The Ending and the Beginning

This is Part III of a series of posts - the last installment of our journey to adopt our daughter from China.  You can read Parts I and II by clicking the links below or scrolling down.

Part I - The Beginning

Part II - The Middle

Said it before, sayin' it again...be nice if you leave a comment.  That's all I got.

The word I would use to describe our arrival back in the states is trepidation.  I was fearful.  Run-down.  Tired.  Sick.  Emotionally wrung out.  Physically spent.  Bruised inside and out.  And so concerned about what we had just done to our family. 

Keira had worn me down.  Worn us down.  Every positive interaction (albeit few and far between) was met with bewildered stares between AB and I.  Almost shrugging our shoulders as if to say "I don't know what she's doing??"  There were isolated smiles or singular touches of her little hand.  Almost invisible if you were watching from the outside.  We were too wounded to see any of her positive behavior as a sign of healing.  Maybe that sounds strange to you, but from this seat it was even stranger.

We were constantly taken aback by how much our long-term ideas of Keira were so vastly different from our new reality.  Over and over...like someone throwing ice-cold water in your face.  Dream...reality.  Dream....reality.  Our time in China was riddled with "cold-water" experiences and we came home numb.  Shockingly numb.  Even if she did smile, at that point we wrote it off as a passing fancy.

The first few days at home were terrible.  No, let me re-phrase that.  The first few days home were some of the hardest of my life.  That's truth.

And it wasn't Keira.  No, no.  It was Quint.  He had lost his mind in our absence.  I could go on and on...but just know that three weeks apart from your parents when you're two...in a strange new place, with family you don't get to see too often...all the rules are out the window, the regular schedule and

routine...even the regular discipline - gone.  Then you come back home and the first thing you see is your parents holding this little baby and she's in your "spot" up there in Mom and Dad's arms.  

It was bleak.  Grim, I tell you.  He was one of the unhappiest two-year-olds I've seen.  The grieving moved from Keira to Quint.  While she, bless her heart, started to get comfortable in her new surroundings...with her new family...in her new home and bed...poor Quint wailed for a week  straight.  Nothing consoled him.  He was completely affronted that this new baby was in his home.  He was trying desperately to re-acclimate to Anton and I - to his routine - to his life...and here was this new little person, always getting in the way, always needing, always there.

For whatever reason, this had not occurred to me.  This grieving and loss that my son would endure.  Perhaps because I was so completely overwhelmed upon returning from China - and what we had gone through - that I didn't think...didn't imagine that he would be anything but excited and glad to see us.  Instead he was angry.  Indignant even.  Pushing every limit.  Crossing every boundary.  Crying endlessly.  Whining tirelessly.  Wanting his own bottle (he gave them up a year ago).  Wanting baby toys.  Baby food.  To be held like a baby, rocked like a baby...to watch baby programs, to be babied.  And the tantrums...oh the tantrums.  

One afternoon I sat on the floor and cried, while he kicked and screamed and tantrumed beside me.  I said "I want my son back...I want my little boy...the one I left three weeks ago" and on and on I cried and he cried and we finally spent our energy on tears and just laid there exhausted from our mutual tantrum.  

There were other moments when I would feel so overwhelmed between the on-going grieving of both of my children that I would just crawl into bed at night and cry next to Anton.  Him sleeping and me trying to stifle my sobs so as not to wake him.  Puffy eyes the next morning while making bottles, pouring cereal and folding laundry.  So glamorous.

The stress level was a 10.  Forget that.  Level 10 doesn't cover it.  Call it 20.  Days this went on, and day in and out I felt like it would never, ever end.  

Keira was acclimating slowly...but she was acclimating.  She seemed to enjoy her home.  Seemed to really snuggle into her new bed.  She appeared to appreciate that we started a schedule right away - with feedings, naps and bedtime that now came at regular predictable intervals.  I could see right away that this routine gave her deep comfort.  It was almost tangible, in a way.  She was happier.  Rested.  More content.  And thus, more prone to laugh, smile, or touch.  But not too prone.  Just a bit.

Think what you will of us - but we were still brokenhearted.  Anton and I would check in with each other frequently...often several times a day - how do you feel, are you feeling any better about her, is she making progress, do you feel yourself bonding yet, do you love her, is she coming around, are you coming around, are we getting there?  I can tell you that each time and for several days...maybe for the first couple weeks - the answers were usually "not really" or "I guess a little bit" or "sort-of".  Not the dream...the reality.  Cold water...over and over.

