shadow of grief for infertility sometimes feel like betrayal to the precious gifts we have received, I think we can honestly say that we are so very happy that we can hardly take it. At the dentist yesterday, a nurse smiled to say we rescued YoYo, and I said with full heart, "No, he rescued us."

4 is the magic number

2009-04-06T22:21:00.000-07:00

Photos to come...my macbook crashed and the guys at the genius bar (no really, that's the name?) won't see me til 9 am Tuesday. I am seriously compromised-I'm desperate enough to write this on hubby's macbook, the school one, which I prefer to call "The Hobo."

ANYWAY.

Monday-April 6! The little prince turned 4, and we were filled with joy, and I had no idea the emotional soup it would be (for me, in my head, trying to keep it all smooth and calm outside).

YoYo woke up asking, "Am I 4?" And it hit me (so so much harder than I imagined) that it is our first birthday with our first little one, and he is 4 and I've already missed so much, and I feel like a guest and not a parent (because we missed birthdays 1, 2, and 3), and I wonder about his birth-parents and what they are feeling.

HOW is it that this way to family is so very unending with its happy/sad surprises? YoYo knew just what I needed, a good 20 minutes of snuggle time before jumping into the day. We had pancakes cut into 4's for breakfast, then some TV, and then lovely playing with the lovely toys the grandparents giddily stuffed our house with last week. (PS-Grandparents, we know what you're doing. Don't think we don't.) Then off to school to pick up Shane for pizza lunch! We ended up at the mall, thanks to the macbook-did I mention I HATE the mall?

We played restaurant for dinner, and that was an absolute hit. Our party party was last Saturday at the park. Just YoYo, a very few friends his age, and the most glorious how-did-we-luck-out day weatherwise that has happened in the last three weeks. Seriously-it's snowing outside as I type this. Snowing. April. Tennessee.

I'm relieved now. This passage had so much potential for hardship-and I didn't have any idea it could until an idle conversation. We've talked so much about turning 4, and he has been excited. Then I talked to him about my cousin's upcoming wedding in DC, and the drive, and the hotel, and how fun it will be. His response was a question. "And then I can no go home to Mama and Baba again anymore? I will no see Baba ever?" It took me a while to put it together. Each birthday has been spent with different people-and each one has been followed by separation. When he turned one, he was in Singapore, recovering from surgery. He was doted on by a couple there, and he loved them. A month after his birthday, he returned to Beijing. Birthday number two came, and a couple of months later he traveled to the US for more surgery. Months later, he returned to Beijing. His third birthday was in Beijing, at BlueSky Healing Home, and it was packed with people who are part of YoYo's story-volunteer nurses, marathon runners, fundraisers, volunteer workers, teachers...all of them knew he'd be leaving soon for good and they came to say good-byes. And less than a month later, we walked into BlueSky, and his first words to us were, "You will take me with you on a plane far away." And he misses his sweet family from BlueSky. He will talk about, "When I lived at HaiHe's house," or "When I was at QinQin's house," and sometimes the stories aren't even real, but his feelings are, and it's so hard to know that even though he is only 4 and may not remember much of this later, it is very real to him now, and it is grief and loss and separation, and it is profound, and no matter how much he loves his Mommy and Daddy, that love for him is mingled with the loss. Our beginning as a family was the end of what he had already known and loved as family.

That this birthday came and went for him, without tears, with some rememberings, with much tenderness and laughter and play and singing and dancing, is a miracle. And a gift. I am so thankful for him every day, and I have no idea how it is that we are blessed enough to have him. With hope for many more birthdays together.

Pride goes...

2009-03-30T08:58:00.000-07:00

I planned a great Saturday. It was full of errands-things that could be checked off lists to make me feel Productive! and Efficient! The only thing I wasn’t looking forward to? Buying underwear. I have underwear that has traveled to more countries than Sarah Palin. Underwear that should be retired. But clever me-I had a coupon for Victoria’s Secret!

We went to Textile Fabric to see the remnant sale first. The only way I could keep YoYo interested was to steer him toward telling me the textures of the fabrics. He LOVED that game.

I put off the mall until the end. I hate the mall. But I had checked so much off my list-this was the last thing! We walk into VS, and I think, “It’s underwear-YoYo’s 3. He doesn’t care.” Sure enough, as we walk in, he points to a mannequin. “What’s that lady doing?”

“She’s not a real lady-she’s just pretend.”

“Is she wearing lady clothes?” Hadn’t ever heard it put that way, but ok, I guess that makes sense. They’re clothes (kind of), and they are on a lady (kind of). It’s like I don’t see what’s coming next. “Yes, those are lady clothes.”

“Is that lady pretend, too?”

“Yes, all the ladies in here are pretend.” Now I’m actually a little smug, because I think I’ve dropped some kind of social commentary on my toddler. He’ll be so sophisticated!

We get to the table thingy that has all the underwear in the little back room, and I’m safe. We’re past photos and mannequins, and this room’s harmless—panties & bras.

So YoYo turns around to the Sale rack and goes into fabric store mode. He does the fabric drill—touch it with your fingers, rub it on your cheek—and he says (so so so loudly), “Mama, this is AMAZING! Are ALL these lady clothes?” The store is suddenly so very quiet.

I still have that coupon, if anyone wants it.

Uncle Fun

2009-03-24T23:36:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of catching up, I'll share a bit about the phenomenon called Uncle Craig.

Uncle Craig is a giant who lives in Boston. The combination of his 6'5" frame, the fact that he rides a chair through the sky to see us, and his striking resemblance to the Baptist Sunday School Board Jesus of VBS days gone by make him the stuff of obsession for small children. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that he actually eats babies.

When Uncle Craig came for a visit a couple of weeks ago, I wasn't sure how YoYo would handle him. We ride this wacky pendulum these days, swinging from, "I hear a grownup, but I'm not sure I care," to, "No, I will NOT acknowledge that grownup." Ok, so maybe it's not so much a pendulum. But apparently Craig is magic. Legend. A few months back, Craig gave YoYo some antique Chinese coins for Lunar New Year. I really can't explain what that meant to me. This time, he played with that little boy for hours at a time, and it didn't matter how stinky YoYo was to him, he would cram his body into impossible spaces, watch the same Clifford episode 30 times, lose at every single game imaginable (including head-on truck crash livingroom rally), and keep YoYo AND PaPa AND Shilo the puppygirl ALL mesmerized. If he ever ever moves back to Nashville, we will hold him hostage.

What's the photo? Typical stuff for the visit. Craig somehow folded himself inside a Little Tykes playhouse (4 feet x 4.5 feet x 4.5 feet) and then lured both YoYo and Shilo inside. Not that there weren't already two dozen stuffed animals in there. And a plastic chair. They were in there for maybe a half hour-by choice, mind you.

Thanks Uncle Craig. I can't wait til Easter comes, and we use the old-school PAAS egg-dyeing kit and fill YoYo's basket with Uncle Craig's bag of treats. I hope YoYo always knows how cool you are and how much you love him.

Catching up

2009-03-23T00:45:00.000-07:00

There's so much to tell-so many beautiful days and grumpy moments and fears for the future and sighs that things were easier than anticipated-and that was just in a few weeks!

So we'll start small for now. The other night we had the lovely lovely Songer family over, and their 3 year old little man enjoyed an evening with our 3 year old little man while the parents ate and laughed and enjoyed as normal an evening as can be had-hooray! I played "restaurant" for the boys (thanks Mr. Rogers for the idea). The grownups had their own meal, but the boys, seated at YoYo's play table, were given menus with the evening's options in crayon--grilled cheese, hotdog, chicken nuggets, with apples, fries, or grapes on the side and milk or apple juice to drink. They soooo loved it! They chose the same things, and we used some really cute placemats that look like racetracks (thanks Mom!), and I even put some carnations in a cup on the table. (I cheated there-we had the flowers already, because with the advent of Spring, YoYo has been in love with flowers and wants a bouquet every time we go to Kroger!).

YoYo totally got into it, and when the boys had been served and I finally sat down at the grownup table to eat with our friends, he called, "Excuse me, lady? Lady? Could I please have some more juice? And we need some ketchup, please, lady." I took care of them, and gave my best, "Will that be all, gentlemen?" and he chirped, "Yes, lady-thank you so much!" He has been fascinated with a Mr. Rogers tape that I found at a used bookstore, and has watched that dear man visit a restaurant to order a cheese sandwich so many times that I KNEW he was thinking of the waitress in the video every time he called, "Lady? Miss Lady!" (even though Mr. R. didn't do that). So when he asked, after the second refill of apple juice and an additional side of fruit, "Are you the lady from the restaurant?" I answered, "Yes, just like the restaurant in Mr. Rogers." He was so delighted that I am forced to admit my skill with the English language is not sufficient to do him justice. His eyes absolutely danced and he laughed with so much glee and found so many tiny tiny reasons to call his waitress back to the table that Shane finally intervened to inform the young gents that their waitress was on break.

I could only catch photos at the evening's end, when I realized that of all YoYo's friends, we don't have Corbin on our fridge. Silliness ensued.

At least we got a nice normal photo in first. Mind you, the Vulcan death grip YoYo has on his young friend's neck raises concern, but they're both smiling, so that's a good sign. The big thing I notice is that while Corbin is almost a full year younger than YoYo, they have changed places- months ago, YoYo was the taller one. (A special shout-out to Reed here, who's totally responsible for the awesome Small Paul shirt YoYo sports-she keeps his cool side cool!)

There was a wonderful visit from Uncle Craig a week ago, and happy times with cousins Brandon and Erika in Indiana, but I must save that for later-I've got to get some sleep!

Day in the Life

2009-03-04T22:21:00.000-08:00

Joy of joys, we are finished with the mega-antibiotic!

Today was a typical non-preschool day...

YoYo woke up around 10 am. I let him sleep in because this week Shane has been working on a set for the next high school play. He leaves every morning at 7 am, then returns around 10 pm. After a few days of that, YoYo begs to stay up long enough to see BaBa for a little bit before he goes to bed. Who am I to deny him that?!

I took care of my email before he woke up. Then we started our routine-fuss over breakfast, get dressed-he feeds our dog and folds napkins for meals. I do laundry and start cleaning house. I answer my voicemails (ok-3 of them before he starts clamoring for attention), help him with his projects (another installation, 30 min. of TV, some alphabet time), and then it's time for lunch. Ahhh, gyoza dumplings and noodle soup-a favorite!

After lunch we run to the grocery for a mid-week mini-list. When we return, it's time to read a book & take a nap. Mind you, I'm not detailing the cath times that have happened, the colostomy blowout and subsequent clothing wash, or the etsy & ebay items I listed this morning.

When he wakes up from naptime, it's just like any day-I'm mopping the floor while waiting for a guy to come pick up the 8 rolls of insulation I just sold on craigslist, and while Shane helps him load them into the truck, the nurse comes by to take our blood and urine samples for the life insurance folks. Of course we send her on her way afterwards with a box full of potted African violets, then it's time to go out for a belated birthday dinner, courtesy of Shane's parents (thanks, Jane!).

We're on the way to Chili's when we see a toddler and his mama by the road-their car broke down and she's held out for 2 hours for a ride because she doesn't think she can carry him AND her 3 bags of groceries 15 miles. No kidding. We shove them in the car & take them home, then it's back to Chili's for dinner. Oh wait-it's time for a cath again. Let's just use Chili's restroom this time. I hear a little girl say, "This bathroom's for little girls, not boys!" to her mama, and I realize I'm surprised that it's taken so long for that to happen. But then of course her mother replies, "Well, honey, HE still has to use diapers," and I think of all the things I don't want YoYo to hear me say to her. Ok, lady. Hope you savor that superiority.

After a lovely dinner, it's back home for birthday cake and an episode of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood as a family on the couch before we make our ways to bed. I read YoYo "The Little Engine that Could," and he points out that it's like the little boy we met earlier this evening. Ok, I'll buy that one.

Gogo, too?

2009-02-27T22:13:00.001-08:00

"It's kinda like I love you, but it's SNOT!" (get it?) YoYo's favorite joke. Thank you, mystery infection/cold thing.

Well, we had our first freakishly scary episode with the little man. I left for the grocery store the first evening of our elephantine antibiotic round, and Shane called me 20 minutes later, asking, "Can you please come home right now?" in a voice that frightened me. He'd left YoYo on the couch to start dinner, and a strange behavioral episode ensued which seemed an awful lot like a seizure. When he couldn't get YoYo to respond (no eye contact, no body language, no vocal response), he was terrified. We paged and paged our pediatrician, unwilling to risk a visit to the ER to explain to some random intern our little man's laundry list of rare issues that may or may not coincide with this kind of thing. The good doctor reassured us, and as YoYo drifted off to an exhausted, sicky-boy sleep, we breathed sighs of relief.

Of course, there is nothing that YoYo goes through that GoGo shouldn't go through, so it happens that GoGo's ear fell off suddenly and without explanation-unless you count, "I don't know. I just kissed him and his ear came off." (I can't tell you how many times I've heard that one.) I donned a stethoscope and played doctor as GoGo came to the Kitchen Table Memorial Hospital (complete with 3-year-old-siren blaring, thank you).

After a shot and a good sewing-up, GoGo let YoYo trim his paws for good measure, and then he had the kind of cleaning that I think may only be able to happen one or two more times before he is beyond repair (oh, please, God, give us some years before we get there). Hovering over the bathroom sink with homemade soap and a lice comb (the only thing that could comb out the pills in his fleece), I suddenly remembered all the times I wanted to give a special doll or stuffed animal a bath and grooming that would make him as good as new. So when this turned out really well, I took a picture. Is it me, or does GoGo look a little indignant?

I feel like I'm learning to breathe. I worry so much about doing the wrong thing that when we're around friends, I bring YoYo up short constantly--I'm so afraid he'll push another kid or break something that belongs to someone else or cause a fuss--and I've always been afraid of that for me, too. When we went to the theater for the first time on our own, my brother and I nearly killed each other because I wanted us to be so perfect in our behavior that I jumped on him for every breath he took! So today, I didn't fuss when YoYo wrote all over his palms, or when he stuck the ball-point pen in the screwdriver hole on his table, or when he wiped his mirror til it was cloudy with a fresh wet wipe. He's trying to experiment with so much, and I am so ingrained in 15 years of not having a kid that I'm used to focusing only on what I think needs to get done.

Mercy.

p.s. I took every box I could find in the house and shed last night and made a "train" in the living room. He's crammed every toy and stuffed animal he owns in there. And it makes him happy! He made tickets for all the animals to board the train and is counting them into a bag.

he feels "yucky"

2009-02-23T21:52:00.000-08:00

Alas, we're in the throes of our first honest-to-goodness sickness. Two weeks ago, we walked into preschool to see a little girl look up from the craft table and say (snotto-voce), "I don't feel so good." Seconds later, as she curled in a rocking chair in the fetal position, YoYo proudly assumed her craft-table post to make his mommy the finest valentine in the land. All I could think was, "Here it comes."

Sure enough, within 24 hours, it came. For both of us. I felt B-L-A-H. Meanwhile, captain snotty-nose seemed none the worse for wear-no fever, just a cold, right? I waited a few days and gave him kiddy mucinex for a week. I WAS NOT going to overreact. I was NOT taking him to the Doc to hear, "Yeah, not much we can do. Make sure he drinks a lot."

Until last night. It's been two weeks. He was sounding better, and this morning at 5-God-is-not-even-awake-yet-a-blessed-m, he woke up coughing. And the cough had that really nasty sound only little kids can get. And he was soooooo hot. 102, in fact. We headed to the Doc as soon as his office opened. PS, I won the lottery-it was Doc's first day in a new office-let's not talk about the havoc at the front desk, or how much they wanted to kill me for asking them to "work us in."

He is so pitiful. His antibiotic dosage is so large, it alarmed the pharmacist, who double-checked with Doc before she'd even let us take it home. We had to beg/bribe/threaten him to drink anything, and he barely ate. He slept a lot. While the nurse oohed and ahhed over his good behavior after an hour's wait, I thought, "Yeah, he must feel BAD to be this compliant." When he turned down gyoza (dumplings) AND McDonald's for lunch, I considered taking him back and demanding he be admitted to the hospital.

Instead, while he sleeps, I will pay tribute to our incredible little man. With photos.

These are from an installation he did in the living room the other week. He asked for little paper, scrawled a design on each page, laid the pages out in a serpentine line, then added a car to each page. It was so methodical. I don't know if you can tell from the detail, but he placed each car in an alternate direction. It took time, and I watched the whole thing. Christian Boltanski, we are coming soon.

Shane's cousin Eli (our other "Baby Boy") has been back and forth to our house from Cincinnati several times in the last few months as he makes college plans and prepares to move down here. YoYo loves him. LOVES him. Which delights me-I don't know if you can see E's gauges, but when YoYo first met him, those ear-bobs were accompanied by a nose ring and two lip piercings, and a tattoo gallery. Was our little guy afraid? Nope. In fact, he was inspired...

...and decided he should take up nudie-bear bongo drumming. I don't think I can post that one...yet.

Feel better, Little Bear!

This Just Happened

2009-02-17T15:49:00.000-08:00

That title felt like a sentence out of a Tian Yo Pooh book when I wrote it. You know, the sort of sentence where Piglet looks out of his tree at the rising waters and thinks I'm All Alone and I'm Going to Die Like This? What The Heck? or Eeyore loses his tail and thinks Aftermarket Parts aren't All They're Cracked Up to Be.

But I Digress-and I hope you noticed that our book series is Tian Yo Pooh, not the inferior Winnie, because of course one of the ayis read Pooh to YoYo very often, each time pointing to ursa crocinus and calling him "Tian Yo." That's going to be a letdown in a few years-I'm more worried about it than the "Talk About Santa" thing.

Anyway.

Here's the photo. It looks innocent, to be sure, but it contains a meaning that has unraveled my life. All the travel and prayer leading up to adoption, all the changes of heart, the struggles with the agency, the cliffhangers, the nights without sleep, the earthquakes (you knew I'd tag that again), the strategic appearances in government newspapers, it all was leading TO THIS. The moment when my son lines his letters up on the refrigerator, and in a make-two-syllables-from-one-syllable-words voice that's a dead giveaway for one of his preschool teachers, says, "Children, I have a surprise for you today. Can you guess what it is?" I turn from my laptop, filled with laughter (and terror), to see his head tilted JUST LIKE HIS TEACHER and his hands clasped in front of him JUST LIKE HIS TEACHER. He is even mimicking her smile.

I sneak the camera out, and he instantly has a dog "mask" on his head. So Baba can see it in the picture. He wants a costume, people.

Clearly I have underestimated this little bear.

New Kid in Town

2009-02-13T21:52:00.000-08:00

So, it's about time. I'm finally posting about my "little" sister's first baby! I can't tell you how much we've burned up the road between Franklin, TN, and SC for this little girl! The week of baby Reagan's arrival alone, we drove to my folks' house, then to Columbia and back three times, to Charlotte and back once, and to Asheville and back once before coming home. Grand total? Somewhere near 21oo miles in 9 days. YoYo is a SAINT-that little boy never cried once, although he did ask, "Are we almost there?" roughly once per mile. We listened to his Muppets CD nearly 32 times. I kid you not.

He was a little concerned in the hospital. When he saw Andrea (shortly before the baby arrived), he said, "I don't like baby Reagan. I don't want her to come out." When he saw her the first time, he said, "She's no good." If you look at the pic, you can tell Andrea's the pretty one of the two Willard sisters.

