Dec. 16th and 17th - Orphanage Visit (Cheryl)

Here we are, once again, Laurie and I sharing quality time in the bathroom while Kaeli cries herself to sleep. We did not get a chance to blog yesterday, so this is a day and a half blog.

We had good night’s sleep the night before. We went down together for our buffet breakfast, and Kaeli ate her congee and steamed pumpkin and banana and scrambled egg concoction that she loves, while the rest of us tried to get bites in in between. We met the others in the lobby at 9:30am and boarded the bus for a short trip to a tea shop, where we had a tea demonstration and got to try a variety of Chinese teas. We did some tea shopping after the demo, of which I saw half because Ms. Kaeli was getting restless and wanted to run around, which we did.

We went back to the hotel for a nap, which was much shorter than usual unfortunately. Laurie mixed up a marvelous lunch of leftovers on her hot plate for us, which was just delicious.

We met the group in the lobby, and were introduced to Mr. He, the man from the Chinese Chilldren’s Adoption Agency here in China that actually matched our daughters to us. He smiled when he saw Kaeli and told Sarah our guide that he remembered her. Back on the bus again at 2:30pm, and off to the Kunming Social Welfare Institute Orphanage to see where our daughters spent the first months of their lives. The building is bright and cheerful on the outside, and we were allowed to take pictures outside only.

The trip was quite disappointing. We went into one meeting room and presented our donations to an assistant director, who gave us a receipt for them. She signed Kaeli’s memory book with a phrase of good wishes, but would not sign her as name as it is against government regulations evidently. She took us on a tour of the third floor of the building, where we were able to look in the window of the locked door into a lot of sterile, organized rooms that were for the children supposedly, but had no sign of actually having ever been used by a child. We think they were the “show” rooms for visitors. We never got to see actual rooms or actual children, which was very disappointing. We also asked for the things left with our children, notes, clothes, etc., but were told we were not allowed to even see them to protect the babies’ privacy. Kaeli can come back when she is 18 years old and ask for them then, but I can’t see them now. Another disappointment. We were told that the directors, who were going to answer questions for us about our children, were in a meeting and unavailable, and we were not allowed to meet any of their caregivers, either.

As we were leaving, one woman in a blue housekeeping uniform dress called out to Kaeli with her Chinese name and came up to her and talked to her and held out her hands. There was no recognition on Kaeli’s part, which I’m somewhat glad about. I was quite concerned about her seeing a lot of familiar faces and going through separation trauma again, but it didn’t happen.

We came back to the hotel for about an hour and a half, then back on the bus again for dinner and a show. We were seated at a round table at the front of the room next to a stage where they performed ethnic dancing during our meal. It was a loud, noisy, crowded, smoky room and Kaeli didn’t do really well. I feed her, and Mrs. Chen feed her, and then the bus driver took her and walked her around a bit so that I could get a chance to eat. It was a huge bowl of steaming chicken broth to which we added all sorts of other ingredients and rice noodles, and it was delicious. When I got Kaeli back, she ate some more and then pulled a tea cup off the table and broke the lid and the tea contents went down my leg and Mrs. Chen’s. So Kaeli and I got up and went to the back of the room and chased each other around and sat next to each other on steps and entertained ourselves while the rest of the group finished dinner.

Last night was not a good sleep night. Laurie and I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes on my laptop on the bathroom floor for more than an hour waiting for Kaeli to cry herself to sleep. We climbed into bed, and hoped for a good night, but didn’t get one. Kaeli woke up every couple of hours coughing and crying, and then around one started crying hysterically. I picked her up out of the crib and took her into bed with me after about half an hour of this, and we were awake most of the rest of the night. She is really restless and whimpering and thrashing one minute, then cooing and burbling and giggling the next. She kept tossing and flopping and I was worried about her flipping off the side of the bed by accident, so I spent the rest of the night awake tending to her even when she did doze off for short periods.

We did finally get some sleep around 7:30, and were woken up around 9am by a phone call from Dr. Susan wanting adoption papers for processing. We all three got up and I gave Kaeli a bath in the bathroom sink while Laurie took a shower so that we could get some steam into Kaeli’s congested lungs. I think the restaurant was too smoky last night for her, and all the noise and excitement didn’t help either. We were supposed to meet everyone at 9:30am to go shopping for traditional clothes, but we bagged that and stayed home. We had a nice leisurely breakfast, then went for a walk with the stroller around the lake and looked at some of the shops. We visited Kaeli’s first library, too! (At least we went into the building – I think the library closed for lunch just before we got there.) We stopped at a Chinese pharmacy and got some more herbal cold medicine, and then visited Dr. Susan’s room for a dose of herbs for Kaeli’s lungs.

And that brings us up to the bathroom. Kaeli finally fell asleep after 20 minutes of crying, It is now 1pm, and we need to meet everyone for the bus at 2:30. We wouldn’t go, but today is the day we will find the street that Kaeli was abandoned on, on our way to the West Mountains sightseeing. We’re hoping that we have time to come back to the hotel before dinner so that Laurie and I can skip the dinner out and try to get Kaeli a quiet evening in and to bed at a decent time.

Tomorrow is the Stone Forest, and Laurie is going to go to that by herself, while Kaeli and I stay home and try to have a fairly normal quiet day together.