The house was a royal wreck.  The laundry piling up.  The suitcases sitting, waiting to be opened and unloaded.  Even that felt too monumental.  Re-live that trip by unraveling those overwhelming weeks of travel from out of those suitcases?  No, thank you.

I was living Groundhog Day - the movie. Every day the same.  Four bottle feedings, Quint's meals, twenty-seven hundred diaper changes between the two of them, blankets and play-time, and tantrums, crying, toys everywhere, dishes everywhere, and grieving and napping and a blur of the same thing over and over and over again for days on end.  Lots and lots of sweatpants and baggy shirts and unkempt hair.  Oh the humanity! (heh)

And can I just tell you?  All those things I had collected for her over the four years we waited? Couldn't have cared less about each and every one.  Her outfits?  Whatever...  Her hairbows and frilly dresses...assortments of books, toys, purses...all of that?  Did not care.  I dressed her in clothing that seemed comfortable for her - and usually it was a plain onesie and cotton pants.  Or pajamas.  Sometimes just pj's all day long.  Seems silly maybe - but oh the dreams I had over those four years of dressing her in all those perfectly beautiful outfits...  The Dream?  No...sadly, the reality.  Ice cold water.  

So two weeks went by after coming back home and we saw people who had cheered us on prior to our trip...had encouraged us along the way, held us up, motivated and strengthened us.  We saw them...introduced them to Keira and we tried to smile.  Tried to put on a brave face and tell the good stuff that people like to hear.   But the pity-party we were having behind closed doors was vast.  I'm sad to admit that to you.  It's just the truth.  We were knee deep in change, and it wasn't feeling good at all.  Our lives were different, yes - but our reality was so different than the images we had conjured up for so long...so very different...it was painful to have to reconcile them to the truth. 

Keira started to make obvious emotional progress by week three.  We're on week five now, since coming home, so I'll share with you the overall view.

They were little things at first, like I mentioned.  A smile here.  A giggle there.  A wiggle/giggle here and there.  Then came the relaxed nature.  A sort of...I don't know...internal sigh from her.  She would sit and chatter away on her blanket during playtime.  She would smile more easily when I would talk to her.  She would reach out to me when I approached her to pick her up.  She was warming up.

Then came the laughter.  For so long, my attempts to make her laugh were met with a chagrin.  Literally.  She would wrinkle up her forehead and pull her eyebrows together in a scowl.  That morphed into a deadpan expression.  Followed by a slight grin.  Then...and without notice...a full-on belly laugh.  It took weeks in each others space to hear that deep, honest belly laugh.  Content...happy...safe laugh.  One that almost made me weep with joy.

Slowly, so slowly...she began to touch my face during her bottle feedings.  Remember, she would not let AB or I feed her unless she was facing away from us or had no skin contact.  Suddenly, she was cuddled into the crook of my arm, and touching my face.  Gently.  Exploring and trying to memorize me.  Feeling my cheeks and my nose, my mouth.  Her little chubby fingers running back and forth over my lips.  I cried the first time.  Like salve on my wounded heart.  She was accepting me in her way.  Saying to me that she was getting there.  That she was trying...

Hold on to me, she said.  Don't give up.  I'm almost there...wait for me.

One night while she happily chugged away at her bottle and held my face in her hand, I said her name "Keira".  She immediately looked into my eyes.  I said "I waited a long time for you, did you know that?"  Her eyes stayed on mine.  "I love you so much...I would wait so much longer"...and I nuzzled her nose.  She smiled and cooed.  Then I realized what I'd said.

I love you so much.

Just like that.

I hadn't said that before.  Hadn't said "I love you".  It was too hard to say.  Too hard to mean it. 

Then I realized what else I had just told her.  I would wait so much longer.  And maybe what I really meant by that was "I will wait for you, even though we're together now.  I'll wait for you."

And I knew that I meant it.  What a peace came over me.

From that moment, we changed, she and I.

Call it what you like...bonded, falling in love, the "moment", the "magic"...whatever you like.  But she became to me what I had been waiting for.  My little daughter.

The past three weeks have been good to us.  Hold on to your hats...I've actually used the terms angel, sweet little love, baby doll, sweet baby, mommy's princess, pumpkin, and sweet-girl to both reference her and describe her.

