Day 5 - The Orphanage

Here we are at day 5 already, in a way it feels like we’ve been here for weeks, but now that this day is upon me it seems like I just arrived. For today is the day that we tour the orphanage my youngest was at for a few early moments of life.

Driving up to the orphanage it looks exactly the same as it did years ago when Kim and I had the chance to walk through with our child. Pulling up into the parking lot (I use lot loosely as it was simply a place for the bus to let us off) there are multiple people standing outside awaiting our arrival with smiles and open arms. Departing the bus we were all introduced to the orphanage director and assistant director as we were led into a large meeting room. Many different people were introduced and many, speeches were given all telling how proud everyone is with the orphanage, the children, and our families and adoptions in particular.

From there we are all split into small groups and given separate tours of the orphanage, dad and I were paired with a family from Spain. (a little language barrier as dad and I neither on know Spanish, but we worked it out best we could) We toured a new section of the orphanage that I hadn’t seen before and were told that new earthquake standards had caused the old building to be evacuated as it was not rated high enough with the new regulations. The new building was extremely clean and very nicely built and decorated. There were shoe holders for the children, wooden floors, a toy room, a physical therapy room, I could go on telling of all the different rooms, but I’ll just let you know that I was pleasantly impressed with the apparent care taken in designing the new orphanage.

We got to see a few of the children and I took as many pictures as I was allowed, there are some rooms that I couldn’t take pictures. (like the hospital, and the room with the really young kids – I saw some that were only a month or two old) I was worried that my dad would find this part of the trip boring, but I look up and he has taken a baby from one of the nannies and was holding her and making her giggle by rubbing her chin. This happened more than once, so I think he was having a pretty good time. There were a lot of special needs children with varying problems from cleft lip and hand deformities, to cerebral palsy. The children with special needs involving the brain were considered unadoptable by my guide. I told her that there are families here very willing to accept children with this type of special need but was told that these children would not be on any adoption list. This was some of the saddest news that I had received and just stood dumbfounded as my brain tried to figure out why things work this way.

After the tour we were treated to lunch at the orphanage and had another amazing meal here in China. From lunch it was back to the orphanage where we were all separated and finally found out that we were going to get a chance to view our children’s files. This was amazing and something each and every one of us was secretly praying for. As the file was opened my heart was racing and felt like I may pass out as the first page came into view.

Due to the personal nature of my child’s file I will only share any information that I found there with my immediate family, I hope you all understand this as I’m sure you will.

From there it was back to the meeting room where we had a great question and answer session where all of the families thanked the director for this opportunity and hopped that it was something that would continue in the future. We all tried our best to walk carefully as we didn’t want to be the group that caused anyone to reconsider allowing more families to see their children’s files. We wrapped things up at around five and made our way back to the hotel and then meet for dinner at Pizza Hut next door. Pizza Hut was a nice break from traditional Chinese food and we had a nice comic relief moment. There was one family that wanted to order just a pepperoni pizza but the menu only had options for 5 or 6 pre-designed pizzas. After finally figuring out how to order a pepperoni pizza, you had to order a cheese pizza and add pepperoni, go figure; we all sat and had great conversations waiting for our food. As the pizza came out the waitress didn’t call out “pepperoni pizza”, nor did she say “cheese pizza with pepperoni”, no she came out and announced “American special”. Who would have guessed that a pepperoni pizza would get the name American special?

Well, tomorrow is quite possibly the most important day yet so it’s off to bed for a well deserved night’s sleep.