Hard Places

A common phrase in the adoption world is that our children come from "hard places."  I think this is a good way to describe in two small words the huge divide that exists between the early months of children we parent from birth and children we don't begin to parent until months or even years after they are born. We can imagine and maybe even see these places with our eyes, but we never truly know all the loneliness, fear, and sorrow they experienced. Today we were able to visit some of our son's "hard places" and see for ourselves the orphanage where Carter spent the first year of his life.  We also went to his finding spot and it was all I could do not to fall apart right then and there. We aren't sharing with anyone but Carter exactly where this spot was, but it was important for me to be in that space with him for just a moment and try to imagine the pain and heartache his birth mother must have felt when she left him.  It was not an easy morning for any of us. Camdyn said it very well, "I felt so much sadness and we were only there for an hour. I can't imagine what it would feel like if that were my home."  

           At the entrance of the orphanage....

 Carter was at the Zhengzhou Civil Welfare Institute in the Lily Orphan Care Center, which is really just a few rooms inside the CWI that are sponsored by our adoption agency, CCAI. We visited these rooms and the Show Hope rooms but did not see many other parts of the orphanage. The Show Hope rooms are sponsored by Stephen Curtis Chapman and his wife's orphan care organization. I made it a special point to request we see those rooms because a friend I have met through Facebook is in the proccess of adopting two babies from those rooms. Interstingly, my friend lives in Memphis and these two little ones with special needs are also future LeBonheur patients!  Their caregivers where very pleased when I told them that I knew the doctors who would be taking care of them in America and that they were going to be in great hands when they got their medical care -in addition to their amazing family who just can't wait to bring them home. 

     Some of the babies in the LOCC. The baby on the left was full of smiles, it was precious!

I know that what we saw was the "nice" side of the orphanage because we were seeing rooms that are sponsored by non-profit groups that are able to provide more staff, more supplies, and more one on one care. Those babies were smiling and laughing and clean and instead of being left alone in their cribs, they were playing on a play mat on the floor. I know without having to see it with my eyes that this is not the case for babies in other rooms and on other floors. How Carter was picked to be one of the babies who was assigned there and not another regular room, I will never know.  It is very clear that the babies in these rooms are loved and cared for greatly. We brought photos and updates from some families who have adopted other children from the LOCC and it was amazing to see the joy on the nanny's faces as they looked at pictures of little ones that they had loved.  As soon as we walked in, they recognized him and began to talk to him. He was decidedly not happy to see them, though, and buried his face in my chest. Our guide, Rita, said because he is very bonded with us, he seemed afraid that we were going to leave him behind. He kept saying (in Chinese), "Mama, let's go! Let's go, mama!"  It wasn't until we left the building and went outside that he started smiling again but was still very fussy the entire van ride back to the hotel. Once we got out of the van he started giggling and immediately was back to his playful, affectionate self. 

              Carter got close and quiet.

     I think this Nanny almost cried when I showed her new photos of a little girl they say she loved like a daughter.  Her joy made Justin and I cry. 

Carter is amazing us every day with what he knows and how fast he learns. He can already say a handful of English words and is also learning some signs and gestures to get his point across. As in, he will point to his baseball hat, say "Mama" and then pat his head when he wants to wear his hat- which he loves to do whenever big brother is also wearing his baseball cap. 

Most of the time he is just in constant motion with a constant stream of Chinese toddler speak. Everything he does he thinks is hysterical and he looks at us to make sure we thinks it is hysterical, too. Today has been the first day where he has started to really try to play and be silly with my mom. We learned that in his foster home, he was mostly cared for (i.e. spoiled) by his foster grandmother whom he called "Nai Nai". So, we think that Nanny was just too close in age and name to the woman he has most been grieving for him to open up to her until now. But, you can tell that he has already figured out that Nanny might possibly be more fun than Mama and Baba. 

It's Friday and this is the first time he has let Nanny hold him. (Food may have been involved.)

It's time for me to "testify"...

Yesterday was a busy day filled with official adoption "stuff". We had to return to the Civil Affairs office to have the adoption finalized. The first 24 hours we had him we were just his temporary guardians. Adopting parents have 24 hours with their child to decide if they are willing to proceed with everything. It sounds strange, but once in a blue moon parents do return their child, often because the child's needs were different or much greater than they expected. I cannot imagine how painful it must be to make that decision. In the adoption community this is called "disruption" and though it is rare, I think it is the one thing every parent fears deep in their heart of hearts. Justin and I had actually had conversations about "what if" scenarios but it was almost too horrible of a topic for us to imagine or discuss. For quite some time I have had a deep, deep belief that every step of our journey has been ordained by God. That may sound like overly spiritual mumbo-jumbo to some and to a lot of people who know me, they know that I don't throw around God-talk lightly. But, for reasons I may someday share, I distinctly and very clearly believed that God was bringing Carter into our family for a reason. He was meant for us and we were meant for him. Most of those reasons we won't ever fully realize, but I know they are there. 