Uncle Craig (my "little" brother) surprised all by flying in from Boston-picking him up was its own adventure. Needless to say, when he rode with us to see the young Seay family the day after Reagan went home from the hospital, Uncle Craig had to pull double duty. He was doting Uncle Craig, tender with baby (I wish to goodness I could find the pic of him "eating" the baby), and wild Uncle Craig, tireless on the playground with a wide-open Tian Yo.

Finally, YoYo came around--and around and around--as Uncle Tyson spun him in a chair. Shortly afterwards, he said, "I love baby Reagan." The spin therapy had worked. When he finally let me hold Reagan without yelling, "No, that's MY Mama!" he stroked her arm very gently and whispered, "I don't want to break her."

PS-for those who wondered, YES, the three of us look ridiculously similar.

Re-take

2009-01-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I just re-read my last post, and yikes! The lesson is never write an entry at 4 am when you can't sleep the morning of a friend's funeral. Seriously, you can't account for your brain, so do laundry instead.

Lots of backstory, but I'll sum up. To begin, kids in YoYo's preschool class take turns going to the restroom. YoYo has begun asking if he can go, too. Currently, I pick him up at the end of four hours (school goes for 5 hrs.) to get him home in time to cath. His teachers remembered my mention of reconstructive surgery a while back and wondered if he's be able to join the potty rotation soon. Nothing wrong with asking that. Exstrophy is largely correctable for many children--YoYo's an exception at this point. But it threw me for a loop, and this is where having YoYo in preschool is helpful, because I can work through these things a step at a time.

YoYo knows he's different, but until now, he's always been surrounded by kids with medical needs. His curiosity about others is growing. I love every little inch of this squirmy boy, but I wish there was an easier way for him.

Then last weekend, a friend from our Sunday School class died suddenly and tragically. He was so excited about us getting YoYo. When our class descended on our house, he and our realtor installed the pocket door to our laundry room and went a little crazy with redos. I was told later the only reason they didn't rip up and redo the entire laundry room floor was my freezer full of half a cow. When neighborhood kids were desperately nosy about what was going on at our house, Mike B. made them a bicycle ramp of scrap plywood. They'd completely trashed it within two weeks, and he just laughed with delight. We drove to Memphis for his funeral yesterday.

So I was a little distracted when I last posted.

This weekend will mark YoYo's first Lunar New Year with us--we're hoping to squeeze in to the Greater Nashville Chinese Association New Year Festival. It's the Year of the Ox, y'all!

This is from my sister's baby shower, but its pink and red, colors for happiness, felt Chinese New Year festive to me. These hung from the ceiling til the party ended, and YoYo dragged them around and danced with them for half an hour while we cleaned up.

Kudos, sighs, and snippets

2009-01-21T00:15:00.000-08:00

When we met YoYo, he slept with a catheter taped into the port in his side, and it drained to a small bag. Someday I may know why China has convenient tiny drain bags and America only has huge ones, but probably not. Anyway, when 4 out of the first 5 American bags pulled the cath out of our boy in the middle of the night and left puddles on the carpet and bed, it was time for a new system.

So I stay up. YoYo has to be cathed every 4 hours, and though it slows at night, he still needs a cath somewhere in there. I do it around 2 am and again at 8. It was beginning to wear on me--I couldn't go to sleep and set an alarm, because I didn't want to wake Shane & I was afraid I'd sleep through. That sounds pitiful, especially when you read Superwoman's feats at gourfamilyadoption.blogspot.com. But I'd roll over at 8 am and think, "Can't do it." I'd do it-I was just beginning to feel a little overwhelmed. In the meantime, I was worried I was holding him back, because we're only doing 3-4 caths in the bathroom weekly--the rest are on his changing table.

Then we saw Dr. John Brock last week-YoYo's urologist. He did an ultrasound and checked urine. Turns out, he thinks we're doing a good job-the urine counts show we're cathing often and taking our time. He doesn't want me to rush the bathroom-the changing table is ok. AAAANNNNDD...YoYo's gaining weight! He's up to 30 lbs. now from the 23 he weighed in June. Sure, some 2T stuff still hangs tentlike on him, but we're moving along, and my fears of bone density and nutritional problems are fading. It's amazing how a little Dr. visit can kickstart your attitude.

I think one of the hard things has been that people have asked what can be done to "fix" YoYo or to make him "better." It's not a bad or wrong question to ask. It is hard to hear, however, that if we just keep praying, God can work a miracle that will astound the doctors and mend YoYo's body.

Now PLEASE do not read this and think you've done something wrong if you've thought or said anything like that; likewise, I hope you can afford grace to not judge anyone who HAS asked that. I would have done the VERY SAME thing before adopting YoYo. Part of loving one another, I think, is being free enough to not be afraid to ask those questions or to hope past what seems medically possible--it's how we help, it's part of community, and it is soooo ok. If we can't tell each other the things we dare to dream for each other, then how can we love and know each other? This is where we live! and these are the hands and feet we have! Can I be free enough to receive another's brave hope for us without attaching strings to how it should be worded or thought?

My idea of wholeness needs tweaking. The Author and Finisher of his little body SPOKE IT INTO BEING. I think I'm just now receiving that if He wants to change anything, He can, without secretly meaning that I think because He can, He should. If He doesn't? I don't think we'll fall out of His hands. If anyone who loves us or just hears of our sweet little man feels moved to pray for anything, far be it from me to set my face against that hope. For me, the miracle is that YoYo is our son, the waiting child for whom we waited so long. The daily care thing is so normal now that I don't think of him as "handicapped," I think of him as a 3-year-old whose energy and appetite for learning leaves me in the dust on the ground gasping for breath. He is formidable. That's funny, because I have to catch myself when someone feels sorry for him or can't believe how awful his condition is--it's like I've completely forgotten that just a few years ago, I would have only heard about bladder exstrophy through TV or charity appeals--like it would have been some sci-fi thing.

Enough! Now for the snippets...

Shilo is no longer mine. YoYo told me quite seriously, "Shilo is MY dog, MaMa. I feed her and pet her, but I can share her with you. You can pet her if you want to." So when the next vet bill comes, kid, what you're saying is...

We went to Barnes & Noble and discovered that some GENIUS installed a train table in the kids' section. I cannot tell you what this means to us. Suffice it to say, he's still got his coat on in the photo-when I asked him to take it off, he said, "There's not enough time, Mama." Apparently my priorities are all wrong.

YoYo wants to read. We've been playing games with letters in the tub, on the fridge, on blocks-when he initiates-but he does NOT want to spend time on the letter "B," people. He wants to know how to spell "BABA" right now! Yeah, yeah, these letters are all nice, lady, and I hear what you're saying, but what can I WRITE?! In the meantime, he channels his energy into color sorting. It's probably some cyrillic code.

boy of constant sorrow

2009-01-13T00:54:00.000-08:00

And the saga continues

2009-01-11T00:25:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year! 2009 has flipped a switch in our boy. Just as I despaired of never being on schedule again—it rocked my world more than it should have—we're back in a routine. But now, YoYo needs more. Not more stuff, but more stimulus, it seems. I can’t tell if this is a long unwinding from holiday chaos or if it's a new layer of his person growing into toddler-hood before our eyes.

He pretends to read all the time, desperately wants to write, and wants to either dance or draw nonstop. It sounds inspiring, but it is wearing me out. Each time I send him to play with his cars so that I can do dishes or cook or be sick for a minute, instead of crafting something that will offer him what he’s after, I feel as though I’m compromising his adulthood. It’s not about minimum wage job versus trust fund magnate, it’s about cramping his person—making him smaller to keep my world safe. I know I can’t take each moment that seriously, but I do, again and again.

This week, we’ll return to the urologist for the first time since August. Not sure what to expect. I think we’re supposed to talk about some reconstructive surgery options for his pelvic area—I guess more cosmetic than anything. It seemed the most sensible time to do this would be at the beginning of a new insurance deductible, and at naptime to boot. Oh, but we’re the smart ones!

I am desperately trying to upload a video of YoYo dancing while cramming popcorn into his mouth (he thinks I can't see it happening). PS, thanks again, Dad, for the GIGANTIC container of popcorn. It's the gift that keeps giving.

snippets...

2008-12-28T23:35:00.001-08:00

Just in case you thought we'd forgotten! We did so much these last 10 weeks--oral surgery & fittings for a new partial, wedding calligraphy for 380+ invites (some twice!), a baby shower for my sister (in SC!), three (count them) 6-hour-one-way trips to SC, the Christmas parade, preschool, umm--Christmas (with its 400 cards)!, and then the odd backed-into car, busted waste pipe spewing sewage beneath the house, etc. Really, it's been quite calm (for not having medication)!

YoYo is our delight. Yesterday I woke from our afternoon nap when he patted my face gently & murmured, "So cute...so cute." Delicious boy! He got his Grandma when he asked to pray over lunch and proceeded to give thanks for "YeYe and NaiNai coming to my house to see me." He is so very sweet & deliberate. It is hard for me sometimes to remember his timid places, and that he likes to come to new people slowly and without fanfare.

Every time we turned around, it seemed, he begged us to sing "Silent Night" so he could make up a dance to it. He delighted in turning on the Christmas tree lights. He was so very careful each time he opened a present. He offered guests photos of himself (how he got a hold of them remains a mystery) or even ornaments from our tree, and he was so happy to decorate cookies on Christmas Eve.

We played in the leaves on Thanksgiving...

We went to the Franklin Christmas Parade with friends...

We spent time playing dress-up...

And did I mention we made cookies?

The only disappointment seemed to be when we headed to SC for the shower. YoYo made the cutest gingerbread (graham cracker) house in preschool, and he wanted to take it to show Nana and Papa. I forgot and left it in the kitchen, and as we rolled into Chesnee just shy of midnight, I heard his tiny voice pipe up, "Oh, no, Mama! I forgot my gingerbread house! I wanted to give it to Nana and Papa for a surprise!" I had no idea that was his plan. Sweetest little bear.

Fu Xia

2008-12-17T22:18:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in a while-I didn't realize anyone was still reading the blog til I got some "Hey you!" emails-sorry ;) I'll start anew with a Christmas wish.

I've said it many times, but YoYo's foster home--defies everything you've heard of Chinese orphanages. The children don’t share beds, the food is so good, the play area is well-organized, education is offered no matter the challenges. I am thankful Tian Yo lived his first years there. When we left, his ayis gave us four books with photos and letters in Chinese to be shared when he is older. Their love is the reason he is such a happy child.

The ayis now are trying to find a home for Fu Xia, their oldest charge. Born with arthogryposis and clubbed feet, Fu Xia was sent to an orphanage for severely mentally handicapped children. When a group from Blue Sky encountered him, they swept him up quickly. He was six. He’d never seen school or TV. Now eight, he attends school and has an incredible command of English. He’s a talented artist, working with brushes designed for his tightly arched hands, and his paintings grace the walls in large frames.

Fu Xia is such a strong personality, we were at the home hours before I realized he was rolling across the floor to get around. That blew my mind--I was the kid secretly terrified of children with physical challenges, watching the Jerry Lewis telethon with my Grandmother in quiet horror--but here was this boy, exuberant boy!, and he leapt into my heart before I could count his challenges. He laughs that his wheelchair is slow. He flung himself upstairs to give us a tour, proudly showing us his room. He wheels along the alley outside with children clinging to him; he's their big brother. When the volunteers were out, Fu Xia translated for us. Once I found him perched on a stool, carefully folding dumplings for the Cook. He is remarkable.

For several reasons, we're not currently eligible to adopt Fu Xia. My hope is to help him find parents. He is precious. In those first days with Tian Yo, Fu Xia asked us many questions, hiding his eyes when we left because we would not be taking him home. I grieve to remember when he told me, softly but matter-of-factly, “You have not come for me.” He broke my heart. I hope somewhere that a mother is not too afraid to love. I hope someone will come for him. I don’t know if his condition is treatable or correctable or manageable, but none of that matters because he is a child who needs a mother and father.

It has been nearly a month since I posted, and I hope you can forgive me for not offering fresh news of YoYo’s conquests. I am asking you instead for prayer and hope for this little one, and for information if you have seen him on any agency’s Waiting Child list. My Christmas wish, dare I breathe it, is to help this boy find a home.

This Kid

2008-11-21T01:45:00.000-08:00

I have to admit it, I've had a hard time posting. It's hard to know what to write or how to talk about the settling in of a daily rhythm when the events which led up to it were so incredible. Everything I carry now as I look at this little boy, from kissing his toes to knitting my first little boy hat to feeling his tiny hand pat my face as he murmurs, "I love my girl," seems like the treasures that are stored up in any mother's heart. They are no less precious, but they're a different thing from the journey that brought us here. It's probably entirely ungrateful of my heart, but I find myself reluctant to blubber Momminess everywhere, as though it would tarnish this incredible thing that has happened. I have a lot to learn, I think.

We still exist in this world where our son has a life that played out before we came along. There are photos in so many places of him, some even in distress in hospital, that I don't know of and will never see. I don't feel unsafe in that; instead, it reminds me that we are so blessed to be part of such a larger image of God's love for one small child.

Shane jokes that YoYo is Bono--but there is still that rock-star like feeling sometimes. I staffed a booth in October for Shaohannah's Hope at a Steven Curtis Chapman concert. When we approached the table at the beginning of the evening, my Mom poked me. "Hey, that's YoYo." Sure enough, he was the poster child on the tabletop "November is Adoption Awareness Month" display, clutching his pink dog and looking upwards with Precious Moments eyes. Mom, in the Most Proud Grandparent in the World mode, told every single person--and I mean that--who that little boy on the poster was. This kid! Who has that happen to them?

Then yesterday, we collected our mail and found a catalog from the adoption agency. As many negative things as we experienced with them, I still have to say in fairness that their sponsorship program for orphans with special needs helped give YoYo lifesaving medicine and daily supplies. We opened the catalog, which highlights sponsorship information for several countries...and found a full-length YoYo, his two-year-old hands clutching a Christmas ornament, his feet snuggled in footed pj's capped with panda faces. They weren't soliciting funds on his behalf, mind you, it just so happens that he's the most beautiful child in the world, and who else would make such a convincing case that all children are precious?

Of course he laughed at it. He has no idea that there's anything unusual about his photo being on random pieces of mail or news video links. Why wouldn't he see himself on TV or in other people's posters? It doesn't seem to be a fixation-he doesn't constantly ask to see pictures of himself-so perhaps I won't obsess over that for now.

But he is adorable. And yesterday, in the greatest of all gifts in the world, he proudly gave me his first hand-turkey at preschool. I am such a lucky girl.

P.S. That toothless grin? We had oral surgery the day before Halloween (tragic!), and it turns out he had a LOT of infected teeth. We're getting "new teeth" in a few days, but moments like this make me think twice-so cute!

Anniversary

2008-11-01T00:29:00.000-07:00

This is difficult to put into words. One year and two days ago, our agency called at 11 am to say that we had been matched with Tian Yo if we still wished to adopt him. I collapsed to the floor in tears, staying there long after the call was ended, the receiver on the floor. I was undone.

The night before had been sleepless. By the time gray light streaked the wet sky, I was convinced we would have to say no if we were matched with this little one. In the two weeks since seeing his profile, our lives had changed. I filled four notebooks with everything I could find about Tian Yo's challenges, from exstophy to colostomy to single kidney to spina bifida. My silly penchant for endless research was finally validated. And there was no way we could do it, we concluded. Medical supplies, surgeries, more money than teachers can hope for. What were we thinking to even request this little boy? I prayed he would never know how we failed him, that he'd never know he was rejected because his body's betrayal had scared people. I tried to imagine when and how he might find parents, or if he would go unrequested so long he would finally be ineligible for adoption. What would he do? Where would he go?

And then the craziest thing happened. The phone rang at 9 am. It was Dr. John Gearhart, the pediatric urologist who operated on Tian Yo just months before we learned of him. T, Tian Yo's tireless advocate, had sent Dr. G. YoYo's story when the constant reflux of fluid into his kidney endangered his life. The Dr. replied that he would waive his fees to correct Tian Yo's condition if the foster home could raise the money for hospital stay and travel. They did it, and Dr. G. saved Tian Yo's life. Now this surgeon, perhaps the best in the world in his field, was calling me about this little boy. He said, "There is a reason Tian Yo was born with this, and there's a reason he came here, and you and your husband are part of that story." No naming of God, but indeed words of Shalom.

And then came the call. Yes we will bring him home, yes we will love him forever, yes we will...

I drove to school weeping to tell Shane, playing one song again and again. When I first heard U2's "When You Look at the World," I wept. For three years, I had not been able to hear it without crying. There was something in it of a love larger than I had, without sympathy, empathy, pity, and I could not imagine being able to know it. But now, this was changing, too.

When you look at the world
What is it that you see?
People find all kinds of things
That bring them to their knees...

...When there's all kinds of chaos
And everyone is walking lame
You don't even blink now do you
Don't even look away...

...I can't wait any longer
I can't wait til I'm stronger
I can't wait any longer
To see what you see
When you look at the world.

For years, I cried, wondering how someone could love freely enough to gaze steadily into the eyes of a broken human. Death, age, blood, disability, leprosy, maimed torn life that I could not fix, how could anyone not blink? What could it be to love like that?

It could be Tian Yo-Heaven Protect, Heaven Bless. Welcome home, little one. I love you.

tag!

2008-10-15T20:35:00.000-07:00

Well, Chelsea did it-she totally surprised me, and boy was it a welcome one. Thanks to Chelsea Gour, over at gourfamilyadoption.blogspot.com, for the challenge. I don't know how to link a blog, but I'll sure try. As for the random facts...well, you really shouldn't be surprised.

Fact 1: I had an album on Word Records. Really. I do a mean NYC accent, so I was hired as a Rosie O'Donnell impersonator for a kids' Christmas album called, "The MK Christmas Special." (MK=Missionary Kids) They even asked me to sing-haven't gotten any other offers...yet.

Fact 2: I set my classroom on fire in 5th grade-I didn't mean to. I was isolated for talking too much (imagine!), and when I got my work finished before everyone else, I pulled the wire from a spiral notebook and stuck it in an outlet to see what would happen. Turns out, it set the carpet on fire.

Fact 3: I demonstrated/taught a pilates routine for pelvic support to an ob/gyn and her assistant the day before they opened the first women's post-natal care clinic in Northern Iraq.

Fact 4: One of my life goals is to win a ribbon at our county fair for my chocolate pound cake, peach preserves, or both. Dear Aunt Betty, I am coming to get you. Dear Grandmother, I am converting your recipes from cups to grams in the pursuit of America's Test Kitchen precision.

Fact 5: Long story, but when I was 8, I played drums for the first time in the home studio of Artimus Pyle, then drummer for Lynyrd Skynyrd-he let me try out his drum kit and my Dad feared we'd be in a world of trouble if I broke anything, but Mr. Pyle said, "It's OK, man, let her do her thing."

Fact 6: I took a weekend Pre-Raphaelite painting class at the Tate Gallery, London. Can we just live there, please?

Fact 7: I ran numbers for a bookie...when I was six.

Ok, that was fun! So here's my tags-go girls!

http://kat.eleven33.com/
http://www.erin-eje.blogspot.com/ (also see www.erinelizabethjones.com for her thinking-ful art)
http://shouston.blogspot.com/

shuffling hope

2008-10-09T21:41:00.000-07:00

It's hard to imagine that time could pass as swiftly as it has since my last post. This kid, he keeps me on my toes.

Turns out, he had an MRI, buried in some of the records from Johns Hopkins-ones I didn't see-and there was no evidence of spina bifida. Oh tired quiet wonderful deep joyful praise. Let me just rest in that for a bit.