The real progress being that I actually mean those things.  She is my princess.  My angel.

Anton loves to say "so do you think you're bonding to our girl, Mommy??" with a big grin on his face, as I'm covering her with kisses or tickling her chubby little legs, or squeezing her tightly to me and cooing at her.

I kiss her all day.  I snuggle her, squeeze her, and hold her close.  I love the way she smells.  She smells so good.  Fresh and sweet, just like a baby girl should.  Her hair is so soft.  Her skin is so soft.  Her feet tiny and perfect and adorable.  Her fingers perfect and chubby.  Her eyes...so big and beautiful and her eyelashes...long and stunning.  Her cheeks, edible.  Her legs and tummy...round and full and so...squish-able.   Her smile melts my heart.  Her laughter...contagious.  You can't help but to love her.

Still, I could say none of this before.  Because I didn't see her.  It hurt too much to get close to her.  She wouldn't let me see those things.  Couldn't let me.  It hurt her too bad.

I will tell you, there are moments when I regress just a little.  When she regresses just a little.  When we panic just a little bit.  She still has moments of raw grief that are hard on all of us.  The hands will pull away.  The back will arc just a bit.  She pulls away from the kisses.  She cries too long...and won't be comforted.  I panic, I can't lie.  I'm always a step away from where we were.  Trying desperately to run the other way and get us as far away from that searing pain as possible.  We can't go back, I shout in my mind.  We can't go back...it hurt so bad.

But sometimes that's how grief operates.  Regress.  and back.  Regress.  and back.  Like the waves.  Like that...for a long time until suddenly you can't really remember when all that crazy stopped.  You're just so glad it did.

We have a ways to go.  But I see now more than ever who she is and who we didn't see in China.  Who we couldn't see...through her hurt and pain and brokenness.  It makes me ache.  I want to go back and love her better in those moments.  Understand her more.  See her.  Hear her.

Maybe it wouldn't matter.  Maybe it would hurt just as bad, sting just as much, wound just as deep.  Because her pain is her own - and she did with it all she could and the only way she knew.  But oh, if I could only have side-stepped my own deep pain to love her better through hers.

I think we learn this way.  By looking back and using that view to better carve the one in front of us. It's how we grow and change and move on.  Experiencing my own deep grief over broken dreams while she experienced her own brokenness actually put us in the same place at the same time.  Crossing each other in our pain.  How could we have met in the middle and made peace with each other any other way?  Her with me.  Me with her.  I accept you.  I trust you with me.  Taking tiny baby steps towards finding comfort in each other.

People have asked me if I would have loved Keira sooner/better/more if she had behaved in China the way she does here at home...happy and comforted and giggling all the time.  Certainly.  I imagine I would have had a lot better bonding experience.  It goes without saying, I think. 

But there is something to say for the pain and how it carves you differently than joy does.  It marks you differently.  I look at Keira and I say "look how far we've come" every day.  I think  "you can do it, baby girl!  Keep trying...keep reaching for me...I promise to meet you there" and I feel my heart expanding deeper and wider when I'm with her because I'm so proud of her and how far she has come.  How much she has overcome to be present with me.  How much she has parted with and yet still can smile, laugh, and learn to love all over again.

It's the path we're on - and there's no use wondering how different it would have been had she been a different baby in China.    Had she grieved differently or not at all.  Had she been healed instead of broken.  No use because we'll never know.

We only know where we are and how far we've come.  And it's a long, long way from those hot, frustrating, agonizing first moments in Civil Affairs.  A long, distant way from those hours that felt like years in each of those hotel rooms as we struggled to keep our heads above water...struggled just to hold her or to speak any words of comfort.  From those tangibly painful moments of rejection that are etched in my memory.  We're far away from that.  Safe.  Sound...and recovering. 

We're reconciling ourselves.  Righting ourselves. 


Reconciliation is a strange thing.  Trying to bring two things together.  Two lives, two kids, two parents, two countries.  In our case, once again, it was the dream versus the reality.  We HAD to reconcile them.  Make peace with them.  Find a way to have them meet in the middle, make amends, and try to move forward.  Everything in you says "no, it's not possible" and yet...

Our journey would involve grief.  That was that.  There was nothing to do for it, but let it happen.  Our daughter was her own person...had her own feelings even at her tender age, whether we could accept it or not.  She was broken in her own rite.  There was not a magic wand to wave and make her pain or her humble beginnings disappear, as much as I wished for it in those first days together.

