Tuesday, February 17, 2015
FIRST GOTCHA DAY ANNIVERSARY!

A year ago (February 17, 2014), our daughter Sophia, my dear friend Deidra, and I were anxiously awaiting the arrival of Grace, the newest family member to join our family. Kevin and our three sons waited back home. We were standing in a large, clean, modern looking room in the Civil Affairs Office of Guangdong Province. We would spend our entire time in China in Guangzhou as that was the province of Grace’s birth. The night before had been spent enjoying a calm and leisurely meal of delicious Chinese cuisine with our guide John. We would come to depend heavily on John during the next eleven days. We just didn’t know it yet!

From the look on Grace’s face in the pictures her orphanage had already sent us, we could see a beautiful little wisp of a girl looking back. She didn’t exactly have a look of joy on her face in those pictures though. It was more the look of a little one used to keeping her emotions inside, looking like she was part sad, part happy. So, here the three of us stood, waiting to meet Grace. Suddenly, she marched in across the room from us followed by her nannies. She paused to look in our direction, then turned, and kept going to the other room. At first look, Grace seemed larger than her pictures, and the look of determination and grit on her face told us her personality might be a little larger than we had expected as well.

Sophia and I stretched out our hands to welcome Grace as she came back into the room a short time later. Deidra, our own personal paparazzi, stood a little off and snapped photo after photo of our first meeting. You can see in the pictures a little girl whose eyes are wary, whose personality is strong and trying to take charge in a frightening time, and a little one who is competent in her answers to her nannies and to our guide as they talked her through this first meeting with her new mom and sister. We saw a determined, intelligent, strong little girl at first meeting. The orphanage staff who had brought her to us said at parting, “She is very stubborn.” Then they left. Ha! That parting comment should have clued us into what the next few days, weeks, and months of life with Grace would be like.

From the moment we returned to our hotel room and our guide left, life with Grace took on a larger than life appearance. While skyping with her new daddy and brothers, Grace started her first meltdown with us. Our sons went back to bed as Kevin stayed on the skype long into his wee hours of the morning, watching the scene in our hotel room unfold, praying and talking us through it. How can I describe that time in China? From the moment Grace came into our hotel room, throughout the rest of our stay in China, she was frantic, terrified beyond reason, and so very difficult to handle.

In those few moments Kevin witnessed her first meltdown. She had been jumping on the bed behind me as I talked to Kevin, and so I calmly went over and helped her sit down. She immediately became enraged, trying to bite, kick, scratch and rage at me. That strong and determined young lady we had first met was gone. It was heart wrenching to witness. This very damaged, terrified little girl remained. She had meltdown after meltdown the rest of the trip, throwing herself down on the any surface, trying to bang her head on anything she could find, screaming, writhing, biting, kicking, etc. John, Sophia, Deidra, (Kevin and our boys across the world), and I constantly had to problem solve from every angle. Just eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner out, walking down a street, and especially being in governmental offices were fraught with trauma for Grace and for us. We, and loved ones back home, constantly prayed, and with God’s provisions, traveled safely back home at the end of our time in China.
Grace was our fourth child to be brought home, and I am forever grateful that she was not our first adoption because if she had been, we might not have Philip, Elijah, and Sophia home. Our first year with her has been that rough. We have learned a truth about adoption, and it is this. Even though you want to be home with every fiber of your being while in-country with your new child, the really, really difficult work begins once home. And, it was the case with Grace. Even though our time in China was way out of everyone’s comfort zone, Grace’s entry into family life was so much more difficult than any of us could fathom.

Kevin and I could stop the tantrums and Grace throwing herself down when she became frightened and enraged. We could stop the biting, kicking, and acting outrageously in front of others, but we couldn’t stop the effect of a lifetime of trauma we didn’t cause. That has been a long and arduous journey for our entire family.