Home

The thing about leaving children at home is they still need you.  They want to be part of the trip and Face Time with you and talk.  You want to be home with them you want to look like everything is great and that you are having a good time.  You want to have your newly added smiling and waving hi to their new siblings through the computer.  That's not what happens when you have a very sick child.  When you barely see the outside of your hotel room. When you have had to doctor a child back to health in a County where you don't speak the language. Getting off the plane in Logan and seeing 8 smiling faces was the 2nd best part of the trip! It was fabulous to be home!!

Guangzhou April 1-10 2015

So much has happened since then it is all mashed together in my mind.  When the plane landed Addie started throwing up.  We weren't expecting this so we were covered in puke, she was covered in puke and we were being stared at.  We let everyone go by and Ken asked the flight attendant  is she has a plastic bag. NO. So we make our way off the plane to find out we are holding up the bus to take us to the terminal.  Lots of angry eyes.  We get on very crowed and Addie is throwing up again.  Get to the airport getting our bags (throwing up still).  Meet our guide (Mommy stares down some 20 something boys laughing at us!!!)  We have to change her in some seating section and head to the van.  We are a wreck she is a wreck and having dry heaves now.  We think motion sickness first time flying.  We get to the hotel and just want to rest.  Now we have had her 3 days and she hasn't pooped and they wouldn't answer my question "when did she poop last?" Ken gets his swim suit on and decides to get in the bath with her.  She poops this white/grey/little brown very hard poop.  Not looking good.  She doesn't eat much and cant keep it down.  Now here is where time gets blurry. She is still not able to keep anything down. We have her "physical" she is dehydrated she has to have blood drawn she is puking in the car/vans we travel in she is a limp noodle.  I ask on the WACAP fb page for advice where to take her. On Friday we call our guide early and say we NEED to take her to a clinic that was recommended to us.  We go and meet Dr Peggy (we loved Dr Peggy!!!) The look in her eyes when she meet us :( sadness, disgust, not really sure maybe angry.  We  find out Addie has a bacterial infection and is dehydrated.  She gives us meds AND her cell number and says call me this weekend! One question that sticks in my mind she asked was "Did you know she was like this?" Well yes and no. We knew she was small and had seizures and the cleft. We were not expecting no seizure meds and bag of oxygen and a very sick child.  Oh Dr Peggy also gives us a rescue med if she has a seizure.  OK off we go thinking its the infection and now that she has had the antibiotic shot and meds she is going to get better! Right..... wrong. We start feeding her with a medicine syringe that was with the baby Tylenol we had brought we tried water, Gatorade, coconut water, and formula.  Nothing but water stays down and if we go over 20ml she throws up.  Saturday night Ken wakes me up because he has gotten up to feed Addie and she is unresponsive.  We decide that if we were home we would bring her to the ER so that is what we are going to do.  We call our guide (who by the way was wonderful) and she brings us to a Women and Children's Hospital ER.  That was an experience I don't ever need to relive.  They give us rehydration fluid and cough syrup because she keeps coughing up phlegm and tell us to feed her every half hour.   Ken and I take shifts and start giving her 5ml up to 20 ml feeding her every 15min to 30min.  Monday we go back to the Clinic to have her blood tested to see if the infecting is gone and it has cleared up.  We are still feeding her with the syringe because she still wont take the bottle but she is showing a little more life, looking at us and staying awake more hours.  By Wednesday she is finally eating with her bottle and we get some smiles and she LAUGHS.  We were so happy!   She stops throwing up and we are hoping for a good flight home.  We manage to get out and walk around Shaiman the last two days we were there.  We spent the almost the entire time in our hotel room taking shifts feeding Addie and eating breakfast alone.  Not the trip we had planned.  We love the island and had looked forward to spending time there.  So happy to be going home. 

Keeping Her....

