Wednesday June 20, 2007
Today was a day that will never be erased from my memory bank.
We are traveling with 2 other families from our agency. For one family, this is their second adoption and for the other family it is their third. Both families have brought along these beautiful little girls so we have 3 young adopted children traveling with us along with the 3 new babies. The 2 families now share a common orphanage between them. They each have a daughter that is from the Yueyang City SWI. Today we were given permission to visit this orphanage.
Our guide Daphne arranged the visit for the afternoon so we rented the hotel bus and drove north for about 2 hours to the city of Yueyang. Located in the middle of the city, this orphanage is considered a model example and is open for visits. Daphne warned us that the visit would be emotional. She wanted us to remember that most of the children that we see will be placed with families. Emotional was an understatement.
We were taken into a room with about 30 blue painted cribs all lined up in rows. There were 3 babies sleeping in the room in various cribs. They were bundled in a ridiculous amount of clothes with huge blankets on top of them. Orphanages in China are not air-conditioned so you can image how warm it was in the room. Two of the babies that we saw were very young, maybe 3 months old. The other looked to be a boy who was much older. I was holding my emotion in pretty well until the director pointed out to our one family, the crib that their little baby slept in during her stay. Her name card was actually still on the crib because she there just a few short days earlier. I lost it. I had to turn away and stare out the windows while biting my bottom lip. It was too much to take in. To look around the room and think of her life in such a place was so overwhelming. The orphanage director was very nice and remembered the other girl in our group who is now 4. She said she remembered her because of her big beautiful eyes.
Next, we were led into the “play room”. It was a room with a padded floor, some toys and about 15 babies and maybe 4 nannies. The babies appeared to all be under a year or so. There were some special needs children as well. The nannies were all smiling when our group walked in. Most of them had a baby in their lap. Some of the babies were playing; some were just lying on the mat. I think that the thing that struck me the most was their little faces. Not many were smiling and their eyes just looked empty. Sean took some pictures but I just stood there kind of frozen. I saw a toy on the floor that Owen has at home. Lila had fallen asleep in my arms and I just held her tight and tried not to cry. So many thoughts were racing through my mind.
Lila is from an orphanage that is not open to visitors. We sent a disposable camera to the orphanage when we mailed Lila a care package. It was returned unused. I will never see the crib that she slept in. I felt very fortunate to be able to visit today but it really just left me with more wondering.
Today was a day that will never be erased from my memory bank.
We are traveling with 2 other families from our agency. For one family, this is their second adoption and for the other family it is their third. Both families have brought along these beautiful little girls so we have 3 young adopted children traveling with us along with the 3 new babies. The 2 families now share a common orphanage between them. They each have a daughter that is from the Yueyang City SWI. Today we were given permission to visit this orphanage.
Our guide Daphne arranged the visit for the afternoon so we rented the hotel bus and drove north for about 2 hours to the city of Yueyang. Located in the middle of the city, this orphanage is considered a model example and is open for visits. Daphne warned us that the visit would be emotional. She wanted us to remember that most of the children that we see will be placed with families. Emotional was an understatement.
We were taken into a room with about 30 blue painted cribs all lined up in rows. There were 3 babies sleeping in the room in various cribs. They were bundled in a ridiculous amount of clothes with huge blankets on top of them. Orphanages in China are not air-conditioned so you can image how warm it was in the room. Two of the babies that we saw were very young, maybe 3 months old. The other looked to be a boy who was much older. I was holding my emotion in pretty well until the director pointed out to our one family, the crib that their little baby slept in during her stay. Her name card was actually still on the crib because she there just a few short days earlier. I lost it. I had to turn away and stare out the windows while biting my bottom lip. It was too much to take in. To look around the room and think of her life in such a place was so overwhelming. The orphanage director was very nice and remembered the other girl in our group who is now 4. She said she remembered her because of her big beautiful eyes.
Next, we were led into the “play room”. It was a room with a padded floor, some toys and about 15 babies and maybe 4 nannies. The babies appeared to all be under a year or so. There were some special needs children as well. The nannies were all smiling when our group walked in. Most of them had a baby in their lap. Some of the babies were playing; some were just lying on the mat. I think that the thing that struck me the most was their little faces. Not many were smiling and their eyes just looked empty. Sean took some pictures but I just stood there kind of frozen. I saw a toy on the floor that Owen has at home. Lila had fallen asleep in my arms and I just held her tight and tried not to cry. So many thoughts were racing through my mind.
Lila is from an orphanage that is not open to visitors. We sent a disposable camera to the orphanage when we mailed Lila a care package. It was returned unused. I will never see the crib that she slept in. I felt very fortunate to be able to visit today but it really just left me with more wondering.
No comments:
Post a Comment