This week alone, we have traveled to a GI doctor to discuss prognosis, an ENT for a followup to last month's visit, and a pediatrician for a physical and permission to have anesthesia for the Oct. 31 oral surgery. The GI visit was great-that's where we learned the spina bifida news. The ENT visit, not so great. YoYo had really dirty ears (let's all pause for a moment and recognize that I am using very gentle language to describe the condition of my boy's inner ears), and it has taken 3 weeks of nightly administration of very strong eardrops (bedtime + 5 fizzy drops in each ear + suctioning < fun) to get those ears clean without damaging eardrums. One clean ear is fine, the other isn't. Too early to say whether he is or will be deaf in one ear--we'll just have to wait until April, apparently. Boy am I glad for that spina bifida news.

We went to preschool for the first time today-scoped one out, actually, hoping to hear more Monday from them-and the little Prince grabbed hold of the rope with the rest of the kids in the class, waved and called, "See you later, Mama!" before jauntily marching out to the playground. I was so proud-and relieved-that he feels safe.

I forget, sometimes, that YoYo's wounds are hard for some to see. I have been so utterly plunged in up to my eyes with his care that it wasn't until today, at preschool, that I realized I must make his path smooth by helping those who will assume his care in my stead at school or elsewhere. How to anticipate the needs and uncertainty of others....

It's strange, but it seems that looking out for that fearful glance, the pause that may stop a person's tongue from voicing their fear of my son, their faintness at seeing him for the first time, and speaking to it gently, finding the person inside and behind that moment, is as much a way of loving Tian Yo as hugging him tightly. I wish I'd thought further, sooner. I felt suddenly such a need to limit his exposure and even his knowledge of it. When and how can a mother choose to help her child feel beautiful and unafraid and loved, and how can she make him brave for the future, and how can she teach him compassion for others?

With hope that shuffles from one day's good report to the next day's uncertainty-it shuffles, but it stays, and it dances, but is still. With love for the boy who races his car down the slide, who makes me Lego chairs, who takes my picture with tireless glee, who offers me his last pretzel without reservation, who jumps with newfound energy at 9:30 P blessed M. I help him most when I can meet him as he is, a sweet child who wants me to play and build with him, until even I forget the catheters and pouches and cleaners and medicines.

time

2008-09-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

I was looking at Chelsea Gour's great blog last night, and I realized it's been 3 weeks since I wrote. Fear not, gentle reader, this implies no lack of action on my part--in fact, there's been a lot of action in the Caudill household. A quick update...

YoYo is speaking almost entirely in English, although we still use limited Chinese. We don't want him to lose that language. We've enjoyed playdates and are looking for a way to do preschool. I've been emailing with the families completing adoptions of his buddies! And we traveled to SC for a few days.

We've visited a TON of doctors. A checkup at the pediatrician was good, although he sent us to an ENT. YoYo has hard wax in his ears, so the ENT visit ended with him strapped to a board and screaming while the doctor recommended ear drops & a return visit. Our first trip to the dentist was bad--we were swiftly sent to a pediatric dentist with the recommendation that "sleepy juice" should be involved (for YoYo, not me). Then the pediatric dentist took a looksee at YoYo's awful teeth and cheerfully outlined a $ 4500 plan to cap and fill them while he's under anesthesia so they can last long enough to fall out naturally in a couple of years.

Then, there was the first Sunday School. Honestly, I was just hoping to see if he was ready for a classroom, and Sunday School comes in a small dose--a little over an hour. He clammed up at first, then was a totally new man when the prospect of graham crackers emerged. Does that count as revival? The class headed to the playground briefly, and suddenly Mr. "I'm not making eye contact with anyone here" was on top of the tallest slide, arms in the air, yelling, "Everybody look at me! Mama, YoYo is all the way up here and EVERYBODY else is down there." So, great-he speaks English well enough to reveal that he's a megalomaniac.

Oh yes. We had our 6 month post adoption visit with our agency. What? We've only been home 4 months now, you say? Well, that's true. Our agency is downsizing and is closing ALL regional branches in the nation, leaving only its headquarters open. Our branch director was thoughtful enough to make a plan for our third/final post placement visit, turning our file over to another agency. We'll have to pay the difference in fees, as that agency's present cost for post placement stuff is higher than the fee we paid upfront to our agency last February. In the middle of closing the branch that she thought she'd be working with for the rest of her career, the regional director was kind enough to move our 2nd post placement visit forward so we wouldn't have to pay extra for it and would get taken care of in a timely manner. There have been some moments of mercy with our agency, as bad as it has been at other times, and I am so thankful that this was one of them.

The waiting parents are not so lucky. They had a chatgroup that was moderated by our agency. As regional offices began to close, it seemed each region was left to make its own exit plan. So far, our regional director did the best job of communicating and caring for clients. Other regions sent emails to partial lists of people, leaving many waiting parents to find the news via chatgroup. The panic that ensued was predictable, as was the anger. The same program director who was deaf to my fears last November when I drove to St. Louis first reprimanded these parents for their posts, even calling some at home to scold them for causing "anxiety" for others online. A few days ago, the agency closed the chatgroup with a reminder of the contract parents had signed with them--parents should not abuse or be disrespectful toward agency employees, the letter said, referencing parents' mean, selfish spirits in their complaints and negativity towards staff in the chatgroup. The letter went on to remind (threaten?) folks that if clients didn't uphold their end of the contract, the relationship could be terminated at the AGENCY'S DISCRETION. Oh, yes, you read that correctly. The agency director even went so far as to tout that staff members prayed collectively every morning for God's will to be done. I hate when that gets all weaponized.

Ah well, that's enough for the moment. You chew on that, while I go put papers together to prove to our insurance carrier that YoYo is our son. And then I have to give Vanderbilt some spending money. And then I have to see if the translation of our adoption certificate is finished. I'll come back. You know it.

ps-I love this kid-he's so amazing. I'm not even smart enough to keep up with him, but I'll run as hard as I can!

Changes

2008-08-26T21:38:00.001-07:00

Tonight YoYo lost a word. He tried to describe the day’s rain and was at a loss for the Mandarin word, one he easily sang just a few weeks ago. His English, by contrast, is remarkable.

In the preadoption classes and reading, I learned that there comes a break for a child with his language and culture. I find myself mourning this loss for him, as I am sure he will when he is old enough to name it.

We have wooed this little prince. We tried, limited as we are, to speak Mandarin as much as possible in China. We made up little songs like, “Mama, Baba Ai YoYo,” (“Mama and Baba love YoYo”) to sing him to sleep. He responded more to our efforts than I expected, graciously laughing with us at ourselves when we gaffed, gently leading us on. We brought home so many pieces of his daily experience, and we kept as much as we could for his sake. The foster home played a certain CD every afternoon; the copy we were given immediately became THE CD for naptime and bedtime. His ayi gave us a Winnie the Pooh book, and we’ve read it at every bedtime since May 8, developing an elaborate ritual. We watch Teletubbies. We try to sing along with the Chinese language CD of children’s songs in the car, and we’re coming close to having “Xiao Bai Tu” (“Little White Rabbit,” a nursery rhyme) downpat.

The biggest key to this little boy’s heart has been food. I ventured to an international market and brought home frozen dumplings, bok choy, red bean buns, so many noodles, and the biggest container of soy sauce I’ve seen in my life. He danced with his arms in the air as I unloaded the bags, singing “Gyoza, Gyoza!” (“Dumpling, dumpling!). Now, at the end of every meal, he reaches for me and says, “Thank you for making YoYo’s food, Mama.” This morning, he held my face and said softly, “I love you Mama, you know that?”

When we read Pooh, now, it presents a dilemma. He’s clearly bored, yet he wants us to read it. I think he doesn’t feel like he can make the decision to let go of it on his own. He cries when he wakes up alone. The bedtime CD is not the soothing presence it once was. My Dad says (wisely, I might add), that YoYo is here now, not in China. I know it is time for change, but I feel it must come in little steps. I want to tell myself that I am valuing him and the life he came from, but I also know that I am at least in part trying to protect him. I need bigger hands.

scarlet thread

2008-08-25T01:51:00.000-07:00

Today was eclipsed by a funeral for a child Tian Yo’s age who died of cancer. Afterwards, I could only wonder that my little boy has been spared so much, while another woman’s little boy, the grandson of a sweet friend, did not survive. It brought to mind a poem written in the late T'ang Dynasty by Meng Chiao, the translation of which I read this evening.

Wanderer’s Song

The thread in the hand of a kind mother
Is the coat on the wanderer’s back.
Before he left she stitched it close
In secret fear that he would be slow to return.
Who will say that the inch of grass in his heart
Is gratitude enough for all the sunshine of spring?

I’ve concerned myself with marveling over Tian Yo’s journey to us and our journey to him. Many adopting parents refer to the “scarlet thread” leading to their little ones, perhaps because the image implies redemption. Our own thread is a cord binding many lives together. But back there, in his mother’s country, the yin of this yang grieves her loss, the little boy she did not see to manhood. Her cry is not unlike the one I heard at the funeral. Her grief may wane as YoYo blossoms in the riotous exuberance of a three-year-old boy, but it will surely wax fuller when he is old enough to understand that the scar on his belly traces his path away from her even as it mends him, and but for that chance condition of exstrophy, he might be with her still, and not with us. Both halves are part of his whole, both mothers will have loved and lost.

But for grieving another woman’s little boy lost, I would have missed it. YoYo’s birth mother wrapped him in what one nun called “a traditional red cloth” before sending him on. I’m left to wonder, as I watch him sleep, whether his mother meant to catch a glimpse of him on occasion, or to at least know how he fared. The scarlet thread in her kind hand is bound with ours.

sweet little boy

2008-08-08T20:09:00.000-07:00

OK, OK, I'm sleeping better, finally, with much thanks for kind thoughts and prayers and a good talking-to from my sister Rose (who will get her fair share of sleepless nights come Jan. 30-WAHOO!) and encouragement from Becky C and the hope + help of the Barlow clan. Still, this little dragonfly-boy of mine swoops me up into the clouds of "Wow" and back to the still places in the grass where I have no answers.

A remark from an "easy" day--Shane & I sat at dinner, planning our evening routine. I'd read to YoYo the night before, but Shane hadn't gotten any sleep (long story involving insomniac me and an Ambien and subsequent hallucinations and him staying up to make sure I didn't take off naked down the road with the map of Canada, which I was sure was an angry crowd in a bar trying to eat Greenland while China fell on some man carrying groceries). Seriously, think twice, people, before hanging a world map in your bedroom. And there are sooooo many reasons that ceiling fans create bad, bad feng shui when placed over a bed.

ANYWAY, I offered to put YoYo to bed for the second night in a row, so Shane could slide off to bed. YoYo put his hand up to signal a pause. "Mama read to YoYo last night, Mama can read to YoYo tomorrow night, tonight is Baba's turn. Share, Mama."

Yesterday morning, it was not so much laughter. YoYo woke up crying, asking for his friend Lo Fei from the foster home. Shane was finally able to soothe him, and we had an uneventful morning. Shane left for school, and at naptime, YoYo asked, "Where is Lo Fei?" "At Lo Fei's house," I answered. "Ahhh, where is Qing Qing?" "At Qing Qing's house," I answered. This went on, with mostly ayis in question, but some children, too--Zi Ping, Mah Ling, Xiao Jing, and then I explained that just like YoYo lives in YoYo's house with YoYo's Mama and Baba, now Zhi Jing lives in her house with her Mama and Baba, and Zi Jiang will live in his house with his Mama and Baba, and Hai He will live with his Mama and Baba. He nodded, and replied, "Zhi Jing is in Zhi Jing's room, Zi Jiang is in Zi Jiang's room, Hai He is in Hai He's room, YoYo is in YoYo's room." My breath caught when he added, "And Qing Qing and Mah Ling and Zi Ping and Xiao Jing Jie Jie are all at Lo Fei's house?"

"Well, yes. They are."

"YoYo can see them?"

Four words he can now master in English well enough to string together with a simplicity that smites my heart. God help me to love this little one well, so even amidst such profound loss he remembers being deeply loved. What on earth can I tell him?

"We can see their pictures. Would YoYo like to see their pictures?"

"YES! YEAHHHHHH!!!" And thus begins the cutest dance with little fists half-pumping the air, "We'll see the pictures, we'll see the pictures, YoYo will see the pictures and Gou Gou and Mama and Jie Jie, yeahhhhh!"

For now, it is enough for him, and I walk to the living room fighting tears to retrieve the most beautiful gift, the square pale blue scrapbook filled to brimming with the love of volunteers I may not meet and ones who avoided my eyes crying when we parted in Beijing. The scrapbook holding his past and by paradox, his future, his friends and ayis, a letter from someone Very Important who wrote the story of his birth and journey to the foster home, and so many photos. We look at this for a half-hour, and I'm desperately thankful that I have seen these little faces of his friends and can share knowing them with him. I cannot imagine how much trust that builds between us, that he knows when I speak of Hai He and point to his sweet silly smile and the fish on his head that Mama knows Hai He and Mama has played with Hai He and YoYo together. Someday my Little Prince may not be content to only look at pictures and remember that time, but for now I will let it last as long as he needs it to and whenever he needs it, too. I know, too, what I will grab on the way out of the door if fire or lightning strikes, and what will join us in the bathtub if tornado comes, and what will be under my arm the next time I sprint 12 flights of stairs in an earthquake...

We took a nap together, a little later than most afternoons, holding hands and snuggling.

zombie

2008-08-01T23:10:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this at 1 am. Of late, I've found myself awake in bed, just like in the olden days before YoYo came to us, waiting for sleep to finally come to me at 4 or 5 or 6 in the morning. Shane is remarkable, always supportive, caring for YoYo until I can stumble out of bed. Some nights, I wonder about YoYo's spina bifida, about all that is still unknown to us about his condition and what his future holds. Sometimes, I think about my grandmother's recipe for pound cake, or how to secure microloans for Kurdish women in Northern Iraq who could sell their yarn to eager American knitters and give their children an education, or how to start a canning business in a small Tibetan town which wants better dentistry for its monks. And then I think of the families waiting for children.

Granted, there are a lot of families who come to international adoption with fluffy thoughts of rescuing orphans and having true religion and claiming a child who was born "in the wrong tummy." Some bring infertility baggage or noninterested spouses or racist pandering with them. But there are ones who hope, too, ones who know that the child they adopt will not be an orphan biologically, but instead will have been "orphaned" by circumstance. They know that their child already has a name, a precious commodity when possessions and personal history are lacking. They will try to give their child room to grieve, and they will not be embarrassed when their child acts out at a restaurant in some lonely province (I confess my failure there), because they will know that they are the latest power-brokers in a sea of ever-changing faces and loss. And they will have a mighty trial ahead of them if they are with our agency.

Our agency has been denied Hague accreditation AFTER being reviewed a second time. One by one, their employees with the China program have been "reassigned" to another country's adoption program or have "resigned" to pursue other interests. The chat group is full of angry and frightened parents. I'm sure there are many like us, who have stretched past their financial abilities, who could not even dream of bringing a child home but for the love and support of a faithful community of friends and family. I wonder if they will be able to make it. If they will be able to afford being transferred to another agency to complete their adoption. If they will decide that they were never meant to have a child. If part of them will die. And of the ones who are easier to dislike, if they will be further hardened. If they will try to cast out government demons, blaming the CIS (immigrations) or the COA (accreditation board) for calling out our agency's wrongdoing. If their marriage will fail under the strain of so many deaths. If they will decide they are alone.

Their emails and questions echo in my mind each night on into morning, and I am powerless to help them. I know that I could post a caution in the chat group, that I could tell them to run and run and run to another agency, to transfer their files themselves...but what would that do? What would I think if I was one of them and read that? I know (or trust that I cannot grasp the fullness of) the sovereignty of my Maker. How will these people be rescued? Who will bring them hope?

After our scramble in early April to redo our I-171, which our agency completely mishandled, I thought, "They should be shut down. No parent should have to go through the added strain of not knowing whether they'll find that their paperwork is wrong or inadequate until it's too late and they can't finalize." Now, I ponder the fate of 2,500 adopting families. They are people. Some have children. Some do not. Some have room left to hope. Some hang, even now, by the slenderest thread.

And they keep me awake.

joyful joyful

2008-07-25T23:28:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a new link labeled, “thanks.” The idea is to put together, to the best of my abilities, a comprehensive list with every person who helped YoYo come home. I hope that it serves to begin as a “thank-you” to many gracious souls, but I also imagine that even a brief looksee will prompt a double-take. If only every child knew that much love on entering a family-it takes much more than a village.

On to some sweet friends, the Gour family from Charleston, SC. They were in our travel group to China, and they brought home a beautiful little girl they named Claire. If you check out gourfamilyadoption.blogspot.com, you’re sure to see Claire and YoYo striking a pose at the good old Cracker Barrel in Smyrna, TN, as Claire and the Gours were on their way home from St. Louis. I'm surprised at how many of the “Most Important Moments” of my life have taken place in a Cracker Barrel…

And about that little boy…he is SOOOO HAPPY! He has turned a corner this week in his English skills, and he blows my mind every day. Snippets…

*He banged his knee and asked for a Band-Aid. When I told him I didn’t have one with me (because he wasn't bleeding and I really didn’t want to have to peel it off the couch 5 seconds later when he tired of it), he repeated, “No Band-Aid?" and looked down at the floor, shaking his head and murmuring, “Poor little YoYo.”

*Every time I bring dinner or supper to table, he looks at it and then says, “Thank you Mama so much!” (I kid you not, neither of us has coached this response.)

*As my parents sat with us for dinner the last time they came up, he turned to me mid-meal and with one hand on my cheek, he said, “Mama, sometimes it’s hard.” I have racked my brains to figure out where that came from. We cried laughing.

*In a trying moment, Shane gently reminded YoYo, “Everybody peepees, everybody poopoos.” YoYo appeared in the living room that evening and took Shane’s hand. “Where were you?” asked Shane. “Bathroom with Gou-gou (the dog).” Fearing what he'd find, Shane walked calmly to the bathroom to find every single toy the little guy owns lined up around the toilet. “Everybody peepees, everybody poopoos,” said YoYo solemly. “Close the door.”

Oh, and he sings. A lot. He loves to hum or la-la-la “Ode to Joy.” And he’ll sing the Barney song world without end. How can it be that we could be fit so perfectly with this little one?! I am amazed.

a touch painful on re-entry

2008-07-02T00:29:00.000-07:00

I find myself running in slow-motion, as if in a dream where I can see something happen but cannot get to it quickly enough to effect any change. We have been home nearly 6 weeks now, and it is not hard to imagine going through days and years merely trying to survive.

YoYo is the Happy Prince, awash in song, exuberant over Teletubbies each morning, delighting in baths and slides and puppy kisses and green beans. He is a restless sleeper, running from (or to?) all that he is leaving yet can't leave behind. I lie awake each night next to him, he in his bed and I on my mattress on the floor, flinching with each of his stirrings and sitting upright to right him all night. I can't remember what I am like. I only know that I really want to love him well and to be more patient and to extend to him the understanding and shelter that I yearned to offer my art students these last 10 years.

The hardest thing is to push back the lie that my whole life was leading to this moment. In a sense, yes, of course it has been doing just that, but after this moment, there will be another, and another, and little princes need room to grow.