So, on Gotcha Day I was decidedly not nervous and the only way for me to describe it is to say that I felt deep, deep peace. True, unwavering, peace. The kind that "surpasses all understanding."  No butterflies. No jittery stomach. Just calm. When we saw Carter for the first time, I knew.  He was ours. His screaming, angry, bossy self, yelling commands at us in Chinese only settled reassurances deep into my heart. The truth is, when we found is file, he had several delays. At 8 months we wasn't sitting up on his own, and the update we got at 14 months said he was crawling but not yet walking or standing. His weights were so far below the growth curve it was appalling. At 14 months he only weighed 14 pounds and when we got an update 3 months later he was only up to 16 pounds. The developmental specialist at Johns Hopkins who reviewed his file said she thought he had hypotonia and "global developmental delays" but that she also thought he would catch up eventually if he was given time and nurture. When Justin and I decided to pursue him, it was a true leap of faith. And for seven months we had to learn to walk in that faith. His file said he was "deaf" and even though we had hearing tests that showed he could at least hear out his left (good) ear, at the time of the testing he had mild to moderate hearing loss in that ear and profound hearing loss out of his right ear. We imagined all of the worst case scenarios and tried to prepare as best as we could. We did not get many updates while we were waiting for him and were sent no new pictures after October. It was painful for me to see other waiting mamas receive new photos and even new videos while we had nothing but our imaginations, trying to guess what he looked like over the months while we waited. Fear and uncertainty would sometimes send me into a panic. The only thing I could do was pray. "Lord, please help him to be with a foster mother who loves him."  "Help him to stay healthy."  "Give him enough to eat today, God."  "It's cold in Zhengzhou, please help him to be warm."

What I have realized in the last twenty-four hours is that all of our prayers were being met and then some. We didn't receive any photos because his foster home was not close to the orphanage. From the picture that we now have, it is clear that he was being loved and nurtured far beyond what we could have ever hoped for. He now weighs a whopping 23 pounds! My baby with hypotonia and global delays is running around, climbing over everything and is nothing less than a fireball of little boy energy. He clearly hears well, talks to us constantly in Chinese, and as already learned the word "more" which he uses frequently whenever food is involved. He has been taught how to use a fork and spoon and drinks straight out of a glass (which I discovered after he refused all bottles and sippy cups). The boy even know how to work a touch screen and demands that we let him have our phones whenever we take them out. I was prepared for an underweight baby who mostly took formula and very soft foods, but he literally saw a pizza box, reached in, grabbed himself a piece and devoured it. He even fought Charlie over the last piece of pizza in the box 

We have so much work ahead of us. He will still have moments of insecurity and sadness and last night when he realized it was time for bed and we weren't taking him back to his home, he unleashed a wave of total grief and sorrow. The only thing I could do was hold him and cry. But he has already started reaching to me for comfort, has given me some slobbery kisses, and is not happy at all when Charlie climbs into my lap, which is what I would call an attachment miracle. 

I say all of this because this is my testimony and one that I know I am supposed to share. Adoption is not for everyone and is no where near being a solution to what some have called a global "orphan crisis."  But for me, this adoption has been a journey deeper into the heart of God than I ever knew I could go. It has forced me to let go of so much of my own pretenses and false understandings of what it means to be what we post-Evangelicals like to call a "Jesus follower." Never in my life have I been so certain that I was being obedient to my Savior and yet so afraid of what was waiting on the other shore. I have been forced to live by faith, day by day.  I been sent down to my knees because the only thing I could do was pray and then pray some more. I have dug deeper into the Word than I ever went in all those years of seminary and discovered that Scripture really and truly still speaks Truth and Wisdom and opens the eyes of our hearts to tiny glimpses of God's own self. I even left my respectable, downtown traditional church for a church that has all those things I used to roll my eyes at (think spotlights, fog machines, video productions, and loud music) because I realized that you can take the girl out of the Pentecostal church, but you can't take the Pentecost out of the girl and what this girl's soul needed was not more hymns and liturgy but a chance every week to stand in worship with other people, lifting my hands to God, laying everything down. I needed to publicly bare my soul, and let God's grace rush in again and again. All of that only happened because we took a chance and followed the path we believed we were meant to journey down together as a family. What I know now is that following God does not guarantee a life free of fear, nor does it mean you will not have to make terrifying, scary decisions. Following God is not a promise that life will be easy or without sorrow. I tremble when I think just how easily we could have found our boy in a much different state. But what overwhelms me more than anything is the realization that fear almost kept me from this beautiful boy who was worth every agonizing, heartbreaking second of our wait, and then some. And that, I believe, is true, amazing, grace. 