I want to talk a little more about this.  Never could we ever leave a child.  Even one who was sick and had/has so many issues we were not aware of.  Ken and I talk about how first time parents or unexperienced parents would have been SCARED.  That they probably would have disrupted or at least talked it over with their agency.  Adopting is not for the weak.  Adopting a special needs/special focus child is not something to go into lightly.  The needs these children have can be so far more then an operation.  The cost can be soooooo much more then the adoption cost.  This is my opinion and please don't feel the need to let me know if you disagree.  If you are adopting no matter WHAT the child you meet is yours just like when you have a baby YOU DONT GIVE THEM BACK!!! Could it disrupt your whole family dynamics and life YES.  Doctor bills and time YES. May they not grow into what you had imagined YES. But they will grow into where love, patience, and time brings them. All children deserve a family.

In Province

After we arrive at the hotel we fix Addie a bottle.  She is very eager to have it and it goes down pretty fast and comes up pretty fast too.  We figure she is nervous and seems to be a nervous baby.  That night goes OK we get her to eat a little and she sleeps alright.  The next day we are picked up by our guide who tells us that one of the women at the Civil Affairs Office had called her he night before and asked if we wanted to keep Addie because they felt we weren't going to.  So you should be able to guess what we looked like the day before when we were handed a bag of oxygen!!!!  OF COURSE WE WERE GOING TO KEEP HER!!! We did all the paperwork, get our picture taken etc. and back to the hotel.  She doesn't seem to be "feeling well" so we hang out at the hotel mostly.  Because of a holiday we are leaving for Guangzhou of Wednesday instead of the usually Friday.  We head to the airport with our "bag of oxygen" not knowing how the flight will go.  We spend some time at security with them trying to figure out how to tell us we cant take the bag of oxygen on the plane (but we knew that!) leave it at security and just want to get to Guangzhou.  We fix Addie a bottle as soon as the plane takes off and she falls asleep.  This is going to be easy!!  But wait the plane lands. 

The Trip: Day we meet Addie March 30th 2015

So you head off to China with all these thoughts of how it might be. How you will blog about all the things you see, the day you meet your child and all the bonding that is happening and then reality sets in.  Internet can be sketchy in places, your jet lagged and you have all you can do to keep up with everyone you left at home (especially if you have children at home).  And for us you are given a VERY sick child.  I have so much I want to say about the day we met Addie and I have gone over it in my head so many times.  We met her just like our other 3 children at the Civil Affairs office.  There was one other family there who was adopting a 5 year old boy.  We chatted and of course we forgot to get their names.  Addie came in first in a red jacket, jeans, sneakers (tied to her ankle with yarn) and the fancy hair we always saw in pictures.  She was tiny but we new she is SMALL for her age and scared, who wouldn't be.  Being our 4th time I was all set! Guide was video taping and Ken was taking pictures.  The Nanny was sad to give her to me and I had to reach for her she wasn't handing her over.  Addie didn't cry just looked around with her big eyes. 

A few things we knew about Addie: She had been having seizures, she had repaired CHD, she has a repaired cleft lip, unrepaired cleft pallet, she was on Topamax for seizures and given daily enemas for bowel movement.

So I start talking to the orphanage person who was translating and ask her about Addie's seizure meds.  Did they have them for us? As Im holding her and talking quietly and rubbing her back.  Here is the conversation that follows (or as much as I can remember so much has happened)

No No she doesn't always take them. Give her this (I'm being handed a BAG OF OXYGEN about pillow size) if she has an "episode".  ME: You mean seizure? No No not seizure. ME: what is an episode? You will see in her face.  ME: will she get blue? (Ok by now Im a little concerned about what is going on .  Gotten Ken and our guides attention that I need HELP) No you will see.  This is all I'm getting our of her. Oh and take it on the plane.

We ask if we can talk to the Nanny she is looking concerned and upset.  We are told this is just one of her Nanny's nothing special she has lots and they make her leave.  By now the other child has arrived and they are asking questions and we are left standing there.  None of our questions were answered even the simple ones like when did she last eat? when was her last bowel movement? what does she like to be called?

We head back to our hotel with a pale scared tiny little girl, a bag of oxygen, her bottle, some formula, diapers and a roll of toilet paper.  We are so happy to finally have our little girl.