The most humbling thing is everything. Each moment, each memory, each of the times that I struggle to think on even just one of the things that has happened. I am utterly incapable of appropriately conveying my thankfulness, gratitude, relief, love, to any person who held our hands along the way. Of course there is no way to really say, "Thank you for giving us a family," but that is what so many of our friends have done. There is no card for this, and if there was, I would not buy it, because it would be stupid. There is, too, the fear of, "What next?" I will do my best to say thank you and thank you and thank you, and then I will see each friend again, and whatever words I mustered to carry the weight of my heart will hang for moments or longer between us, coloring the next set of actions or how well I will love them in the seconds and days and years to come.

And I will fail, just like I will fail this little one. Oh, for the moment when I will find freedom in writing that!

But thanks will come and we will find a way. I will wake up to look in the eyes of a little boy who would not have come home with us had it not been for the efforts of friends who prayed or took some of the financial burden or who made phone calls or wrote letters or encouraged. I will stumble to the kitchen in a daze, where I will prepare this little one breakfast in a space which makes me feel like a cherished guest in someone else's home, thanks to friends who put in cabinets and moulding and paint and a dishwasher and flowers and who really went a little crazy! I will go outside with him to play in a fenced yard on toys from so many loving hearts and hands. I am powerless to count those who have had a hand in this.

And the enormity of that is amazing, leading my mind to thoughts of restoration and redemption, wondering if this has been an army of love, wondering what may come of it. Is this shalom? Is it a fullening of fruit to goodness and wholeness? I'll get impatient and grumpy tomorrow, that's for sure, but what a wonder it is that so many hands would join to help one little boy, and what a strangeness that the moment demanded it.

A Happy Sight

2008-06-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

...seeing YoYo catching fireflies in a friend's back yard Sunday evening with his buddy Cole.

stranger still...

2008-06-07T21:01:00.000-07:00

...Our son was on the news the other night.

http://www.wsmv.com/video/16526523/

There's a story behind "eating tree fungus," but not the one implied by my words that evening. I should have spoken more carefully.

That said, Chris Tatum is an incredibly gracious newsman, and we were honored to be part of his storytelling and hopeful to represent well the fruit of Shaohannah's Hope.

Will wonders never cease?

aftershocks

2008-05-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

The fingers of human stories entwine in unforeseen ways, irrevocable and complex.

On Thursday, May 22, we woke up late, but it was not a problem. We were quietly excited—in a few hours, we would travel to the Consulate for our oath-taking ceremony, the last phase in China of making our adoption complete!

As we got ready for breakfast, I checked the email, and suddenly everything stopped. Friend Rinda had written quickly to ask for prayer on her way to the hospital. Steven and MaryBeth Chapman’s daughter, Maria, had been hit by a car at home. She wasn’t breathing as they lifeflighted her to Vanderbilt.

We paused to pray, to ask for mercy, to fight the fog of unbelief. Surely this was a passing thing. But moments later, friend Tricia followed with a new email posting the saddest news of all, that Maria had died.

I reacted with denial, much as I did when I woke up to the hotel swaying that afternoon—it seems so long ago now. It couldn’t be true. There must be a mistake, a misinterpretation, a communication breakdown. We didn’t say anything to the others in our group as we boarded a bus to the Consulate, and my heart filled with the strangeness of it as we took our oath, one small family in a sea of adopting Americans, some already struggling fearfully with their children’s burdens.

How could one family’s happiest day be the same day another family would hope against ever happening? Where are these children going, and what is to become of them? The mingling of joy and grief throughout is too much for words, let alone imagination. How could one mother who encouraged and helped us so much more than we can repay-without whom we would not have our son, in truth-lose her daughter as our own hope’s fruit finally ripened?

“If he is buried in a landslide, who am I to say his story, our story, is wasted? The events thus far have been not a means to an end, as a prelude to a life of leadership or remarkable character, but instead have been their own fullness, fruit of the love of others.” My words from just days earlier throbbed in my aching head as I stared past endless anonymous crumbling concrete housing filled with numberless persons whose paths will never cross my own, save to say that they lived in the city through which I traveled that day my son became my own-but not my own, still. Do I believe those words I wrote? I cannot think of a time when what I’ve pondered has been challenged so quickly or profoundly, but I think that what I was trying to say that day is all that I have even now. In an earlier time, I would have sought justification, a deitific purpose behind such sadness, or perhaps condemned some ethereal spiritual attack. But those thoughts scar the mind, marring the receipt of love. That season of joy in that lovely family was its own season, and its end does not mean the end of joy, else what can we hope for? I cannot ask what the meaning of this is, any more than I can ask what great work my son must be destined for, seeing the number of people and weight of sacrifice required to bring him this far. It is its own time, and it is full, growing fuller still, whether we will it or not.

Even as the Chapmans ushered their daughter onward, we bundled our son home. Near and far, to and fro. Even as we flew homeward over Canada Saturday, the funeral commenced, and when we arrived safely, wearily, home, we were met at the airport by friends, sweet faithful friends, who came straight from that funeral to our homecoming. Near and far, to and fro. Joy, when it is sombered, is a deepening thing, slow to blossom and hard to hold. A rose in a vase is enjoyed in the fullness of scent and color, even as it dies of its severance.

I’m reminded of when I read “The Grapes of Wrath” in high school. I was so angry at Steinbeck that I barely finished the book. The moment in which one family member passes even as another is conceived in the same vehicle was too much to bear. I couldn’t explain why, then, but it nagged at me, kept me awake, drove me to beg the teacher for an alternate book, any alternate book. Looking back, I think it was, perhaps, the self-consciousness of the construct, the idea that this near and far, to and fro, happens in the same breath in this life, but it is truer than what he writes. Somehow, his telling of this thing which truly unfolds was a lie. Perhaps the lie was hopelessness, or maybe it was that such a moment had to be invented, as though it does not naturally happen.

I’m reminded, too, of Peter, the disciple I would name “Most Likely to Have Americans Compare Themselves to in Hopes They Were So Cool.” In a moment of sifting, scores of followers suddenly found Jesus’ words incompatible with their expectations of Messiah, and they left. Jesus turned to “the 12” and asked if they were prepared to leave, as well. Peter replied, “Where would we go?”—some texts interpret it as, “To whom would we go?” I’m beginning to think, more and more, that his words were unhindered by ambition or personality—it sounds like the query from a man at the end of himself.

But we are home, and we are HOME, and it is good that this time has come. Our little prince finally slept through a night last night, and the moments of his day are enormous. There is yet more to tell, as we settle in and begin something like a schedule...the homecoming, the emails, the help from doctors and nurses as we traveled, the stories and improbabilities, the mighty story of our son's origins, the weaving of the strands that for a time served as legend to us...to tell them as they unfolded would have allowed me to dwell in places that would have disabled me from moving forward, and we desparately needed to move forward each day there. There is more and still more, fuller and fuller.

Home Again

2008-05-24T20:40:00.000-07:00

They are home, safe and sound! YoYo has many, many balloons now.

Hello and Goodbye

2008-05-23T11:55:00.000-07:00

What a day! We just finished a whirlwind tour-in-an-evening of Hong Kong. Friend Phemie's sister Shelley and family were more than generous hosts, whisking us through the antique district, then to a tram (the oldest and cheapest transit in HK) for a brief ride, then to a fabulous restaurant where we feasted like we were hip and famous, showering us with precious gifts for YoYo, then across the stunning harbour on a ferry.

Of course, the evening could only start after we'd checked in to our hotel, tired from our high-speed train (think 160 mph) from Guangzhou to HK. Our agency had booked the hotel for us incorrectly (surprise!), so we had to pay $ 100 USD for a rollaway bed for tonight. It was the day's only flaw.

We began the morning at White Swan Hotel with breakfast (like good little parents), and of course we ran into Tam., one of our new friends through Tian Yo, whom we first met in Beijing. She was in Guangzhou for a shopping trip, staying at White Swan - don't try to calculate the odds. We had a great chat, and she snagged a few more pictures of us with YoYo before we left.

How did we meet her, you might ask? I can only say so many times that YoYo's story crosses borders and reaches far. BlueSky is supported richly by many volunteers, whose families live in the expatriate area of Beijing. Many of these folks took part specifically and deeply in YoYo's story. The day before we left BlueSky, they hosted a party for us, sans YoYo, to send us off with all their hope - it was incredible.

The guests had ridiculous stories. One woman had solicited help from United Airlines for Tian Yo's passage to the States last year for surgery. Two guests representing United had given her not one but two free flights to the States, one for YoYo and one for his ayi - they presented us with a beautiful model 747. The co-founder of our adoption agency was there, unaware of our struggles Stateside, only deeply happy for our son, passionate for the sake of China's children-she is even now in the earthquake's epicenter, sleeping in refugee tents as she tries to secure the future of as many newly orphaned little ones as possible - she presented us with very special chopsticks with jade rests in a pretty case. There was a woman from Great Britain who had taken part in a group run across a portion of the Great Wall to raise funds for YoYo's hospital stay in the States. There was the woman who hopes to adopt YoYo's best friend - she actually hosted the fete, and her chef (on loan from the Consulate--you heard me) prepared fajitas and salad and Coronas and salsa. There was no end to the people, and my memory could not hold them all. Some had created an elaborate and beautiful scrapbook for us of YoYo's life thus far.

We met Tam. at the party, and she sat with us and filled us in on so many of the others and their ties to our little prince. And of course, to see her this morning, just a few hours before our checkout at Guangzhou and the beginning of our journey home, brought our time here full circle. How gracious a time this has been, despite the viral outbreak and the strain of travel and natural disaster and oh so many agency gaffes. I feel as though I am in a tree which is coming to fruition, and it only gets fuller and fuller and riper and fuller - there is no end to its season, but only a richness of being. As I drift towards sleep these few hours before our flight home, I know that the awareness of this richness is a gift, and I can only hope to be awake to it and ready for it even when I am impatient and he is grumpy or is having a tantrum or I am tired. Can I receive it ever? It is at hand.

Tomorrow, it's off to the States! Yahoo!

Done Deal

2008-05-21T07:57:00.001-07:00

from Anna, at end of quickie email:

"ps - he's ours! details forthcoming..."

More precisely, Shane says on his facebook page that "Shane Caudill is officially the father of a US citizen."

--Susan, Official Typist

The good, the bad, & the ugly

2008-05-19T09:02:00.001-07:00

We’re on Shamian Island in Guangzhou. It is a containment island for families on the last leg of their adoption journey. The Island was severed from the mainland more than a century ago and filled with the banks and embassies of many countries—it was the first city allowed to bring in trade from outside. The atmosphere of those now-derelict buildings is “empire left to moulder.” We are here, shielded somehow from traveling street vendors and beggars. There are only a handful of stalls hawking cheap souvenirs across the street from our hotel, the White Swan, and they do not chase us down—they only call out as we pass.

What is good, so good, is that we’re almost finished. Our little prince plays with us, clings to us, snuggles with us each morning. He chatters during dinner, and he tries so hard to teach us Chinese. One morning, as he told me that he wanted to go downstairs, I tried his patience. The words in Mandarin for “small” and “down” sound similar to me. Each time I answered his “down” with “small,” he said, “No!” and gently corrected me. Finally, he took my face in his tiny brown hands and said, “Mama, ni shodo bu how” (“Mama, you speak poorly”). I laughed so hard!

Today was bad in many ways. We walked as a group of 10 families to a clinic on the Island for physical examinations of all the children. For most families, it was an in and out affair, with some tears and cries of anguish on the children’s part, but mostly painless.

Then there was us. We were early in line, but as soon as the examining physician pulled off Tian Yo’s clothing, we knew there was a problem. She asked about his bowel movements and his urine. We said they were good. She looked at his medical notes, then at him again. She pressed his colostomy pouch. “What is this?” she asked. I explained carefully, without too many words-her English was poor. Her hands were bare, unwashed throughout the last dozen children examined. Only the small square of disposable paperlike fabric had been changed on the examining table. She began to press his genitals, actually pulling at some parts as he cried out. “Elsie!” I called for our agency’s guide, frantic. The doctor pulled another doctor in, and the two of them began pressing YoYo’s flesh while he screamed. Elsie came in, took one look at Tian Yo, and draped a comforting arm across my shoulder. “How sad! How hard!” Her voice was thick with tears of pity for my son, and I felt my anger choke me. “Tell them that it is all in his medical notes—in Chinese,” I urged her. She translated, and the first doctor paused in her exam to speak. “She wants to know how he urinates,” Elsie explained, as both doctors pulled on him for what must have been the tenth time. My head spun, and I thought I would faint. I could not see these three as people at all, only as objects of my anger in their incompetence. I yanked a catheter from YoYo’s emergency kit in Shane’s backpack. Shane was tightlipped with anger. The doctor pulled the guaze back from YoYo’s stoma with her bare unwashed hand and TOUCHED IT (I can’t explain here how bad that is without launching in a completely different direction, but that is so very unhealthy, exposing his bladder directly and instantly to a profound amount of bacteria). They pressed him one or two last times, and the second doctor left. As I tugged his clothes back onto his sobbing body, she asked if we had any record of his surgeries. This was totally unexpected. We had given our guide copies of every piece of medical information that they were supposed to have. But now they wanted more. Out came my notebook, and within seconds, I covered her in letters and records from Shanghai, Singapore, and Johns Hopkins which I had carried in my notebook “just in case.” She stared at the English papers, uncomprehending, then ordered an assistant to make copies.

A sick feeling hit me. What if all this just led up to, “No, you cannot have this boy?” Did they have the power to try that? What would we do if that happened? I tried not to let my imagination run wild as this doctor sat staring at words which held no meaning for her in Chinese, much less English. YoYo was clinging to Shane, his tears abated, his face a picture of a child overwhelmed. The color of his face was terrible, pale and tearsoaked, exhausted. Our useless guide was back in the main waiting area, sorting the paperwork from all the other families in our group, who had long since finished their examinations.

When the assistant returned, I took my papers back and restored them to the notebook, and we fled. The examination was over. Back at the hotel, I doused his stoma in Betadine and gave him extra antibiotic. He was asleep the minute I picked him up from catheterizing him.

Tonight, we sailed a brightly lit cruise boat up the Pearl River. YoYo was grumpy, unwilling to touch his food, still breathing roughly from the cold he has had the entire time we have had him. I tasted my own food, something unidentifiable from a large and cold partially cooked buffet. It was awful, and instantly, I felt like an ugly American inside. “Pizza,” I said to Shane, and when we returned for the evening to our comfortable room with uncomfortable beds, we feasted on Papa John’s pepperoni pizza, and I didn’t care what message it sent YoYo as long as he had food in his belly and a smile on his face-finally.

Shalom

2008-05-17T08:59:00.000-07:00

We left Zhengzhou for Guangzhou today. On Wednesday, we had returned to Zhengzhou from Jiaozuo along the flats of the Yellow River. We saw so many tiny towns dotting the dusty rutted road. The economic bloom of Beijing has not yet pollinated here. Traffic was wild, with donkey cars, transfer trucks, buses, private cars, bicycles, motorized scooters, pedestrians, and police all competing for right of way. We saw the inevitable result just before lunch: a woman on a motorbike has collided with doom, and she lay spread flat, facedown across the roadside, her lifeblood puddling around her head. Shane turned YoYo's face close in to us, his gentle voice singing "Big car big car big car" in my ear as I saw her outstretched arm. At once this land seems so hard, with its earthquakes and control and battering snows and poor roads and undrinkable water and dirty hospitals and teeming life and fleeing monks and desperate disparate people. What would her mother think, seeing that hand flat on the pavement, remembering her birth? It is more than I can bear, yet just hours away are galaxies, it seems, of mothers' children dead in the rubble of cities which shook down to the ground.

I think of Tian Yo growing up, and of all of the persons whose love has carried him to this moment, and of all the sheer persistence and effort it has taken, and the miracle of it. I know only One who could author such a tale. And I know that this little boy cannot carry alone the weight of this love--it must remain effortless, he cannot possibly pay it all back, he can only maybe partly receive its sum and be aware of it. How much effort, how much love, was I unaware of as a child, and how much painstaking time on my behalf was squandered at any point when my child's mind was not ready to receive or to comprehend? There is no guilt in this, only wonder. I cannot as of yet draw conclusions, or I will render myself unteachable. I can only hope to love without expectations attached. This boy, this prince, has reached the sum of three years with a story larger than I can imagine, but he will do stupid things and wise things. If he is buried in a landslide, who am I to say his story, our story, is wasted? The events thus far have been not a means to an end, as a prelude to a life of leadership or remarkable character, but instead have been their own fullness, fruit of the love of others.

We are all tired, and we are all heartsick a little. But we are hopeful.

Photo, Too?

2008-05-16T09:55:00.001-07:00

“Mr. and Mrs. Lo Kee”

2008-05-14T09:16:00.000-07:00

At least in China’s eyes, we are at last a family. We journeyed to Jiaozuo city today, a two hour drive from Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan province.

Hours after arrival, we traveled to the Notary, who would put the city seal on our adoption certificate. The director of Jiaozuo Social Welfare Institute was there, as she had been in Zhengzhou. On the way in, a woman clung to our guide, barraging her with talk. Not wanting to invite risk, I kept walking in and up the stairs, just ahead of our guide. The woman finally left, and our guide turned, laughing, towards us to identify her as a journalist. In the building’s basement was an emergency China Red Cross donation center for earthquake relief. If we’d make a donation, they would take our photo for the next day’s newspaper.

We agreed for several reasons, not least of which was peacemaking. The notarization ran long; there was a mistake in the translation, and money had to be taken to the bank for counting. We pressed our red-inked fingertips over our signatures and then drank hot water in paper cups and took photos with officials. Our gifts to the officials were not warmly received, but our presence afterwards in the Red Cross office was.

We walked in and made our donation, pausing over the clear acrylic collection box with our money suspended midway through the slot, each of us with a hand visible on the bills as they spread fanlike to reveal their sum. Cameras clicked from every corner of the room, and then in a special ceremony, we were presented with a card of thanks by a gin-scented representative who made a small red-faced speech. More cameras clicked, and the journalist re-emerged to tell our guide that the newspaper was not available to the general public, only state officials, but she would get us a copy for YoYo.

The ground beneath their feet

2008-05-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

from Anna:

On Monday, China saw its worst earthquake in 30 years. The number of persons lost climbs alongside rescuers pressing their way north and west through rubble that just last year was the road we traveled from t*b*t to Chengdu.

We were asleep: the little prince in his stroller and his grateful parents beside him. We awoke to the building swaying steadily, smoothly, like a tree. Realization dawned slowly, and I looked out the window to see if it was real. The swaying grew, and suddenly people streamed like ants below our 11th floor, fleeing their buildings with hands covering mouths, on cellphones and crying, looking back or slowing down as their curiosity outstripped terror. With weird calmness, we grabbed our backpacks, took the prince-laden stoller, and ran. We took a staircase and hauled the stroller between us those many flights. I have no idea how we did it, but by the time we made the ground floor, we joined hotel staff who were hastily discarding filthy kitchen aprons and clinging without thought to hangers and shouting as they ran.

One could only assess the situation minute by minute. We began the registration process that morning and were supposed to meet our guide in the afternoon to return to the offices for our certificate of adoption. It didn’t occur to me that we might have come this far and yet not make it. Our crying guide found us, and we sat in chairs that hotel staff were made to bring to the parking lot for guests. They brought water, as well, and I wondered quietly where the epicenter was. I also remembered joking with Shane about earthquakes as we checked in. Last year, as we arrived in Kunming, China, a sign in our hotel room warned of earthquakes. We looked at the “earthquake kit,” a flashlight, and were amused and sobered at once. Our arrival in this new hotel, with our soon-to-be officially pronounced son, brought another flashlight with no instructions. “An earthquake kit,” I laughed. Now it seemed like a stunt in a poorly written novel.