First Day of Forever

There were not many other families waiting when we arrived so we stalked the front door waiting for the first glimpse of him...

He was not happy to see us.  This picture says it all...

They say that a child who grieves strongly in the beginning is a good thing. They are attached to someone and they know you are not that person. That is what I kept telling myself over and over as he cried and cried. This is pain that will be redeemed. Unlike in the US, foster parents are very rarely allowed or able to adopt the children they care for. Carter's orphanage is very large and often children are sent to live with foster families around one year of age. Eventually, most of the children who are not adopted will be moved back to the orphanage once they are a little older. Knowing this makes it a little easier to see so much sadness in this boy I love, but only a little. I am certain, too, that his grief is matched even more so by the woman who has clearly loved him. We can see from photos we received and the food and treats she sent that he was her joy. We also know that she tried her best to prepare him for what lied ahead. The photo albums we sent show signs that he has spent countless hours looking at his new family. When we pulled them out he got very calm and started flipping through the pages as if they were his most favorite books and he pointed at each one of us in every photo. We are not yet the people in the photos to him but maybe his toddler brain will start to make connections soon. 

I love this photo. It captures all of our emotions in one picture...

His orphanage gave us a photo album of pictures of him since he was a baby. It is a treasure!

Inspite of his anger, he very clearly told us he wanted to go outside (which we figured out with the help of a Chinese translator). If we went inside, he screamed louder and pointed back to the door saying, "Over there! Over there!"

We sent him this bunny in a care package and it has a recording of us telling him in Chinese, "Baba loves you! Mama loves you! Sister loves you! Brother loves you!" His foster mother sent it with him and he would not let it go. Every so often he would rub it against his cheek and stop crying for just a few seconds. Right now he is even sleeping in my arms with his head resting on the bunny. He loves to squeeze it and hear us talk and will look at us as if he is starting to figure out that we match the bunny voices.  Then he starts crying again.  Between the lollipop, the bunny, the sweat, snot, and tears, we were all on big sticky mess before it was time to go. 

It took less than five minutes in the hotel for a game of catch to start...

And of course playing catch brought us the first smile...

He loves his Baba and doesn't want him out of his site...

FaceTime with Papa....

Big sister introducing him to Instagram...

Being silly with his sister...

Round and round we go...

This morning started off just as we expected. We arrived at the airport at 4, went through check in and security, boarded our plane and were ready to go to Chicago where we would connect to Beijing. 

Then, an agent came onto the plane and asked if we were the Allen family, party of 5, headed to Beijing. "We are sorry, we have an overbooked flight and don't have enough seats. Would you be willing to let us drive you to Dulles airport (about 1 hour away) so we can put you on the direct flight to Beijing? We will also give you credit with United towards your next ticket purchases." One less flight and we will arrive at virtually the same time?

Sure, why not.

We should have known something was wrong when we were given new tickets for the new flight but they did not have seat assignments. When we asked the agent, and explained that we needed to make sure we were sitting with our children, she said, "They will take care of that at Dulles."  

      

             Driving to Dulles..we were so excited!

Two and a half hours of stop and go traffic later, with both kids green and clutching plastic bags we made it to the United ticket gate at Dulles. We handed them our tickets and they said, "No one told us you were coming. This flight is already overbooked. You were given tickets for an overbooked flight and there are no seats for you. The only thing you can do is wait at the gait and hope enough people don't show up for you to all get on the plane."

Wait. 

What? 

You had us get OFF a plane after we were already boarded and ready to go, drove us here, and there are no seats for us here.

Yep.

And that's when I lost it. Shaking, sobbing, ugly faced crying, lost it. 

It was not pretty. 

"Well, maybe we can get you on a flight to Beijing through San Francisco."

Ok, what time does it arrive in Beijing? 

"I don't have time to tell you that."

What?

"The flight to San Francisco leaves in 30 minutes and we need to get you on that flight, but we will give you the boarding passes to Beijing later."

Wait. 

What?

No.

So United lied to us, drove us here for a flight that was full, and now you want me to believe you?

Yep. 

Where is our luggage?

"We don't know. Probably in Chicago."

