Gotcha Day and The Day After

DISCLAIMER:  This will be a picture-less post.  We have taken a ton but haven’t taken them off the camera yet.  We will edit/post more tomorrow.

Gotcha Day.  Kyle was brought to our hotel room by our local guide, Missy (we LOVE her) and two representatives from the orphanage – one was Kyle’s primary caregiver and has been since he was a tiny baby.  We got the opportunity to talk to her and ask her a lot of questions and we were given a TON of photos (both digital and in an album of Kyle’s life and Zhifu Children’s Welfare Institute in Yantai City.  We were also given a very nice gift from his orphanage and a list of contact info for other children who’d been adopted from there. 

Kyle walked in to our room and started crying at first but then he smiled and was very cheerful (being coached by his nanny).  He had the photo book that we sent a few months ago and pointed to all of us and said our names.  By the way, Kyle’s Chinese name is Wu Cheng Jin and they call him Jin Jin.  That is what we are calling him now…we’ll work Kyle in as he becomes more comfortable.  He gave kisses, gobbled up the snacks we gave him and dug in to his goody bag (crayons, stickers, a play cell phone, mini etch-a-sketch).  He was all over our room and touching everything.  The reps from his orphanage took a lot of pictures and he was very cooperative and was willing to pose with us. 

After about an hour, we had to go next door and get our family photo taken (which will be embossed on all of our adoption paperwork – thank you Leila Dolan for warning me so I was “prepared” to have my picture taken.  You know me…always vain.  The nanny “snuck out” leaving us alone with Kyle and our guide.  Things were going great until we began switching rooms – we moved rooms within our hotel, more on that later.  The switch was very abrupt and Zack had a complete and utter meltdown as we got in to our new room.  His beloved daddy was carrying another child and we didn’t allow him to push the button on the elevator.  Kyle was somewhat subdued and really doesn’t know what to make of Zack’s “exuberance”.  I’m sure he was thinking “well, the parents seem OK, but I don’t know about this other kid.”  Anyway, as soon as our guide Missy left, Kyle went in to shut down mode.  Although he’d just met her that afternoon, she was the last safe and familiar person that spoke his language.  He sat in the window sill for about an hour.  He allowed me to interact with him but it was clear he didn’t want me to touch him and he didn’t want to move.  He cried a little bit but was mostly exhibiting just very stressed and anxious behavior. 

This lasted through most of the evening and toward bedtime, he snapped out of his funk and began laughing and interacting with us.  He handed me a crayon, called me “mama” and allowed me to feed him some snacks.  He cried when we put him to sleep but that did not last long and he slept the entire night.  He was pretty perky when he woke up and ate a good breakfast.  He was laughing and playing and indicating he wanted to be held. 

Everything was great until we went to the Civil Affairs office to complete the paperwork.  His “nanny” (whom he calls mama) was there and of course, he wanted her instead of me.  To her credit, she tried to sit outside the door while we were doing the paperwork, but he knew she was there and he wanted to go to her.  He was still willing to interact with us, but he did keep trying to run for the door. 

When we left the Civil Affairs office to go to the Notary Office, I gave the nanny a hug and told her thank you for loving our boy.  I was pretty surprised when Missy told me that she’d be accompanying us to the Notary and would be with us throughout the day.  My thought was “why” but I didn’t say anything.  In the van, Kyle sat on her lap and was very content and happy to interact with her.  To her credit, she did half-ass try to steer him back toward me but that wasn’t going to happen.  I wasn’t going to insist that a three year old whose life was just completely disrupted sit with a stranger (even though that stranger happens to be his mom) in a confined space when the woman he thinks is mom is right there. 