When the all-clear was given, we were well past YoYo’s catheter schedule, so he and I were among the first allowed to return to the lobby washroom. What choices can a mother make when her son can’t empty himself? I could only pray that the building was stable, that I wouldn’t have to jerk the bathroom door open and rush out with his pants down, catheter intact, away from crumbling walls. We made it, and I emptied him into a trashbag while he sat on a disposable changing pad I had packed “just in case.”

Our driver sped us to the registry office on schedule for our certificate. To my surprise, it was open, filled with six adopting families. Usually, only one family comes through in a week. This time, one family brought all four children and their new son. There were six guides, representatives from each of the provincial orphanages, a translator, the office staff of four, computers, chairs. The 16’ x 20’ space was not up to the task, the children were tired, and the earthquake siren was wailing again outside. After waiting an hour, we were evacuated from that building, too, as an aftershock was on its way. We were told to return the following day for the certificate. Our guide told us we would head for the hotel, where we should pack what we would most need—if we were allowed to return inside.

By the time we got there, everyone was back inside, and we rushed upstairs. I packed while Shane took YoYo for bottled water and food—just enough to carry. Packing was an ordeal—we might be made to stay out until very late. I tried to keep in mind what we might need if stranded in a devastated city for a week. Adoption papers, passports, medical supplies, every antibacterial wipe or cleaner we had, clothes for YoYo, cellphones, money…how should I divide things so we could still survive if the city was crippled and one pack got stolen? How long would YoYo last? How should we leave things in the room in case it was looted before we returned from an evacuation? Was there a way to protect anything? So many contingency plans…where is that darn flashlight?

Then Shane and Tian Yo returned, and their supplies—water, nuts, cookies, dried fruit—brought courage. He played unawares while we planned. In fact, he had slept through the whole event that afternoon.

Before my mess could be cleared, there was a knock at the door. It was our guide and two officials from the registration office. They had come to present us with our certificate of adoption because of the uncertainty of events to come. It was, as it happens, the first time they had ever done this in a hotel room. They apologized for the earthquake and for how we would miss out on the official ceremony because of it. We smiled and were apologetic for our room, forgetting to offer them seats, taking photos, giving them our gift, receiving the certificate. Their visit was brief—there were five families remaining. It was already six in the evening; who knows how long their day lasted.

Our guide advised us to sleep lightly, perhaps taking turns, in the event of another evacuation. She was calmer this time, as there had already been two aftershocks reported that we had not felt. I called family to say all was well, and they were breathless with relief. We made it through the night and somehow, we managed to sleep, although my head was spinning. We did not wander for hours, waiting.

It sounds like a skewed fairy tale, I wrote someone later. “When the prince found his family, they were joined by officials, and dragons shook the whole land of China in farewell.” Now that seems too terrible to have said.

Earthquake Story #1

2008-05-12T08:57:00.000-07:00

from Shane:

For those who wake up to hear on CNN that China had an Earthquake, it was true! We were taking a nap, with YoYo sleeping in his stroller waiting for our next appointment when the whole building started shaking. Eventually they set up chairs outside for the VIP's to sit and wait it out. We got VIP seats. The woman with me is our guide who raced in to the hotel past security up six flights of stairs to find us. Unfortunately, we had already come down 11 flights of stairs (carrying the stroller full of baby) and were waiting on the curb looking for her. Anna will send details, but here are some pics.

Safe!

2008-05-12T05:37:00.000-07:00

All is well - yes, they did feel the earthquake, they had to evacuate the hotel temporarily, but they are safe. More news and pictures to come!

--Susan, Official Typist

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1949097/China-earthquake-death-toll-to-hit-5,000.html

Well, it's like this.

2008-05-11T11:49:00.000-07:00

The mystery of Yo-Yo's origin grows deeper even as we find more information. I would have never known a great deal, had I not asked the Doctor one day about the finding ad. This is an ad placed in the local paper in a child's town by officials when that child is found abandoned at a hospital or elsewhere. His is irrelevant, because it happened several weeks after he arrived at the "home" of nuns. They received him with a note containing only his birthdate and they opened his wrappings to find the shock of their lives.

They called our friend the Doctor, who knew that the little boy must travel far and wide to survive and eventually make a new home. But the nature of things here is that he would not be able to leave because of where he was left at birth. Bringing him to the nuns' "home" made him non-existant in the eyes of officials, and therefore he was ineligible for international adoption.

So, in these first few incredible days, as back in America we grieved over the realization of not being able to enjoy both adopted and biological children together, his good Doctor found another region which would give him the status and identity he needed so that he could someday leave. We're traipsing about the country on my first Mother's Day with a boy who was not our son but is our son, the little Prince who did not exist, but whose plight moved men to run the Great Wall, and women to move secret mountains. His story is in Sweden, Holland, Singapore, Scotland, the US, and Australia... and I awaken every day to discovery of new connections between him and persons I have yet to meet. Will I ever get to meet all his courtiers?

Just now, he has come back from a much smaller expedition to a supermarket in Zhengzhou with his Baba. They brought back Mother's Day tributes, pistachios and cookies and milk (oh blessed for black tea with milk! no Yorkshire Gold here) and he was so proud to struggle across the floor of the room dragging the bag to me by himself, thank you very much! Happy Mother's Day, indeed.

(ps - I got a "Wo ai ni" (I love you) today. Just three little words to carry a heart forever.)

Transition

2008-05-08T08:24:00.001-07:00

We got to the hotel today after a brief outing at a much smaller park than the original plan. Tears when everyone left the park but us, and then we traveled to the hotel with one nurse, one volunteer, and Lynn, our able and tireless guide. They gave us a fold-up umbrella stroller! Kathy M gave us a beautiful stroller, but we found after a few changes to luggage restrictions on inner-China flights that it might be a problem, so we left it home to avoid losing it entirely.

Our entourage made a pit stop for lunch before the hotel-and that little boy must have eaten his weight in noodles, watermelon, dragon fruit, sweet and sour pork, bean shoots, and cucumber. Wow! We settled in to our room nicely, and the care routine went well for the first time without training wheels.

Just so overwhelmed that I can't really journal yet. It seems presumptious to think that we can step in and make the claim of parenthood on this little boy when so so many have worked and given unfathomably to get him to this point. We are only two people, and small at that. But as Gunilla (the incredible nurse who helped teach us this week) reminded us today over coffee, we aren't given anything that will overtake us. There is just as large a family to which this prince comes as that he has left behind. And even then, the cord has not been severed between him and them; they are we.

Thanks to Rinda, Lisa, Phemie, Lori, and Bridgette for the toys--the MagnaDoodle and Eric Carle lacing cards are an absolute hit. David and Tricia, the little cow from Christmas is endlessly fascinating. What joy this boy takes in life. For me, so afraid for so long of eternity and its endlessness, he is freedom. He is our little prince.

I can't wait til I'm stronger!

2008-05-07T06:04:00.000-07:00

We have a watermelon boy on our hands. Like his PaPa (my Dad), he does not want to wear socks with his shoes, and he loves watermelon in large quantities. Shane and I prepared dinner for the children and ayis tonight - real southern cooking. We went to an international market in the expat village here and bought ingredients to make vegetable soup, pinto beans, and cornbread. Only one catch - no oven, so we had to make corn fritters. We served it with watermelon and rice (just in case) and it was an unequivocal hit. The ayis were scraping the fritter crumbs off the plate--literally--and no pinto beans or watermelon left. Hmmmmmm....

Keep us in your thoughts. I may or may not have said it, but there is a virus (hand foot & mouth) spreading rapidly through China, and it has led the Doctor to cancel our picnic outing for tomorrow--just too much risk. Also, Tian Yo had some blood in his colostomy pouch today. They tell me it happens from time to time... We are currently using care methods which have been compiled between 2 Dutch nurses, an American nurse, a Chinese doctor, an American urologist, etc. Every time we catheterize, it seems the process changes a little! They gave us what is a very spacious apartment by Beijing standards--about 10' x 16'--with a kitchenette and a toilet that is also a walk-in shower. Yes, we wear shower shoes. I just figured out today that the warmed milk (from the microwave) they've served us every morning is unpasteurized--how bout that!

YoYo has taken to us HUGELY. Singing solves tears. He loves to sing, he loves to say "car," and he absolutely adores dogs. Every time a dog barks outside, he stops everything to point to the nearest window and shout, "Gogo!" (dog) Baba (Shane) knows enough Mandarin to play "Where is Gogo?" and that has become a favorite, along with "Baba sleep--wake up wake up wake up!"

I think I told you about the incredible party yesterday. They have showered us with not only all of his medical files and x-rays, but also baby clothes that have been carefully saved, his favorite bedtime book, and some favorite toys. A couple from Singapore loved him so much, and he spent his first 2 birthdays with them. The wife flew to Beijing just to see him off last summer to the States. They sent beautiful little outfits for us to take with him.

His main ayi, who now works with the babies here, Qin Qin, talked to us a long time last night. She told us about how he best falls asleep, that he likes pizza, and that he falls asleep in the car. She had saved a bag of his baby clothes for 2 years, and in her office, his photos are plastered all over the walls. She made us 2 DVDs with photos of him set to several of his favorite little kid songs.

I am overwhelmed. This little guy has been loved so much, and we are so small. That we have such a loving circle of friends and family is, I think, the only way we can stand it. And he is a sweet boy, for all the attention and fuss he has garnered. Tonight, as I was changing him, I tried not to let him see how frightened I was by the sight of blood in his colostomy pouch. He touched my chin gently--I was so overwrought with nerves that a boil came up on my chin as we flew here, and by now it is scabbed over--and he said softly, "Ow." I agreed, "Ow," gently--and then he patted my cheek as if to console me. I have no words for that.

More soon - tomorrow we will travel to the hotel in Beijing, where we will meet up with 3 other CHI families. (and do some laundry! We only brought 3 shirts & 2 pants each--including what we wore here--and sink laundry with air drying needs a vacation, I think!)

Love to all and full hearts
anna & shane

Even Better than the Real Thing

2008-05-04T12:18:00.000-07:00

from Anna:

I can hardly stand it. Here we are, Day 3 in China, and there are already too many firsts to count. First time he has run to me saying, “Mama!” with arms outstretched, first kiss, first time to dry him after a shower, first time to say, “Don’t hit,” first time to share a treat with Baba (Shane)…

Can a mere mortal stand it? YoYo has a tight knit group of friends, and many times, he and his buddy Hai He resemble two little old men, patting each other on the shoulders and nodding in agreement about a snack.

So much to say… we have been showered with gifts. We’re staying in a small apartment for volunteers, and fresh flowers greeted our arrival. We’re invited to every meal, and we were Doctor H’s guests on May 1, a special holiday in China, for an elaborate feast at a very fine restaurant (which took who knows what to book). We ate Peking Duck, tofu soup, seafood soup, steamed riced potatoes, stir-fried mushrooms, in all about 20 different dishes, complete with Chrysanthemum tea.

We’ve been given a pile of YoYo’s clothes, a book of well-wishes from a group who sponsored a man to run a length of the Great Wall when money was being raised for the surgery in the US last summer, a book with notes from every volunteer passing through who has met or worked with YoYo, many tears from his loving ayis*, a book which his favorite ayi reads to him each night…

And then there’s Gogo, the stuffed dog we first met many Skypes ago. Gogo is a constant companion, sleeping with YoYo, eating with him, sometimes joining him in the shower. Yesterday, YoYo used a tiny chair to pin Gogo against a table, where he mixed dried beans in a bowl and pretended to feed his friend a simple dinner. And our photo ball is the guest at YoYo’s changing table, where he plays our Shilo’s bark each time he’s catheterized. He talks to her photo each time.

There’s so much more… but there is also time to tell it. Suffice it to say… Wow!

*ayi = nanny

Here we go...

2008-04-30T08:55:00.000-07:00

Ready or not!

We're in DC @ Dulles Airport, preparing to take off in about an hour for Beijing. We will be meeting our son face to face in under 18 hours!

--relayed over phone to Susan, Official Typist.

Welcome to Go!

2008-04-23T20:23:00.000-07:00

A week left and counting...

Skype #3 with YoYo tonight--apparently the dog is a hit. I have to admit, however, that 2 things disturb me about his care thus far: he knows the Barney song, and he fled our conversation tonight to find solace in the arms of a stuffed Teletubbie. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

If you're new to my blog, I'll summarize. In July 2005, we started the adoption journey with a local agency. Because of breakdown within the agency, we left after 18 months with nothing to show for our time. Last February, we picked up the journey again with a new agency. A month later, we had completed our homestudy and traveled to China for a two week tour. We decided to pursue special needs adoption--called "Waiting Child" adoption by our agency. We requested children in June, then again in October. Our October request for one little boy with very large needs was frighteningly successful--and in 6 days, we'll travel to meet him and bring him home!

I'll admit, summarizing was harder than I expected. It brought back so many things that haven't yet made it to the blog. I told a friend the other day, "Who would walk the path before them if they could see its entirety? Fear would crush us forever." Some might choose to call it spiritual warfare, but I know that the biggest battle was with my own fear, and if it had won, not only would we not be traveling in 6 days-we might never be parents at all. There were so many near-misses.

But here we are, and I'm blogging as if I don't have a list to panic about. I must be off.

SKYPE!!!

2008-04-21T20:46:00.000-07:00

Amazing things...

Friend Lisa's baby M was rushed to Vandy Children's hospital Friday, where they discovered the six-week-old had a "little artery trouble." Risky surgery today went smashingly well, and hopefully, she'll be off the ventilator soon. We've logged some time in these last few days back & forth to visit, praying, running errands... we've decided all play dates from YoYo's arrival onward will be at Vandy Children's Hospital. It's where the cool kids hang out--where they go to see and be seen, as it were.

Then home again, lickety-split, to Skype our boy! The weather cooperated tonight--yesterday, heavy rain in China prohibited a connection--and we got to see and talk to our little guy in real time for the first time!!! He was pretty concerned about the dog in the house, as he had not been there before and the dog was about, so he kept murmuring, "Dog, dog," in Mandarin. We didn't rate as much attention. So, that sounds like normal parent stuff!

T suggests we try again tomorrow night, and then perhaps we can do this every night until we travel. Oh, my...

Oh--I may have started a mural in YoYo's room, too. You know, just to kill time.

List of things remaining until we travel:

pick up YoYo's ostomy supplies
pack
buy a new suitcase (Tania told us he has "a lot of stuff")
three showers (3 showers?!?!)
order cabinets (oh yeah, there was a leak and damage to our home in this whole story, and yea! thanks to the Florians and the Smiths for taking our housekeys and rescuing us while we're gone)
finish the room
patch the roof
YoYo's prescriptions
last-minute paperwork
finish 7 AP Art portfolios
wrap the school year
film our award ceremony remarks
create a CD of student artwork for awards ceremony
there's soooo much more
about $ 5,000 to go!

Did I mention we heard his voice for the first time?! OH, there's PLENTY of baby-ness left in him. He is soooo yummy!

On the Air...

2008-04-20T18:13:00.001-07:00

We're getting ready to talk to Yo-Yo for the first time! We're Skyping him between 8 pm and 9 pm tonite!

(stay tuned)

Think of this adoption as...

2008-04-14T21:56:00.000-07:00

...the most unlikely combination of events imaginable...an unlikely bridge between two places in spacetime...you know, a wormhole.

This evening, I thought we'd surely hit the benchmark, the defining moment which galvanized the spidery webs of hope and imagination into a very tangible event--plane tickets.

It's funny how a flight itinerary can make things real. While we made preparations for Iraq nearly two years ago--can it be two years already since that magical summer?--I existed in some sort of dreamworld, flowing from immunizations to supply lists to lesson plans to packing, and suddenly one day we had tickets. Until that moment, Iraq was a far-off land, and in that moment, it became very real and very close.

That's how it was tonight. Finally, e-tickets!!! And even if I haven't printed them yet, there is this sort of irrevocable sense of certainty, as if the journey to Yo-Yo has finally wound its way from rutted dirt lane to pavement. I babbled on the phone for 2 hours with who knows who about our flights.

And then the roof blew off even that.

T, the tireless co-hope of Yo-Yo's house, Skyped me. Rather, she told me to Skype her. And I, wildly insecure about my appearance in the best of times, much less in the wee sma's of Central Time, Skyped her. We talked for all of 20 minutes, but I may as well have been talking to Amelia Earhart tonight for as real as it felt. I can't begin to say how nervous I was--but it was for the best of causes that I stuck with it--and I ended up feeling not unlike those uncharted times in high school on first dates. I am going to be this boy's Mom--I AM his Mom! What do I say to not let them know how dumb I really am? What if she thinks I'm too ugly to be his Mom? Too fat? What if she comes away from our conversation pouring out amidst giggles and fits and starts and wireless interruptions and pixelated faces and thinks, "Maybe this isn't the best idea?"

Don't ask me why it felt like a casting call. It just did. And T was the kindest, gentlest person, self-effacing when it came to talking about her work, concerned that we'd have to figure out how to navigate introductions with Yo-Yo, delighted to be chatting casually about this event that will forever be the quantum bubble of our Big Bang. This is our zero, our shift from one end of infinity to the other. Before & After.

And it started with my first Skype. What a spaceship!

time

2008-04-11T07:42:00.000-07:00

A lot can happen in a few days. Monday, I sent out the I-290B using the earliest delivery FedEx offers. It was cheaper than buying the gas to deliver it personally.

After all the buzz, Tuesday was quiet. The only adoption email was from the National Visa Center. They received our request for an expedited re-send of the Visas 37 cable to Guangzhou, and they had some questions. I resisted the impulse to reply, "Get with the story, people!" Instead, I let them know about our I-290B. Then they vanished. The best thing about Tuesday was getting a text from my nephew Brandon which read, "I'm so excited about Yo-yo coming home!" Through tears, all I could get back to him was, "Me, too!" I was carried that day by the hope of a ten-year old.

Wednesday popped. The I-290B WAS COMPLETED!! I got an email saying it was sent to the Visa Center and a copy was headed our way. YAAAAAAHHHOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Sine then, it's been a blur: writing letters for the Embassy promising we won't carry "Jesus" or "Dalai Lama" banners in the streets*, frantically searching for flights we can afford**, turning in grades and making slides of student art and getting ready for the next school musical, scheduling (at long last this thing that I never thought we'd be able to have) baby showers!, updating registries online, emailing BlueSky to make arrangements, forwarding our I-171 news to all relevant parties...

Oh, did I mention? This means that we will still be traveling MAY 1!!!*** In less than three weeks, we'll turn the page.

*Instead of "banners," we promised the Chinese that we would not disseminate "religious propaganda." I hope we don't do that here, either ;) "True religion is this..."
**"flights we can afford" = weighing out funny questions like, "How likely is it that we could haul Yo-yo through Chicago's Mass Transit from O'Hare Airport to Midway? Southwest has tickets from Chicago to Nashville for $59!
***"May 1" means we've totally lost 10 days from our "What Must Happen Before Yo-Yo Comes" list, which includes ripping out a whole wall (literally) of our kitchen where a recent leak went badly behind cabinets and has made that wall SOGGY. Yikes! Isn't this going to be fun! We waited 14 years for this!! Yahooooo!

So much to say...

2008-04-07T17:56:00.000-07:00

It's funny how time seems to stretch out over a weekend, and then one Monday afternoon, three emails arrive within ten minutes of each other--and they have the power to change the world.

The first email was from a friend of ours who is a huge advocate for adoption. Apparently, stories like ours have kept our agency from being granted Hague accreditation. The Hague Convention is an intercountry agreement establishing a set of rules which will determine the future of international adoption. Its decisions took effect April 1--the day before we suddenly needed all new forms and exact wording.