Wait. 

What? 

I'm not sure how long this exchange took place, but it felt like an eternity. 

Then, all of a sudden, a woman runs up and says, "We just had a group cancel! We can get you on this flight!

One guy actually said, "I can't believe that just happened. That never happens. If you believe in miracles, you just got one."

I'm not sure what was more upsetting. Thinking we wouldn't make it to Beijing today, or realizing that we had been lied to. Unquestionably lied to. It seems unimaginable to me that someone would have no qualms about taking a family with two young children off a plane, putting them in a car to another airport in a different state, all the time KNOWING there were no seats for us when we got there. 

The moral of this story is:

1. Never fly United if you really need to reach your final destination. 

2. Don't trust anyone who works for United to tell you the truth. 

and most importantly-

3. Be grateful for the miracles when they do come your way. We made it on our flight and that's all that matters in the end 

Ready to board and get to Beijing!

She's awesome. 

This boy played with his baseball cards almost the entire flight....

Here We Go!

Today is the day!

We are leaving this afternoon for Baltimore where we will spend the night near the airport. We have a 6am flight which means a 4am arrival at the airport. We will arrive in Beijing around 3pm on Saturday. Our total flight time will be about 16 hours. Not bad considering we are going to the opposite side of the planet!

In case any waiting mamas are reading, here is a little bit of pre-travel advice from me to you-

1) The List: We have been planning for this trip for a year. I've probably been packing for about 6 months. One of the best things I did to get ready was make a list on my phone that I could add to whenever I read a blog or Facebook post discussing "must have" things to pack for your China adoption trip.  Bit by bit I made my list and started checking things off as we got ready. So, when it came time to actually get things packed, I was already 95% done.
(If you want a copy of my list, let me know and I will pass it along.)

2) Packing cubes: We got these packing cubes from ebags.com over Christmas and each of us has our own color. It had made staying organized so much easier as well as balancing out the luggage scales. (i.e. Justin's sock and underwear bag weighs 4 pounds...lets move it over to this bag). China has strict 44 pound weight limits on checked luggage for in country flights making my little digital luggage scale worth every penny I paid at TJ Maxx.  

 All of our things for five people x 2 weeks.  It's hard to believe it fit into these suitcases.....

3) TJ Maxx- if you are not a "TJ's" addict like me, let me just say that they have all kinds of nifty travel gear and baby items at great prices. The trick to being a successful TJ's shopper is that you can never go there looking for a specific thing. You must treasure hunt. Do you have 30 minutes to spare waiting for your kids to finish soccer practice? Run over there and walk around. One day you may find travel pillows, another day they may have a ton of travel adapters, or sippy cups, or baby clothes, or a brand new Ergo carrier for $70!! After my 30th trip there in the last 2 months, the check out guy said,  "Mrs. Allen, are you sure you don't want to open a TJ Maxx card? You really would save some money." (Typing this out makes me realize that I may actually need a TJ Maxx intervention.)

Here is our itinerary for the next few weeks:

5/17: Saturday- arrive in Beijing
5/18: Sunday- fly to Zhengzhou (Carter's home town)
5/19: Monday morning- Gotcha Day!!
5/20: Tuesday- adoption finalized

Hang out it Zhengzhou waiting for Carter's passport to be prepared

5/24: Fly to Guangzhou 

5/26: Carter's medical exam (required for his Visa)

5/28: US Consulate appointment

5/30: Fly home!!

Travel Approval!

When I was pregnant with Camdyn it was during my clinical rotations in medical school.  I spent the majority of my second and third trimesters working around the clock in the hospital.  I would work for thirty hours or more, go home and sleep for a few hours, then get right back up and go again.  There are few things more miserable than being a pregnant third year medical student.  Trust me.  Miraculously, I was able to finish my last big rotation on the 29th of the month and she was born on the 30th.  She came at exactly the right time.

Three years later, I learned that if there is anything more difficult than being pregnant as a medical student, it is being pregnant as a resident.  During a month that I worked a St. Jude's, I had morning sickness so bad, the kids on chemo felt sorry for me.  I spent a month in the NICU taking care of babies born too early, praying the entire time that my own baby would just keep cooking.  Let me tell you, if you have not experienced what it feels like to suction blood from the hemorrhaging lungs of a baby boy who was due to be born the same day as your not yet born son, watching that baby die while your baby kicks fiercely in your belly, almost as if he is protesting that his momma is up and making noise at 3 in the morning....then your pregnancy was just plain uneventful.  

For the majority of both pregnancies I worked at least 80 hours a week, took call every third or fourth night, and only had four days off per month.  Those were long, long months.  I don't regret one single second of them.  

