We are the strangers

Most people love babies. However, most people do not love hanging out with babies in the pint-sized jail otherwise known as the church nursery.

I served my tour of nursery duty on three (yes, three) of the Sundays prior to our China departure.

I tried to look on the bright side of this sentence - er, opportunity. After all, my youngest son is nearly five, so my baby/toddler skills have faded. I needed the practice.

And, truly, it wasn’t so bad. On the third Sunday I had a light bulb moment. The thing that makes people hope and pray that they aren’t picked for nursery duty isn’t the actual caring for babies part. It’s that, every Sunday, without fail, there are babies that don’t want to be cared for. At least, not cared for by nursery workers.

By strangers.

I thought about this as I tried to console one particularly sad little boy that day. I offered him toy after toy, snack after sippy drink, rocking chair after bouncing walk. No song, game, or comfort would help his grief. He wanted his parents.

He wanted familiar.

And then, I remembered what is about to take place for my daughter-to-be. And my heart ached.

In a less than two days, she will be taken from everything she has ever known. The orphanage hustle and bustle, the blur of caretakers and volunteers, the other children and friends. The flowered toddler chair, the giant Hello Kitty doll, and the meal table that comes up to her forehead.

Thankfully, she will be taken from hunger, from inattention, from peeling green paint, from rickety wooden cribs, and from urine soaked outfits.

From watching roommates die.

But she will be taken from so much more. She will be thrust into the arms of two people who look, talk, smell, and act different from what she is used to. We will eat strange food, wear strange clothes, and make strange gestures. Twelve days later she’ll board an airplane and leave behind even more: her culture, language, and people. Her roots. And no matter how much we cherish her heritage and honor her past, it will still be a traumatic. It will still be a loss. When she someday walks the streets of her birth city, she will be more likely to feel like a foreigner than the ethnically Chinese person that she will always be. A complete outsider in the land to which she once belonged.

I’ve followed other adoptive families as they chronicle their new children’s transitions. Many have found the depths of their children’s grief to be shocking, no matter how prepared they thought they were beforehand. Some children completely shut down and appear unresponsive, even demonstrating autistic-like behaviors for days. Others stop eating, drinking, or sleeping. Still others stay in “charm mode” for a period, then their grief breaks free once they arrive to their new home, or even several months later.

It’s a bit ironic that one of the comments we’ve heard most about out impending adoption is that “She is going to be SO HAPPY!” And while we certainly hope that she will eventually feel happiness, my hunch is that she will feel a lot like the babies in the church nursery. Maybe multiplied by a million. Plus, she had no choice in what is about to take place. We pray that she will someday agree that our decision was the best for her. But it won’t make the potential anguish any easier right now.

My desire is that we will be enough for her during this transition, but I know in my heart that we cannot. So I hope that our prayers will fill in the gaps, comfort her grief, heal her wounds, and allow her to accept our love.

*Our daughter will be placed in our arms at around 2:30 pm Monday afternoon, which is 2:30 am Monday in the States. Prayers are much appreciated!*