As it happens, our agency lacks accreditation. They were denied, according to their communications, because of the actions of some employees who have since been dismissed for forging documents in Russian adoptions.

But it's more complex than that. Our agency also has established foster homes in China. Our own Yo-yo has them to thank for donations which paid for his medical supplies for the last few years. There are so many children for whom our agency is an advocate. It even received permission from the CCAA to post several very hard-to-place children in hopes of finding them homes and it helped test-drive the new internet-based system of special needs adoption for China. So where is the breakdown? I don't know, but I know that I cannot pretend that I do no wrong.

On to the second email, this time from Johns Hopkins. Dr. Gearhart, the hero, sent a great letter stressing the need for an expedited processing of our new paperwork. His recommendation to Immigrations is that we be able to finalize this adoption ASAP for the sake of Yo-yo's health. Yea, Dr. G!

The third email? It came from Caseworker # 3, who wanted to check in and see what progress we were making. She had placed a call to the Immigration office in Memphis, and she wanted to encourage us to send our forms out soon. She went on to say that our agency really doesn't know why this new thing is suddenly being enforced, but it has nothing to do with the Hague Convention or accreditation.

We have been so encouraged by all our friends, their thoughts, and their prayers. To know that someone is thinking of you and praying for the sake of your child is a powerful thing. It can make a day bearable, hope possible. It can keep a dream alive!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LITTLE PRINCE!

2008-04-05T17:44:00.000-07:00

Mommy & Daddy are coming soon!

April Fools?

2008-04-02T18:52:00.001-07:00

Ok, now bear with me on this.

When I spoke with Caseworker #3 the first time yesterday, she said that in my conversations with the Senator's office and CIS, I should mention our son's needs as factors necessitating swift action and expedient travel. She called back moments later to ask, "You haven't made those calls yet, have you?"

Turns out, the CIS has a special form for children with special needs. Because we didn't start out thinking Waiting Children, we didn't know about this form, nor did we indicate interest in special needs when we completed our I-600 (the beginning of the immigration paperwork). Well, Caseworker #3 talked to a colleague after our little chat and learned that we did NOT want to say that special needs would necessitate anything, because it would mean someone might start thinking, and then we might have to fill out that form, and since it carries with it a turnaround time of 12 weeks, that would hinder our travel plans. She assured me that we were ok without the form, and that the Homestudy Addendum which we would carry with us to China would take the place of that form for the CCAA.

Well...two things happened today.

The first was an email from the courier handling our visas. She said that the Chinese Embassy noticed that we're employed by a Christian organization, and they want us to write a letter promising that we will not proselytize while we're in China. We can either fax those letters to her or overnight them, but we will not be getting any visas until we've given those assurances. Mind you, back last year when we sent our dossier off, we mentioned to Caseworker #2 that a coworker had to write a similar letter when he adopted from China. Did we need to include such letters or send them later, we asked. Nooooooo, no worries there--we shouldn't have to do any such thing, she assured us.

Except that we do, now, it seems.

The second thing--and perhaps you should sip your coffee before you read on--go ahead, swallow it--was an email from Caseworker #3 this afternoon. As it happens, China announced today that effective immediately, all parents adopting children with special needs must have--you guessed it--an I-290B, that special little form for kids with special needs, from the CIS. This comes now, in spite of 20 years of Chinese adoptions without this requirement.

So what happens now? I skip work again tomorrow, and I hightail it up to the agency to pick up the papers I need from them, print out the I-290B, make out a check for $585--remember, it has to be a Cashier's check or it will take longer!--and overnight it to Memphis. Then I have to begin a new round of Senatorial phone calls, to see if our situation can be expedited so that we don't have to wait another 8-12 weeks for that form to be processed.

And if we do have to wait 8-12 weeks? Well, that would put us into June or July, and by then Yo-yo has to have another ultrasound, and we'd have to restart the I-600 process and get new fingerprints, because we'd come too close to the expiration date on our I-171H. CIS is kind enough to offer one free extension to parents. That's good, because our agency's Hague accreditation was denied--long story involving Russian adoptions--and the only country bothered about that is China. If we had come this close and had already used up our free extension from the CIS, we'd be encouraged to GO TO ANOTHER AGENCY AND RESTART THE WHOLE PROCESS. No, really. I don't think I have to spell out what that would mean.

At this point, I feel like anything else will just sell more copies of the book once I get this boy. I must admit, I really did not see this coming. For that I chide myself.

you're not going to believe this, but...

2008-04-01T15:22:00.000-07:00

WE HAVE TRAVEL APPROVAL!!! That means we'll travel around May 1, if all goes well...

..."if all goes well" includes of course the assumption that the Consulate will allow us to keep our appointment with them. This morning, they informed our agency that they don't have any of our information on file. The good folks at the CIS (Center for Immigration Services) were supposed to cable the Consulate a document called a "Visas 37"--it confirms that we've been approved to pursue citizenship for our boy. Without it, they don't have the verification they need, including our fingerprints, to finalize the process.

What does it all mean? Well, this morning it meant that I had 24 hours to come up with some action before the Consulate would cancel our appointment. If they did that, it would mean we'd have to wait for another Travel Approval to be issued. One hour of trying to call the visa processing center passed, then another of trying to reason with officials at the CIS. Then our agency's local office called with some helpful ideas, and where did I wind up but on Senator Lamar Alexander's phone line!

Now, I've never spoken with the Senator. I've been glad in the past to see him support the President's package for AIDS treatment in Africa--in fact, my plan was to call his office today or tomorrow to express my support for that bill, a 5-year plan, to be renewed for many many reasons. But, as it happens, I found myself asking for help with expediting this visa thing.

I was told to send an email to the Senator's office with our necessary information and precise wording about the situation. I sent that, and now we wait. I'll give it two days before I start new phone calls. When I copied the email for the Senator to our travel coordinator in St. Louis and Caseworker # 3, they both said "Excellent" and the travel coordinator indicated that would be enough to hold our appointment at the Consulate for now.

For now...

big thoughts, some prayers

2008-03-27T19:16:00.000-07:00

After a busy Spring Break, I am in Chicago with my art students, and somewhere in the night, our Travel Approval is making its way to our agency and then our home. I have not yet sent our completed visa applications out, I have not taken our immunization cards to get their updated stamps, I have not heard back from urologists, and, the worst--I have not sent the package we're allowed to send our son, and there is no way now that it could arrive in time for his birthday.

I look at the manner in which time has run through my fingers like fine sand, and I am at a loss to account for this. Now that I am warm and in my hotel for the evening, seeing snowy shadows flit outside in the streetlight, I find the doubts that this birthday thing raises come with other big questions.

Most of these are about Yoyo's beginnings. What was his mother's pregnancy like? Was it her first? Did she know something was off kilter as her son's body began to slowly split? Who saw him first, I wonder? Had they ever seen anything like his condition? And how, how in the world were they not overcome with fear to the point of stopping his tiny breaths? How did either of them find the courage to let go of him in the desparate hope that he might survive? What did she do in those first nights after he'd gone, what did she tell her own mother or the friends who wished her well all along her pregnancy? What did she do with the tiny clothes she had put together or the dreams, and how many times did she look away from the eyes of neighbors who thought some evil must surely have come upon her home? What will she think this April 6?

For his father, I hope. I hope that he does not fear himself or blame himself or his wife. I pray that it does not cast aspersions on his manhood or his ability to be a good father and husband. I hope that he is not doubted by his family or friends. What will he think this April 6?

For his mother, I hope. I hope that she does not fear or blame. I hope that she could somehow know that her Tian Yo is not just suriving, but is delighted and delightful. I pray that the moment of his birth and their discovery and helplessness to do for him themselves and courage to find a way for him does not lurk as a dark shadow between them. May God bring mercy between father and mother, husband and wife. May there be peace in their home, and trust between them, and no fear of tomorrow. May they eat dinner together and know they did what was best for their son, and may they have more children, to comfort them as they grow old.

And for that little boy, full of boundless energy, I dream...I dream that he will be at peace with himself and his birth parents and us and his siblings (if and whenever they come). I hope that someday, the story he has heard of in bits and pieces and segments familiar as Sunday School Old Testament prophets and lions and giants will become HIS very own story to tell and to build upon, a birthright, an inheritance, a hope and a future and an ebenezer of God's mercy and faithfulness. And that he will survive his wordy, sentimental, dreamy-eyed mother!

running to stand still

2008-03-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

I am amazed with every hour that passes now.

Yesterday, we finally received word of Tian You's measurements and weight. Congratulations, we're the proud parents of a 25 pound, 34.5" tall baby boy. My heart swelled with joy, and just before I could burst forth into sparrow-like song (think strangled sparrow), I remembered the first favorite photo I saw of him, with those chubby baby armlets. Oh, how I hope there's still some baby left in that little boy!!!

We got a new photo, a notice that our travel package is on the way (not the same as travel dates--this is just a packet of forms), a new $4000 grant from Gift of Adoption, a gift of $250 from the Tri-M music honor society at CPA, (only $ 3000-$ 4000 to go!), visited Shaohannah's Hope, and gave notice at school that I would not return next year.

What? How much could happen in a day? Well...I thought it was a little slow, so I asked our agency to change the spelling of our son's name to Tian Yo for easier pronunciation. Did I mention our estimated group travel date is May 9? Which means our personal estimated specially-approved one-week-early travel date is May 1?

Strange, that. In my spare time these days, I'm learning interesting things that no agency tells parents. For instance, if you've got a kid with ostomies, you have to pre-cut catheters and such prior to boarding a plane or entering an American consulate, because those guys get squeamish around scissors. Afraid of the sight of blood, I guess. Then, if you've got a kiddo with a bladder made of bowel tissue, you'd better be sure to tote bottled water with you because he'll need sterile water to flush that bladder every day. Additionally, if you're picking him up from a foster home, odds are all his equipment has been donated and is equally needed by other children, so you'd better pack your own stash of ostomy supplies for two weeks when you leave the US. How do I know? Research--endless reading in the wee hours. No agency guidelines here.

I spoke with the inestimable Kathy McKinney today, and the whole time, I marveled at how much information we have going into this. REALLY-I cannot take it for granted. EVER. She exclaimed, "How many folks don't have that kind of access to the information you've been able to get for this little guy and find themselves just lost? What do folks in rural places do when they don't have anyone handy to turn to?"

My point exactly. I wonder, more and more, how many hopeful parents find themselves accepting a child with far greater needs than they anticipated, knowing all the while that there will be no help forthcoming from their agency and that their home community is still perhaps struggling with questions like, "Why'd you have to get a kid from China? Were the American ones not good enough?" and, "Why'd you want one with problems anyway? Didn't you get what you asked for?" Where is their hope?

all in a day...

2008-03-10T18:07:00.000-07:00

At church, we welcomed Rinda home and feasted on fresh pics and video of our little prince. Later that evening, T. emailed from YouYou's house to say she enjoyed the visit from our friends and the photo ball we sent. She happened to ask what our agency had told us thus far about travel. She wondered if we'd be able to come early to learn Youyou's routine and to practice his ostomy regimen (St. Louis told me "no" the other week), when we'd be traveling-she'd heard April (St. Louis told me May 9), and how the transfer would happen (St. Louis told me Youyou would go to Jiaozuo, but could it be they hadn't told her anything?).

I must admit that I was still concerned about Youyou's travel to Jiaozuo. I've explained already that in taking custody of Tian You, we would need to travel from Beijing to Henan, where he would have been transferred to his Social Welfare Institute some two weeks earlier. The difficulty in this would be his care--a disruption in the regimen to care for his ostomies and bladder could easily lead to a kidney infection, which would quickly take us from the adoption journey to a hospital one. While I was encouraged--HUGELY--by the knowledge that the healing home we'd visited last March had a care unit in Youyou's orphanage, I learned that it is a pallative care unit, and when I mentioned it to St. Louis, of course they discouraged me from contact.

So I forwarded T's questions to our agency, adding my own concerns that our child's health be the primary consideration. I know that thousands of adoptions take place in China annually, but Youyou already has extremely unusual circumstances and needs. And so I did not dare to hope as I replied to T, citing all the bland policy that had been recited to me about what would happen when we came to China.

Three hours and a Guiness later, I checked the email one more time before calling it a night. It was about 1:30 am. T had written back! She had just spoken with our agency's Beijing office, and their reps said that OF COURSE we would need to come a week earlier than normal and stay near YouYou's house to learn and practice his regimen so he'd be safe! And OF COURSE there wouldn't be a need for him to stay the requisite two weeks in his Social Welfare Institute, because he already has a passport from his trip to the States in July!! If it was necessary for us to make an appearance at Jiaozuo to sign his adoption papers, WE WOULD BE ABLE TO TRANSPORT HIM THERE OURSELVES, SIGN THE PAPERS, AND LEAVE!!!! Could this be true??? T assured us she was already trying to find a place we could stay, so that we wouldn't have to worry about extra hotel expenses.

WHAT IS THIS?!?!?!?!

So, with a broad smile, I forwarded this new and improved email to St. Louis, prefacing it with a word of explanation. Just before noon today, I got a reply--the briefest.

"Thanks for your emails. S. has already emailed us and we will be happy to make arrangements for an earlier arrival for your family."

That was followed by the email from S. herself, from our agency's Beijing office, stating the necessaries quickly and with authority.

And so now we're on the express train again!

yo-yo-yo, Youyou

2008-03-05T22:16:00.000-08:00

So we were wrong.

We thought our little guy's name easily pronounced. You-you. I told folks that it was as if he was named "you" two times, which was almost like being named U2, which surely was the seal of God upon this adoption. All in jest, of course. Okay, I really believed it. Not really. Maybe a little. No. (yes)

Phemie T., amazing friend and fabulous chef, told us that the character in Youyou's name should sound more like "Yo," as in Yo-Yo Ma. That in fact, if it was pronounced, "You," it would change the very meaning of the name. When I learned that our son would not need a pelvic osteotomy after all--those were harrowing days in November--I heard the name as, "Youyou."

So we've told everyone of our son Youyou, have made jokes about his name, even recorded our messages in our first words ever to him in the photo ball--all with the wrong pronunciation.

Our son is Youyou, pronounced "Yoyo."

Yo?

the day my brain went blurry

2008-03-04T21:01:00.000-08:00

Too early this morning, Shane was up and readying the camera. Yesterday's caller said that our Confirmation Letter would come via UPS today--between 8 am and 7:30 pm. Impressed with the pinpoint precision (not 8 pm, but 7:30 pm!), and suprised by the agency's casual attitude (the UPS man doesn't require a signature, so if you're not home, he'll leave your referral in the door), we opted to stay home and wait for our child to arrive. Some call this delivery "The Brown Stork." I find that phrase troubling, to say the least, but Shane delighted in texting, "The Brown Stork has Arrived" again and again. By the 22nd time, I'm sure he was just sending it to himself to read it.

So our guy came at 9 am, and out we ran, barefoot in the rain, with barking dog and camera in hand. Our UPS guy was caught off guard, oddly enough, by our reception of him. Perhaps terrified, but masking it well. He was probably 12 last week, but now he's old enough to drive, and we cheerfully told him he was bringing us our child in that envelope and could we take his photo, please. He was very obliging. We staged a tableau. Perhaps Youyou will not doubt its authenticity.

Tribute also arrived in the form of another email, this time from friend Rinda, who is in China and has taken a certain delight in reminding us that she has video of our little boy. She says we'll have our hands full.

When can my heart beat again? Will any day matter until I see him?

ALMOST THERE!!!

2008-03-03T16:49:00.000-08:00

It has happened!! The Letter Seeking Confirmation has come!!!!!!! Tomorrow, we'll skip work to begin the flurry of preparations necessary and to wait on our trusty UPS man to bring us our referral packet.

As if that was not enough, we also got some brand new yummy yummy photos from Uncle T. Note the photos in the ball on the table.

"Small but dangerous"--indeed.

one can hope!

2008-02-29T17:35:00.000-08:00

Today marks 15 weeks since our Letter of Intent to Adopt. Next Friday we'll enter the "average time frame." For most waiting child adoptions from China, the time from the Letter of Intent to the receipt of the Seeking Confirmation from the CCAA is 4 to 6 months. Our able Program Coordinator emphasized this when I visited her, despite the emails I handed her in which she wrote otherwise. Ah well...

But this is about GOOD NEWS. In fact, TWO GOOD THINGS!! I want to savor them, to introduce them over two posts, but I can't do that to you--you without the tiny Youyou shirts and Carhartt jacket, you without the Youyou screensavers and purse-size photos, you without the Youyou action figure and licensed swimwear. I must tell it all at once!

The first thing was an email this afternoon from an adoption fund to which we'd applied in December seeking a grant. When the 60 day period passed in which they say they review all packets, I knew what my weekend would be like. I even had the new forms lined up and ready. Round 2 of gimme some money to get this child here!

Then the email came--our file is tentatively scheduled for review in March!!! They wrote to request more detailed information--and boy did I give it! Yahoo!!! To even get this far is a light in the tunnel!!

Next, one of the most amazing women I know called to check in. She is also in the middle of adopting a child from the waiting list of China's children. We commiserated, and I lamented something I'd learned last week. Sometime before we travel to China, Youyou will return to his official orphanage. This is so that when we arrive, we travel to that orphanage to receive him, beginning the last official leg of adoption in an official social welfare institute. I was devastated to learn this, because not only would it mean that I had to let go of dreams of videos of Youyou at his foster home and tearful departures with our son from his host of loving ayis, I also was afraid that he would be traumatized by suddenly shifting to a completely different level of care amidst a group of total strangers. How terrified would he be by the time we arrived, and how would that affect his reaction to us, and how sick would he be? I know that in spite of some very good facilities, China's state-run orphanages, much like their American counterparts, lack enough workers to give children the type of care they would receive in a home with parents. Add to that Youyou's needs because of his colostomy and urostomy, and I envisioned his tiny bladder, unflushed by sterile water and beginning to infect his kidney, not because any of his new caregivers were negligent but just from lack of resources.

And then this amazing woman asked me where Youyou's orphanage is. I answered, "Henan province," and found the name in a stack of papers. "Jiaozuo Social Welfare Institute." She sucked in her breath, and my heart stopped. "They have a special care unit!" she exclaimed.

As it happens, they do have a special care unit. It's an outreach of a medical foster home that we visited in Beijing last year, where I first began to think that adopting a child with special needs might be something we could do. Their Henan care unit is actually INSIDE this state-run orphanage!

Out of one and a half billion people in the world, I have already met and admired the very folks who will soon help care for my son. I'm gonna have to get a bigger boat--or a cup of hot tea.

fairy tale

2008-02-24T21:55:00.000-08:00

Well, we did it. We found a photo “ball” at Brookstone. The sides include four photos, a speaker, and a control panel. We put in photos of each of us—Shane, me, Shilo,--and one with all three together. Then we recorded messages, including a barking one, for each side. When Youyou presses a photo, he’ll hear a message.

We took the finished ball to our friend, who traveled today to Beijing. I don’t know when he will hire a cab to take him to Youyou’s foster home, nor do I know when our little boy will first hear our voices say, “I love you.” When did I first hear my mother say it?