When we got to the Notary Office, Kyle decided he wanted nothing to do with me and wanted to be held and cuddled by the nanny.  Again, she did try to send him to sit by me and of course, he was having none of that.  Lee and I did get a little upset – OK a lot – and questioned her presence.  Our response from Missy was that “the nanny loves him and wants to be here with him”.  As harsh as it sounds, we made the call to ask her to leave and not accompany us during the rest of the appointments.  There was no need for her to be there other than her obvious attachment to and concern for Kyle…which I totally get an am grateful for.  The orphanage reps are required to touch base with the family after the 24 hour “harmonious period” – we could have chosen to NOT proceed with the adoption and they would have to take him back to the orphanage.  Her presence the rest of the day was overkill and while I do understand…it wasn’t conducive to our family and our newest family member’s adjustment.  

Kyle did pretty well the rest of the day.  He warmed up more as the day went on.  He “mommy shops” a little bit and has to be directed to me, but by early evening, he was coming up to me and saying “mama” and asking to be picked up.  He gives kisses, feeds me bits of food and holds my hand when I tell him he has to.  He allowed us to give him a bath and wash his hair after some initial trepidation – I didn’t want to stress him out and do this so soon but it is SO HOT here and he was so sweaty and dirty.  It went fine.  He actually enjoyed the bath and the lotion and powder that came after.  He allowed Lee to “trim his nails”…there was no trimming going on, but Lee was cutting Zack’s and Kyle wanted his turn, too.  Kyle did think he was getting his nails trimmed, so I guess that counts.  He let me brush his teeth as well.  We learned this morning that he’d never used a toothbrush, so I wasn’t really going to push that, either, but he saw Zack using his electric Sponge Bob toothbrush, so we brushed his teeth with plain water and he loved it. 

Kyle had another period of stress before bedtime.  He didn’t want to get in to bed while we were reading Zack his story and stood by the bed, pretending not to look, I think.  He about fell asleep on his feet and Lee picked him up and he was out in about thirty seconds.  He’s been asleep ever since. 

All things considered, things are going well.  It was about day four with Zack when we started seeing spontaneous smiling and silliness…while we are seeing some of that with Kyle, he still very much has his guard up and is probably homesick.  He is very loved by his new family and we’re so happy to finally have him. 

So that was the good and the bad – now for the ugly.  Kyle is a beautiful and intelligent child and I can glimpse a little bit of a little “wild man” who is going to compliment Zack’s exuberant personality and probably make me lose my battle with vanity and go “au naturalle” with my true hair color (yes, it’s gray, dammit) sooner than I intended.  That said, he is seriously underweight.  We were expecting a slight of build child but we were not expecting to see skin and bones.  All of the pictures we’ve seen show him in bulky clothes.  He has spindly little legs and arms and his chest is so bony, it’s almost concave and you can see the bones in his spine.  The clothes I brought were 18-24 months and the shorts fall off his bum when I put them on.  I’d guess he’s probably going to need 12 month pants…his shoulders are a little wider than his bottom half and once he fills out, he’ll be able to wear some bigger sizes.  We had to go to a Chinese department store today and buy him some new duds – totally interesting experience (by the way, my new boy likes escalators and sunglasses – and I have another lady killer on my hands).  He is in a size “85” in China – whatever that is and they’re pretty roomy at that. 

I am going to go with the assumption that the orphanage staff (who obviously did care for him) did what they thought was best when it came to his feeding.  There is nothing I can do except go forward and fatten him up and be the best mom that I can.  It was hard today seeing him grieve and hard for me to see how skinny he is and how translucent his skin is.  He seriously needs some meat on his bones and some fresh air and vitamins.  That, and my wonderful cooking.

Zack is doing pretty well for the most part.  I’m really glad we brought him because I think it is making the adjustment easier for Kyle…as in “well, that other kid doesn’t seem to mind them…maybe they’re all right”.  He is not used to having to share his parents or his possessions with anyone else and we’ve had some tears…with Zack those are usually short lived and we ended the day with them holding hands and Zack saying “we’re brothers”. 

Pictures soon…I promise.  He is a peanut but he is really precious and we’re so excited he’s a Robbins!  Cheers, people!