But this last month?  It took all those other months and made them look like a cake walk.  

When we finally got to the point that we were waiting for our TA, most families were waiting on average 6-14 days.  Then all of a sudden, things slowed down.  When you get this far, when this is the only thing you need before you can get on the plane and go, every day seems like an eternity.  One day can mean you are waiting another week or two or even three before you get to travel.  Another holiday came, which meant more days of waiting and then we thought the TA would come.  But it didn't.  We watched other families get their TA's, fly to China, and meet their babies while we were still waiting.  I think the hardest part was not knowing.  Was it lost in the mail?  Did we get skipped somehow?  Were they going to change their minds and tell us we can't have him?  Are we leaving next week, or the next, or the next?  I'm not sure all of the details and exactly what happened, but once our agency figured out what was going on, they performed some kind of magic and within 48 hours, we had our TA.  And just like that, all was well with the world again. 

I am sure that when we hold our sweet boy and see his face for the first time, this month will seem like nothing.  At least that is what I have been told by every adopting momma I know.  The joy in the end makes the hurt along the way seem like nothing.  

"At just the right time, Jesus died for us..."  (Romans 5:6)  At just the right time.  I have known for a while now that the timing of all this is not just random circumstance.  Maybe Carter needs more time with his foster mother.  Maybe she needs more time with him. Maybe Camdyn needs to play in one more soccer game before we leave.  Maybe Charlie needs one more hit in a baseball game.  Maybe Justin needs to be present for one more student in crisis.  Maybe I need to see one more patient.  We will never really know.  But I do know this is all happening at just the right time.  

We are planning to leave next Friday and will meet Carter on Monday, May 19th.  We still have to confirm our consulate appointment which is the last thing we do in China before we return home. Hopefully, we will get this confirmation Monday morning and will be able to book our flights and then go get our son!

When you're out of prayers but still have plenty of tears...

We have been waiting for our TA for 17 days. We thought it would come last week, but we missed making the cut off for that batch by one day. We held on to hope that it would arrive in time for us to leave next week but that didn't happen. Now everything in China is closed until Sunday due to a national holiday and the earliest we can expect our TA to arrive is next Wednesday. And now we may not be able to travel until May 21st. Truthfully, my heart is broken and I feel like I have been thrown onto an emotional roller coaster that just won't end. I have prayed and prayed and prayed. And then today when I found out we may face another 3-4 weeks before we hold our baby, I just had nothing else to pray. My prayers feel pointless and God is silent. When Justin asked if he could pray while I cried in his arms, my first thought was, "I don't want to hear any prayers. God's not listening." But while he prayed, his words somehow calmed my aching heart. Before he was done, my tears had stopped. And by the time he said, "Amen," I felt like God had listened...to us both.

I sent a message to my mom, telling her our latest news and said, "I am depleted."  She replied, "You rest. Let us do the praying."  

Was this the lesson I needed to learn? I have been walking this adoption journey with God, diving deeper and deeper into His grace.  I have left the shores of certainty and security and ventured into the rushing  waters of the "river whose streams make glad the city of God." I have been learning to stand as a woman who owns her strength and knows that God will sustain her through whatever trials she may face. I have taken Isaiah 61:3 and claimed it as my own:  "They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of The Lord for the display of his splendor."   I even wear this bracelet as a reminder every day   of the deeply rooted, unshakable strength that is promised to those who believe in Him.

This morning I would have said, "Lesson learned, God.  I've grown stronger this year. Now let's move on."

Today I realized that you can be strong one day and completely broken the next.

Perhaps the hardest lesson for me to accept is that this is not my journey to own. It belongs to all of us who are waiting to love that little boy unconditionally and forever. Amazingly, the list of those who journey with me is long and beautiful.  That is what God wants us to see and understand. That no matter how many steps down the road to Emmaus we take, we do not walk alone. No matter how full of the Spirit our hearts may be, sometimes we need to feel the Spirit's love in the arms of someone else- our husband, or our mother, or our sister. Someone who is there to hold us while we cry. We need to let them pray for us when we have run out of prayers to pray. 

God created us to be beings who live in community because God lives in community. The Father and the Spirit and the Son are One. "Let us make humankind in our image..."  Us...our....we.... 

This is my beautiful but bitter lesson. Walking in pursuit of God's true heart, learning to love as God loves, means accepting that life in the Spirit is life lived together. And sometimes it is ok to cry while someone else talks to God.  God will hear you both. 

(This is my treasured painting by the fabulous artist, Jaime Winton)