The story of “How we started our family” continues, and tomorrow I will again press it against the back edge of my consciousness, like a passenger in an elevator, and focus for eight hours on curriculum building at school. It is one more full day that was not on the calendar as inservice, one more day that I thought I’d be able to use for hiring out as a housecleaner or to make the children’s clothing I am hoping to sell to finish paying for Youyou’s passage into our home. Teaching part-time this year was secondarily an experiment—to see if it could be done. With the exception of a few weeks, I’ve worked full-time hours. At first, it was my initiative, but that paled as day after day of work was announced with little warning—a field trip, a curriculum day, weekly instead of monthly department meetings. When I attempt to negotiate, I’m told there is no such thing as part-time (although it still appears to exist when I get my paycheck). So the second job I planned to take this spring (housecleaning for $15/hr.) is moot-my part-time work precludes it.

So after eight years, I will leave the teaching of art to a flock of students for the sake of finding one little lamb, but not in the manner I had imagined. I don’t know yet how we will finance this, I don’t know what I will do to supplant the absence of income from teaching, and I suddenly feel overwhelmed by a lack of employable skills that could provide for our family. In the meantime, our first Caseworker has given us our Homestudy addendum—and we will contact her tomorrow to ask for corrected copies with our son’s actual age, our actual phone number, and the extra copy missing from this envelope she gave us on Friday.

When I was a child, I believed that I could walk into the ocean if I needed to, retrieve what was necessary, and return to land unharmed. I never tested it, because I knew that I would be able to do it when the time came.

Perhaps this is that time.

Aww, you shouldn't have

2008-02-21T08:28:00.000-08:00

No, really. I shouldn’t have. I went to St. Louis to follow up an email I sent to our agency's headquarters.

I was encouraged by the presence of the China Program Director, Program Coordinator, and our contact, an Administrative Coordinator. Two had copies of my email, which voiced concerns from lost paperwork to rotating caseworkers to conflicting information.

The Program Director left early to get her kids. The remaining Coordinators took polar roles. Administrative C was concerned but outranked by Program C, who remained impassive. It was up to me to initiate each point of discussion. I realized we are on our own. Agencies are liaisons who facilitate adoption. That’s all. Though never stated, it was clear from Program C’s dismissal of each issue. I was the classic anxious adoptive parent, and my questions, world-shaking to me, are the latest trivial moments she has heard in 12 years. She countered each sentence of mine with one that made light of or didn’t address my issue. I’d respond, and she’d restate her words. I’d take my point further, and she’d echo her first sentence. It was not unlike talking to a road sign. The 2 Coordinators shifted conversation after a while to making jewelry, their effort to offer me an exit without further embarrassment. I didn’t press the issue—I actually just watched, as if in a lab, to see how trivialized my words could become.

The staff at our agency have bios online. The one for Program C states that seeing children find a home is her ministry. It is doubtless a demanding one, but she has focused on the children to the exclusion of parents. The passion to rescue children hasn’t grown into a partnership with families. It’s a subtle distinction in words, but a giant one in actual support, not unlike the difference I’ve seen between my school and other private schools who want to be “Christian” schools.

Thanks be to God for a supportive community of friends. The ones without mission statements seem to help the most.

good night, and good luck

2008-02-18T23:23:00.000-08:00

So, now I'm grabbing a few hours' shuteye before I take off for St. Louis in the morning. The reason? Small but dangerous.

What is this trip in aid of, gentle reader? Well, after Friday's what-have-you, we got an email this afternoon from Caseworker #1. She conveniently sent it 12 minutes before her office closed to say that before she could send our homestudy addendum to St. Louis, would we be so kind as to refresh her memory. She could not find the information on the child we wish to adopt, the medical condition of that child (note ambiguous gender), nor the social welfare institute that child calls home. She even left blank the space for our last name, just so we felt helpful.

Now, I don't know if she wanted us to feel a sense of ownership, or if she's too meticulous to call St. Louis and ask them for that information, but I figured out why she can't access it onsite. When, way back in crisp November, Shane happily carried our Letter of Intent to the Brentwood office to let trusty Caseworker #2 send it to St. Louis (and from there to China!), he realized as he did one last careful triple check in her office that I missed a signature (stupid!stupid!), and I couldn't get there before closing. She helpfully suggested that he forge my signature, but because he spent days (which he will never get back) in assorted police and visa offices in Chengdu, China, last year, watching me jump through hoops to avoid the Chinese gulag and get a passport replaced, he said no, he'd just as soon I signed the form, as the Chinese happen to expect honesty in these matters. She pressed him a second time, and he decided that since we were taking students to St. Louis the following weekend anyway, we'd just take a detour to the home office and deliver it by hand, with my signature. Thus, that entire set of papers never was privileged to be copied in Brentwood, nor does it grace their files now-I assume.

But what am I complaining about? It was a mere $1800 for the Homestudy process, and this is an addendum, for which we paid no extra. You get what you pay for. Don't you?

At any rate, we're at an even dozen now for gigantic gaffes, so I figure a field trip to St. Louis is in order to clarify my position about wanting to start a family is in order.

We welcome prayers. Really. We do.

what they do to you

2008-02-15T13:56:00.000-08:00

There is no photo here-only angry.

I got an email today from our agency's St. Louis office. It cheerfully informed me that a new batch of Seeking Confirmation Letters had arrived and the recent speed of waiting child adoptions necessitated a new policy. Our homestudy addendum was needed in St. Louis so they'd have all paperwork before finalizing travel.

I panicked. We must have gotten our Seeking Confirmation Letter!! We asked Caseworker #1 on October 29 for the homestudy addendum, after confirming that we wanted to adopt Youyou. She told us she'd get it done right away.

But this email, arriving near the end of the school day, made it seem that the addendum was lost. I tried to find Shane, thinking, "What if they haven't even looked at our file and there it is and it stands in the way of us bringing our son home?!"

Somehow, we made it through that last class and then rushed home, making frantic phone calls. The first was to the home office for clarification--I left a message. Shane made the second one to our nonplussed Caseworker #1, who seemed unable to remember the addendum. The home office rep called me back to say she'd just heard from Caseworker #1, who HAD NEVER EVEN DONE OUR PAPERWORK!!!! The reason? The process from letter of intent (where we ask China for Youyou) to the Letter Seeking Confirmation (where China acknowledges our request) normally takes 4 to 6 months, so SHE THOUGHT SHE HAD MORE TIME.

I was calm. Dead calm, in fact. There's no Seeking Confirmation Letter waiting for us, it so happens--the email was just a friendly way of telling all the waiting child families that the agency wants to be sure we all have our papers in order, and we apparently were some of those who did not have all our paperwork completed.

A deep breath, and a pause.

If I'd known at the beginning that we would be yanked around like this at every turn, I would NEVER have begun the adoption process. I would have concluded that God did not intend for us to have children. Ever. The irony of it is that we were so prepared for difficulty from CHINA!!! It has instead been THE AGENCIES, from start to finish, which have been horrible. Horrible. There is one conclusion to be drawn from this.

ANY agency, no matter how it throws the name of Jesus around or Bible verses or phrases about "having a heart for children," is no more than a business whose market is prospective parents, many of whom are infertile. And that desperate wish to have children makes those infertile couples especially prime, worth at least $ 22,000 each.

I thank God that I did not see this tunnel and out of fear turn away, because I would not ever know this little boy who will be our son. But if anyone wants to ask my advice on adoption, now is not the time.

far away, so close

2008-02-15T08:13:00.000-08:00

Just when you thought it was the wierdest, something new happens to make this journey ever strange.

The friends with whom we traveled to China last year are returning to Beijing next week. Last year's trip began with an artists' conference, at which we were the guest speakers, and moved on to include a visit to a medical foster home (where our hearts changed forever, sans sentimentality), the opening ceremonies of a training center for worship leaders (very hush-hush), and of course seven days near Tibet (where it would be nice to start an apple-canning business).

This year's trip has a different itinerary, but the one item that keeps this blog by invitation only is a jaw-dropper. They're going to Youyou's house. THEY'RE GOING TO YOUYOU'S HOUSE!!! The guy with the tickets and the itinerary is from Singapore, as is the woman who helped start YouYou's home, and when it first seemed that we'd be traveling "in February by the latest" to get our little boy (how I remember those days), this guy decided to schedule this year's trip to coincide with our own adoption travel, just because he wanted to share in that moment. Turns out, we don't know when we'll be going, but his group is traveling next week, and since they'll be passing "the Riviera," the area immediately outside of the Beijing airport which is filled with expatriates and has Youyou's home on its fringe, they're just going to casually drop by...

...and meet our little boy.

across four aprils

2008-02-09T20:38:00.000-08:00

Ok, so there's this thing about having a child on the other side of the world that makes a body uncertain. Sure, there's the "almost & not yet" chorus in my mind, but there's also increasingly on my part a growing realization of my cognitive limits. Of course Chinese New Year brought with it some more fresh yummy pictures, and Youyou is indeed the most adorable little guy, but I don't even know him yet!! There is no rush of fond emotion, as in, "My son!"--there are moments when I am soooo very thankful for his caregivers, women who must love him immensely to connect with him in the manner they do when armed with a camera. Just look at that photo! It's the kind of photo I would want to take of my son, and there it is, and it's been taken by a strange woman who will always be his first love. It's so strange to think now that when he does get here--and by the way, April certainly seems to be the earliest that could happen at this point--he'll cry at some point for want of his ayi, his first day-to-day mother. And this new mother will be at a loss. Yikes!

The couples who have been fortunate enough to request waiting children through the new electronic process don't know how good they have it. Yesterday marked 12 weeks since we sent our letter of intent requesting our little boy. It also brought a fresh newsletter from our agency, in which they happily proclaimed that two couples who requested children via the new CCAA system submitted their letters of intent on January 24 and have received their Seeking Confirmation letters just 2 weeks later. They're slated to travel before we will. That little boy, born in April 2005, may well be three before we see him.

God grant me patience.

frustration

2008-01-17T21:48:00.000-08:00

I'm holding my breath, waiting. Of course, I'm waiting for Youyou, the Little Prince, our son. But I'm also holding my tongue, biding my time, until he is in my arms and his adoption is complete. And then a torrent of words will come forth in letters and conversations to express my frustration over this whole thing.

I knew that international adoption would be a long process requiring our flexibility. As a result, I don't mind it so much when unforseen things happen, like China's shift from manual files to electronic in the way that they offer Waiting Children (children with various "Special Needs") to agencies. The change means that we were the last under the old system. The new one is so much more efficient that, to my understanding, an adoptive parent who was approved by our agency for a child posted last week could send their child a package or communicate before we'll be able to. I don't mind that. The electronic process is a much-needed growth within the adoption system, and I'm stunned that the CCAA has been able to pull it off, because it's a massive endeavor.

What does frustrate me is that I have a new caseworker. The third, in fact, in the eleven months we've worked with our agency. The first layer of that irritation is about money. If I'm paying upwards of $22,000--a portion of which goes to the agency--then I'd feel safer with some consistency. It's not too much to ask for the same caseworker the whole way through. I know that pregnant women can expect to be attended to by any number of OB/GYNs during the course of their pregnancy, and more often than not, my friends have delivered their babies under the guidance of a different doctor than they expected. But it goes deeper than that. Imagine that you've tried for a decade to get pregnant, only to find that you have to go someplace else for it to happen. Once you get there, you don't speak the same language as any of the doctors at your clinic. Only one nurse speaks your language and can translate to you. This nurse screens you in advance to make sure you're worthy of being a parent--she records your medical history, education, finances, background, marriage, and asks for photos of your home before giving you the go-ahead. You're dependent on this nurse to walk you through your pregnancy, to translate the doctors' observations, diagnoses, and advice, even to run your insurance through and to handle your payments. She schedules your appointments, handles your neonatal education, walks you through the legal processes, everything. You know that when the time comes, she won't be in the delivery room, but you'll be ready, even though nobody in the hospital speaks your language or can tell you what's going on if an emergency arises during the birth, because she has prepared you.

You get through your first trimester. Suddenly your nurse transfers. In her place is a hopeful, dedicated new nurse, who earnestly wants to help you. She's given birth before under similar circumstances. But where your first nurse had many years of fluency in your language, this nurse is in her first year. She is still learning your language. She can't translate everything yet. She works hard, but she makes some beginner's mistakes-it's not unexpected-and she consistently seems unclear on what your first nurse prepared you for. When you ask her questions, she always has to contact someone higher up to get the answer. She asks you for information that you've already given the first nurse before she tries to find it in your file. You try to read as much as you can about pregnancy, with the help of a language dictionary to translate. Then it gets complicated. Not dangerous--just different than what you expected when you started out. Your baby has some pretty big medical needs that will affect his whole life. He's safe and healthy--and you can choose to go ahead with the pregnancy or not. You choose to go forward, but the nurse doesn't have any information about your baby's condition. You have to find it all and translate it for yourself. The doctors can see your ultrasound and know the baby's size and the exact supplies and medicine he'll need every day, but they can't tell the nurse yet, so she can't tell you. You're not allowed to ask the doctors this; one visited from your home country and you talked to him for 5 minutes, but you were informed that if the conversation lasted any longer, your pregnancy could be terminated. Then you find out that the first nurse forgot to give you a pregnancy book in your language. It has a lot of information that you've needed before now, stuff that you've been trying to find and translate. You read as much as you can, you ask the new nurse every question that you can think of, and you get into the last trimester. You're so afraid that you're going to make a mistake that will cause you to lose the child.

And you get another new nurse. This one is newer to the language than the last one. She can talk to either of the other nurses, but you can't. She doesn't know your baby's condition, what you've learned from the other nurses, or that you're in your last trimester. She, too, has given birth, but even as she adjusts to the new job, she has many patients who share your language to meet and translate for. She's eager to contact you, and then you get a call from the hospital saying that your due date was miscalculated and your pregnancy will be longer. The hospital is changing its procedures every day, and you keep getting letters from the nurse to tell you of these changes. You know that they won't apply to you, except to prolong your pregnancy. You wish you had someone to turn to.

You know that if you leave the country or try to find another clinic, your pregnancy will be terminated. How long before you're tempted to think that maybe God just didn't want you to become a parent?

This is what working with an agency is like.

destiny, child

2008-01-07T20:05:00.000-08:00

Just for the heck of it, a list of Christmas presents for Youyou, given by friends & family--see if you can spot the trend:

1. A Carhartt jacket, XS (Who knew that they made child-sized clothes? Daddy did.)
2. Camoflage shirt, XS (love, Brandon & Erika)
3. Construction safety hat (love again, Brandon & Erika)
4. Plaid shirt & overalls (Hi Thomas)
5. Camoflage socks (because Craig doesn't DO outfits)
6. Work boots (Really, Andrea, did you have to beat Daddy to the punch?)

Let the nature vs. nurture begin!!

"Special Needs"

2008-01-06T16:07:00.000-08:00

For the 100th time the other day, I was explaining our adoption, and I heard "Special Needs" come out of my mouth as I attempted to communicate.

In spite of teaching, I forget how words are received. To use "Special Needs" to describe the condition of our son is concise, accurate. Youyou has needs which require special planning and supplies every day. His physical needs will impact other areas of his life--casual conversations, friendships, play...

I think that everyone might have needs which are special--specific to the individual or the result of a specific combination of circumstances. Not everyone is aware of it, nor is everyone willing to admit it might be possible. It messes with being ok. Perhaps because of that, "special needs" becomes code for, "There's something wrong with that boy."

The official terms for Youyou's adoption include "Special Needs," but I don't want to use words which cloud any person's ability to see him without fear or pity. I don't want to handicap him. I don't want to reinforce the code. When we began the journey of adoption, I didn't want a child labeled "special needs." I didn't trust that we'd get accurate medical information. I didn't think I could handle it. I looked at the fear of an ugly or disabled child in the face and flinched--hard. I told Shane that God would really REALLY have to work some change in me for me to be willing to adopt a child with special needs, and as I said it, I defied Him to. It's to my shame that I couldn't resist my idols of perfect children and uncomplicated childhood. I felt entitled, as though I had earned the right to a pass because of the crushing sadness of infertility. No matter how much I love my best friend, that love will not (that we know) bear fruit in the form of a child in my womb. Isn't that enough, I wondered. Besides, there isn't enough money for us to take care of a child with special needs. It takes a special person. You have to mourn the death of a dream.

I don't see it that way now. The dream that died was, I think, an idol dressed like motherhood, and she still haunts the corners of my mind. Youyou has some big issues, but more than that, he needs a Mom and a Dad and maybe a dog. He doesn't need to know he's ok, he needs a family. We need a child. That works out pretty well, I think. I want to write that it is a relief to be free of that idolatry and entitlement, but I can't yet, because there is still so much I need to learn.

What brought all this on? A friend's grandmother said in passing, "You two are saints to be adopting a child like that." And I was overcome with inner laughter, thinking, "Like what?" because it sounded as though we're doomed, signing our lives away. Then I remembered that I'd thought the same thing about others before I was willing to adopt children with special needs, and then I remembered that sometimes even now I think we're pretty special for doing this. And I'd like it to stop. Because my boy certainly doesn't need that, and neither does anyone.

Who has special needs now?

what's all this, then?

2007-12-29T23:23:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's happened to you, and perhaps it hasn't. You look back at what you've written within a year or a recent week--and you think, "What? No really, what?" I'm sure that I know what I mean when I write, that I'm trying to wring out some sense from my teaspoon-dense black hole of a brain, but seriously.

I thought of everything I ever wrote when I heard the good Doctor (Who, that is) exclaim, "Here we are at the end of the universe, and you two are...BLOGGING!"

And so am I. (And so is she.) I'm standing at the edge of the universe I know, peering at this land of adoption, parenting, and special needs, and I'm writing about what probably will be the smallest parts of it all. It's clear to me now that I don't even know how to use the time in between the finding out and the getting to weave a good cliffhanger. I mean, really--what kind of suspense is there in reading, "I don't know how to get things ready" for the 15th time? I can't begin to tell you what measure of suspense resides in thinking it for the 115th time. In a day.

I didn't send out Christmas cards this year--I overplayed my hand. I kept stalling, thinking "BIG BABY NEWS" was just round the corner, any second, wait for it--and then Christmas was over and I hadn't mailed a single card. And to top it off, I got an email yesterday listing two families who chose children from the same waiting list in which we found young Master Youyou-- they received their "Seeking Confirmation Letters" (that's Chinese beauracracy for "Ok, he's yours") on Dec. 21. Egads!

So, no Christmas cards, no presents to my son who is not yet my son but who really truly is my son, good ultrasound results, and tantalizing photos of the foster home happily celebrating Christmas. The best present? A crisp new photo of young Mr. Suave, casually lounging in the ball pit.

That's my boy.

what next?

2007-12-23T00:22:00.001-08:00

How does one prepare? There's a bed from Ikea, a cabinet standing sentry, a handful of toys, blue paint on the walls...

We're editing photos from Tibet, hoping to send letters to all who helped us travel last March. It's a diversion, a way of navigating time when it is interrupted. In a few short months our lives will completely change, but here I am at midnight, writing while my neice, nephew, and in-laws sleep, with pie settling in my belly as my son wanders toward lunch on the other side of the world.

And the questions of our holiday guests..."Is he small for his age?" "Will he get to keep any of his toys?" "Can he drink milk?" "Can he speak any English?" They're from loving friends and family who are honestly and wonderfully hopeful with us...and some are echoes of the same questions that keep me awake at nights, wondering when and how I will know, wondering how long one can live in parentheses.

We have friends who adopted from Guatemala, and they had a nightmare process...they know how long almost and not yet can be. They were courageous and persistent, even and especially when there was no getting their son home as a reward for their faith, nothing that could change the agony of their wait while their daughter asked when her brother would be home. Now he's here, and for the first time in over a year, I have seen them exhale.

So I can't complain. I don't know yet what we'll do, how we'll live. It's one thing to see the photo and to know that this will be, is indeed, our son, and yet to know that numbers don't add up yet. And then I'm asked, "Are you sure you should pay all that money to get one that's broken?" If I'm willing to listen, I can hear the fledgling love in that voice as well, I'll know we're both wrestling with the mighty question of how far one can force the hand of God. Where does that plan, begin, and if the kindgom is at hand, how present is that truth? Sentimentality is prone to undermine faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Not wished for--there are no stars to light this way--hoped for. The hope is some kind of tiny glimmering light when all else is gone. Is it the beginning of Shalom or the fulling of the fruit? Is it the flower in the crannied wall, roots and all?

a house divided...or at least stretched

2007-12-19T08:03:00.000-08:00

This Christmas will go on record in our wee upstart family as the busiest-strangest one. Currently, we have applications out for a number of grants and we're working with a unique outreach organization in an effort to complete the financing of this adoption and the initial medical expenses we'll incur immediately upon returning to the States with our son.

Our son. It's weird to write that. I have no right to do so, really, as we're still at the mercy of the CCAA and its approval system before we can make that sort of claim. That's why everything I write here is accessible by invitation only. How can I think about him yet? When is it safe--for us, for our family, for him--to call him our own? He is our own, in so many ways, and he is not our own. Almost and not yet.

In the meantime, Youyou has visited Shanghai, where he received an ultrasound to assess the health of his lonely kidney. All is well, I learned, after waiting up until 4 am for the third straight night after the ultrasound was done, compulsively logging in to my email nearly every hour in hopes of seeing, "He's ok." He is ok, and as I went back to his foster home's webpage for what must have been the 100th time, I stumbled into a whole new section of archived information about him, including his first photo, taken shortly after his arrival at BlueSky. He was only a few days old, and clearly not well, and my heart swelled until it flowed from my eyes as I looked, and I suddenly realized, reading, that we are so far away from each other. There is something in the process that is not unlike the relationship a teenager develops with her perception of a rock star as she scrounges the web for every morsel of his life and likes, one-sided, groping, a figment of the imagination.

BlueSky celebrates Christmas, and they had posted photos in years past of celebrations. I was suddenly aware, as I looked, that I know--or hope--who and where my son is, but I cannot send him anything for Christmas. We cannot send him anything until we receive the final approval from the CCAA, and now it is too late to send anything that will arrive in time. Does he know of this? Does he know of us? What does he understand of it all in his toddler mind?

It is so all out of my control, beyond my means to act just yet, and this is hard. What should I hope for? In what direction must I turn my thoughts? For more than two years this little prince has lived, has flirted with death and returned with a smile, has charmed his caretakers and doctors across the globe, and we did not know, and our thoughts and energies knew nothing of him and did nothing to aid him. Now we know about him, and we read his story and collect his photos and carry them like icons, but he cannot be ours yet, and our energies and thoughts, though they have emerged from ignorance, can do nothing new to touch him directly, save to arrange what we can for his transport here. All the while, we speak of the Advent. How profoundly bizarre. How wondrous.

yikes!

2007-12-03T18:48:00.000-08:00

So, yesterday was the first time in weeks--ok, months--that my husband didn't work at school on some project or other. We celebrated by having our very own financial summit. It was exactly the thing we had feared it would be, the sort of "!" that we'd studiously avoided for six weeks now.

We came down to facts, pushing aside dreams of chubby hands and catheters and latex allergies for a wee bit. And we reached the conclusion that it can't be done. Once that smiling little guy arrives, our income drops by more than a third, and we'll have negative $10,000,000 a month without even counting the cost of novelties like food, gas, or medical supplies.

So, I guess our little prince will have to start out eating grass, because, after all, that is a natural diet, very high in fiber. He'll get here in winter, presumably, so he can suck on icicles to fight off bladder stones--hey, that reminds me of stone soup! I'd almost fogotten...

I wonder if e-bay will let me sell my soul...I have an empty peanut-butter jar. Shane calls it my Depression-era hoarding, but I just knew that jar would come in handy someday.

May we see your photos, please?

2007-11-29T19:27:00.000-08:00

I have entered a strange new phase of this adoption journey, one that is the sort of surprise that truly is unexpected and not perhaps calculated as a possibility that one doubted would really happen. Although I have this concept of many people playing roles in Youyou's journey, that cloud of witnesses is beginning to mushroom somewhat, and I feel like an Arctic explorer looking at an iceberg poking up from the water, trying to fathom its size.

Strange emails have begun to arrive--make that emails from strangers. They're quite friendly, in fact. One came shortly after I enrolled in a bladder exstrophy support group in hopes of gaining new information to ease our preparation for this young prince. A few hours later, the executive director emailed back to say that she knows of our son, has photos of him, had in fact entertained certain notions about expanding her role in his story. Then came today's email from a woman on the East Coast, who hosted Youyou and his ayi when he came for surgery at Johns Hopkins this summer. She wrote to give congratulations and to express her hopes of seeing Youyou when he comes home with us. She has photos, too, and she advises that we will both delight in and be exhausted by this little boy.

These are but two emails. I feel much smaller just now, as though I am but the latest person to step into a much larger story that has been heard round the world by many others. How old will he be before he begins to grasp the depths of his experience and its impact on so many? It makes me want to hold him close just now, perhaps to turn the night light on and to sit and listen. What do we think we're doing?

This just in!!

2007-11-25T18:33:00.000-08:00

Oh, the wonderful-ness of tasty new photos! I just got a handful from some amazing women. And I marveled...

I am amazed at seeing this little group of children running and playing in a park, activities which stand in stark contrast to the stories most people tell about international orphanages and foster homes. I came to adoption, I admit, with low expectations regarding the quality of care my child-to-be would have had--mostly because there are so many children and so few workers.

And now here is this child, with his 1 in 400,000 challenge, with his single kidney, only 6 weeks after returning to Beijing from surgery in the US, struggling to climb an inflated slide and getting help from a friend. T. wrote that he tried to climb and was passed by kid after kid--he is still recovering his upper-body strength--and he was getting frustrated, turning repeatedly to look at the nannies from the foster home. They remained still, snapping photos, capturing the story of his perseverance and rescue from a 5-year-old friend, reveling in his triumphant smile and his pride at conquering the heights before sliding back down, sending it all to a nervous woman hundreds of miles away who has no idea what is to come.

It makes me wonder what Mary thought. There was this moment, this blinding annunciation, the assurance that this was indeed the hand of God, the revelation of the Divine to His children and their children, the hope of rebirth--and then there was morning sickness and dizziness and family suspicion and Joseph's doubts and distance and nine long months of waiting, waiting, waiting...did she despair at how to get ready to rear the Son of God? What did she try to prepare for? Did she want her house to be in a certain order that was different because of the manner in which everything had unfolded? Was she horrified when everything started to happen and she couldn't get to a better place than a stable for the birth of God's Son? Did she feel that she had failed Him? What could she make of any of it? Was she harder on Joseph because of it?

They couldn't even know what was coming--the tribute, the stories, the flight for safety, the fear, the joy...did they come to trust that they could only live each day and that God was sovereign? What kind of blur was it? How many apologies did they make?

This bearing and rearing of children is too much for mere mortals...but look at that smile.

almost and not yet

2007-11-18T21:14:00.000-08:00

Disoriented is now a funny word to me. It means that one is not centered, not right, not oriented. I am currently disoriented. I think that I might be oriented by February, perhaps even January, but in the meantime, I am not centered. I am at odds and am having trouble finding beginnings and endings.

How does one prepare to become the parent of a toddler with daily medical needs inside of 3 months? When will I be able to know what size colostomy bags to buy, and where might I be able to find them, and now that our insurance has changed, by the way, what measure of trust can I have in their dependability? I can't even get the dog hair vacuumed in the living room regularly, and we're out of trash bags, and tomorrow's lunch is looking suspiciously like catsup sandwich. What the heck do we think we're doing?

The questions are there, bidden or unbidden, teeming below the surface like a thousand toothed fishes watching, waiting. To stir the water is to unleash a mighty offensive, one that could easily devour everything down to the last stitch and stem. Is it any wonder that the past ten days have found me reeling to catch my balance and taking meds to counter the vertigo that has mysteriously materialized to plague my too-brief minutes? I am disoriented indeed.

And then come photos, new photos, of this brave little boy that is almost and not yet ours, struggling up the side of an inflated playground slide. He is loved, of that there is no doubt, perhaps spoiled--could nomenclature like "our little prince" be a clue from the foster home as to the fragility of our futures? So loved, so doted on, so willing to take risks, so smiling...

I cannot yet find in myself the rush of emotion when I look at him. I think, "Youyou," and yet simultaneously, I think of all that must be done, and there is a distance, as though I can talk about his sonship from only an academic standpoint. The exception is the other day, when I was leaving the house for school. I paused to look into his room, a room in waiting, a space in which there is only air and not breath, and I reached inside to touch the freshly painted wall. "Someday, he will try to describe the color of his bedroom," I thought, and then was the moment that I had a son and he was real, and as suddenly, the moment was gone and I had to run to teach the children of others.

gong xi fa chai

2007-11-09T08:30:00.000-08:00

1994 was the Year of the Dog, the second Chinese New Year I was aware of. The first, in 1993, was the Year of the Rooster, when I was in London. Somehow, I heard about the party near Leicester Square and threaded my way through a mob of faceless pushing persons cramming narrow streets. To make my way down an unseen sidewalk as a cell might travel a clogged artery was as fascinating as the celebration. Every now and then, I could work my way to the edge of the mass to see a cart of oranges, a "lion" dancing up to eat cabbage, a calligrapher swaying.

The Year of the Dog found me back in Kentucky, finishing college. I’d forgotten until a Malaysian student bounced into the studio with a bag of oranges, brightly announcing the New Year and giving everyone fruit. I asked her what year, and as she answered, our instructor barked fiercely. My face streamed with juice and pulp from laughing.

Tian You was born in the next Rooster Year, 2005. There are no newborn photos of him-no one constant person from birth to hospital to orphanage to nuns could bear witness through a lens to his journey. The foster home assumed the task on his arrival. Their first photos were tenuous as his health, and then there emerged what John Berger might call a likeness, as the little boy in a bed in Singapore smiled with laughing eyes, his legs bound so that his incessant playfulness wouldn’t re-open his enormous hernia.

When Tian You went to Singapore in December 2005, Shane and I saw change coming. We had begun the adoption journey, and we realized we must go to Iraq. The two seemed at cross-purposes, but we were convinced otherwise. We’d been involved with a school in the Kurdish region. For years we’d been asked to work there, but we were unable financially to make the commitment. Finally, the opportunity arose to host a day camp, and we jumped. Christmas found us sending letters to friends and colleagues, asking for support in the monthlong endeavor that would take place in the coming summer. Our adoption plan was to be finished with homestudy and dossier, merely waiting for a referral by that time.

New Year came, the Year of the Dog. Tian You was in Singapore, and surgeries to correct his exstrophy and close his hernia had just been completed. His legs bound, he smiled as his ayi took pictures, first of him laughing, then of him holding one of the little red envelopes given to children for New Year, then with his hair pulled up in a wet pointy shape, surrounded in his bed by oranges and red paper lanterns. We shared oranges wrapped in red paper with friends at the Nashville Chinese Association party, unknowing that across the world, our son was being cherished like a prince by his ayi.

blessed by heaven

2007-11-07T19:17:00.000-08:00

In his first few months, Tian You was shuttled back and forth through a series of hospitals and specialists in Beijing. Americans are quick to judge China for its disregard of human rights, but in a strange twist, this little boy was attended at several hospitals before being allowed to go with his caretaker to a facility in Singapore for lifesaving corrective surgery. Surgery to correct a deformity that, had it been diagnosed in utero in the States, would most certainly have led to an abortion. China valued the life of this child enough to allow him travel and attention for a birth defect that would have at best profferred a slim prognosis just 5 years ago; it is knowledge that could, perhaps, be instructive.

Tian You, or Youyou, as his ayi calls him, was born with cloacal exstrophy, a birth defect so severe in his case that it is seen in only one out of 400,000 births. At birth, a bilateral hernia revealed his bladder and intestines, he had only one kidney, and his genitals were affected. There are several stories about his arrival at hospital and elsewhere, like underground legends. "He was left in a shoebox in a police station." "He was found on the side of the road." It's as if every story of origin one might hear about an orphaned child in China became Tian You's story, his origin.

In the end, it was the nuns who brought him to the foster home. What happened in the spaces between is unfathomable, untraceable. The foster home named him "Blessed by Heaven" hastily as they sped in a car to another hospital in Beijing, where he stayed for weeks before he was returned to his ayi in the foster home.

It seemed that nobody in China quite knew how to help this little boy, who smiled weakly in his photos despite his still-gaping wound. The woman who co-founded the foster home where Tian You lived had done so after adopting her own child, a little girl with massive abdominal issues. With care and proper medical attention, the little girl thrived, and her mother decided her arms must be opened to more children. She hired caretakers, wrote for grants, took in children, raised funds, launched the dream with her partner, a retired doctor...she was tireless in her efforts.

She was tireless in her crusade to save Tian You. It was decided that Tian You would be sent to a hospital for women and children in Singapore, and that there, his wounds would be closed and his body mended.

The Little Prince

2007-11-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

His name is Tian You. He has an impossible story, which begins with being rescued by nuns from "the side of the road" (many things can be read between words in the stories from China), travels through Singapore and the United States, and returns to Beijing. He is waiting for us to pick up the thread, but he doesn't know it, because he is only two.

I don't really know where to begin with our adoption journey, save to say that in a sense, it began when Shane & I first married. We talked about children from the very beginning, and from the beginning we knew that we wanted both biological children and adopted children. We envisioned an enormous brood, and we'd farm, or travel, or complete graduate study in England, or take to the stage, or something. Then Shane's post as an associate minister ended. Abruptly. Too abruptly, in fact. Months later, we migrated from Kentucky to Nashville, with $15 to our name and frost inside the windows of our unheated truck as we drove, unknowing.

Nine years later, we were trying to piece together finances, knowing that we'd soon need to leave dreams of acting and painting murals to work harder than most have to in order to start a family. The whole time, we sort of thought that we'd fall into biological children the way that most of our friends have, by way of surprise. The ongoing joke was all that we'd done to ensure pregnancy: getting a puppy, having no insurance, having no job and no insurance, living on someone else's floor for months...our methods were foolproof. It was certain that we'd have a child, make mistakes, and learn from them to feel safer as we ventured into adoption, with all of its unknown quantities.

But children didn't come, and it was that one day, nine years after migrating, eleven years after getting married, that the doctor called with test results. We would not have biological children. Ever. It was at once the sort of moment that made you feel terribly alone in the entire universe alone, and yet inseparably, immutably, irreparably together in that alone. He said, "It's Good Friday." It was, in fact, Good Friday. "I'm thirty-three, and I've died, and now I'm waiting for Easter to come."

Ten days later, Fu Tian You was born. We had no idea.

my compulsion demands it

2007-10-29T20:20:00.000-07:00

i've spent two hours, after all...

Two steps back

Change can take place so quickly in an international adoption. Two weeks ago, I didn’t know you existed. Now, you're my son. Bizarre-not unlike science fiction. But as I reeled today, trying to take the next steps to bring home this one child, I remembered something that happened earlier, and its memory was muted, and I knew that I would have to intentionally return to it. That is difficult, because, as Doris Lessing so aptly observed, we tend turn a thing into story even as it unfolds, rendering our lives and our memories a series of fictions colored by who we were at this time or who we danced with that night or what was had for dinner or what we want the story to be...I am overwhelmed by my inability to tell what happened without interpreting it as I tell it, as if I am validating every action and thought with some transcending seal.

Nevertheless, the memory came, and now I sit on my couch and attempt to recall…

We were traveling, in Iraq, from one city to another. It was hot. It was always hot, but I liked that. I did not like that our driver was smoking incessantly. I focused on the landscape in an effort to avoid carsickness as we hurtled down the hot street with the windows up in the smoke-filled car with a single cassette blaring its Iraqi folk tunes for the seventh time round. I saw endless sheep, brush, small donkeys standing stock-still with their shepherds' baggage draped across them, large watchdogs at the invisible line between one territory and the next. I rarely saw the shepherds. The mountains were immediate and harsh.

Perhaps because we had been talking about parables, and probably because I was trying to contextualize this land and its strange familiar names—mostly from the Tanakh—I found myself thinking about the “Parable of the Lost Sheep.” Communism and Capitalism, neo-conservativism and liberalism collided in my head. Why seek out one lost sheep if there’s an entire herd intact? What about the greater good? What about acceptable loss? Margins of error?

And yet it nagged at me. There was not a system of governing or economy that I could summon that would affirm the decision to leave a large group of healthy individuals in order to find one that may or may not be dead or die soon. It made habits of highly effective people seem tainted, perhaps demonic. To value an individual in that manner, to that extent—I cannot yet comprehend. I looked at the sheep, and I was frustrated, because they were irreplaceable in that landscape. What if the lost one was stolen or eaten or trapped? What of the ones left behind? What kind of story is this?

It unsettled me, and I sat up straighter, and by the time that we stopped in Erbil to see its ancient walled city, I was grumpy, because I wanted to be unclouded for that old city. We drove up the wall as far as we could, and stood at the feet of a stone Imam, and strolled into a courtyard where a tablet in cuneiform stood open to the elements, pigeon guano streaking its sides. It told of Darius and Nebuchadnezzar, according to the translation. I raised my eyes to the opening in the outer wall, through which I could see the city bazaar, littered with tin roofs and satellite dishes.
I am back on the couch now, and I am shifting to warm my feet. I cannot know why I conjured that moment this morning. I think that I have told myself that story—of being frustrated with the parable—so many times now that I have interpreted it and have assigned it a place in my meaning.

I have conditioned myself, apparently, to recall that moment, those sheep, that cigarette, the conundrum, and to assign it a place where it serves not to answer but to interpret another event. I do not understand why a shepherd would leave ninety-nine to find one, but it is why I will leave teaching art to high school students and trying to get them to ask questions for adopting a child from another country who may or may not need surgery immediately and who may or may not be in need of a transplant someday. At least, that’s what it seems like at this moment.

Where do babies come from?

2007-10-22T02:31:00.000-07:00

When a man and a woman love each other very much, sometimes they want to have a family together, and so they decide to have a child. First, they save up all of their money and pay off all their debt. Then they go to a building where people work who can find babies. They talk to the people, and they tell the people everything that ever happened to them, including any times that they were sick, how much they love their parents, what they think about discipline, why they think they should have a baby, and what they think about God. Then if the people think that the man and woman are nice enough and have good answers to all the questions, they let the man and woman give them a lot of money to find a baby. The man and woman have to get papers that prove they were themselves born, married, educated, fingerprinted, poked by a doctor, never scolded by the police, and they have to get letters from people to prove that they are a nice man and woman. Then, when all the papers are stacked up, the people in the building mail them off to another country, where lots and lots of babies need parents. For a long time, the papers live in an office, and then one day, they are old enough to be able to exchange for a baby. Then the country picks out a baby and calls up the man and woman. The man and woman buy plane tickets and fly to see the baby, and they hope that they know the right words to say to everybody and they take more money to hand out to everybody. Then, if everyone in the whole world is happy, the man and the woman are allowed to bring the baby back home on the plane with them. But they are not a family yet. They have to look for another person who can listen to their whole story and take another stack of papers to court, where the person talks to a judge who wants to have some money so that he can prove that the baby really should belong to the man and woman. And then they are a family. And that is where babies come from.