Quint, though only two, could not be convinced his sister was safe or would be a good and happy part of his life.  He had to and still has to figure it out for himself.  Learn how to grieve and let go that he is no longer the sole-center of our attention.  Accept that he has a sister who will depend on him as they grow older...and hopefully learn to depend on each other as the years go by.

Anton and I are no longer parents of one amazing boy.  We are parents of one amazing boy and one amazing girl.  Each different, each unique, each special.  Each abandoned...breaking my heart to type those words.  But each found.  Each a part of us forever.  That's reality.  Reconciled, painful, endearing, beautiful reality.

We wanted children.  That was the dream.  We have two beautiful children.  One little boy from Ethiopia.  One little girl from China.  Two countries.  Two parents.  Two children.  Not what we thought.  Not even what we dreamed all those years ago when we said "I do".  But so much better than the dream.  So much better. 

As for the future, time will tell.  Right now, we're certainly still in recovery.  Still healing.  Still finding each other.  Still learning.

But we've committed ourselves to a goal that involves adoption.  A goal that involves children.  I have no idea how it will pan out - what it will look like - or even if it will involve us adding to our own little family.  I just know we are certainly listening for God's timing and His will.  And not getting rid of any baby clothes just yet.

In the meantime, it's just the Beginning...

Posts Coming up:  "Redeemed" and "A Letter of Thanks".  Don't miss them!

Meanwhile

Ok, so I'm working on "The Ending", Part III of my recent adoption experience.  It's not that I have writers block - it's that technically it's a book.  So I'm paring it down and trying to remember that as with my own life, there are only so many hours in the day for any of you to actually read through this stuff...and since like me, many of you probably follow several other blogs and websites...well, I'm paring.  

Also, I'm tired.  My blogging time is limited to after children around these here parts meet their pillows, which has been around 8pm.  By the time that's done, dinner is cleaned up, last minute chores are snuffed out, I get a few intelligible adult sentences in with the hubs, and my pj's are on (ok, let's be honest...the pj's were already on.  ok,  fine! they were never off from the night before.  nosy.)  I'm too tired to do what I'm doing right now.  Ahem.  I keep thinking "tonight is the night I'll finish it" and tonight isn't.  And neither was last night.  Based on the current agenda for tomorrow, it doesn't look good.  Sorry.  (like as if you're waiting with baited breath, eh?)  But I did promise it, and I will make good on that very soon...give me a couple more days. 

Also, I'm trying to purge the heck out of this place.  I'm not sure if I have cabin fever or Spring fever, but I have a major itch to rid the house of all things lame and unnecessary that are cluttering up my life and what little precious space I have left in this tiny abode.  We are crammed unceremoniously into each and every room, and I'm (double sigh) tired of it.  I think perhaps it's the nice weather - but it makes me want to slap on a pair of capris (livin' dangerous, I tell ya!) and throw my way too short hair up in a pony and get to cleaning.  And purging.  Purging and cleaning.  

Know what's annoying?  We just had that huge rummage sale, but I feel like I have tons more stuff to get rid of.  How is that even possible, I ask myself.  I'll tell you how.  Because once Keira came home and we had a handle on her age/size/etc. I knew what we could keep vs. what could go.  Clothes seem to be the big-one.  They are everywhere.  Just everywhere.  So I've made it through the kid's closets and dressers and now we can decide what to do with all that.  

And here's a little diddy for the moms out there:  I asked AB what I should do with all those clothes currently littering our hallway.  Donate?  Give to a friend?  What about consignment?  Yeah, that's a great idea!

But his answer?  Totally deadpan and serious as a freaking heart-attack?

"You probably better save all those clothes for our next one..."

Cough!  Sputter!  Uh-huh....I'll get right on that, O Captain, my Captain. 

I'm gonna be a freaking vegetable by the time my kids are like, 12 or something.  Gonna need a  lift on the van and a ramp at the house during the high-school years as it is, just to get my old decrepit self up to the front door.

Would someone puuuhlease get over here and advise that lovely man of mine on the grace period after bringing home a new child...that magic "no-fly" zone of conversation where we don't even murmur, breath, or hint about that for a very long time?  Holy Cow.  Maybe not for you, but for me?  I'm not ready to talk about that yet.  Or even whisper about it, for crying out loud.  

After all, I have a post in the wings titled "The Ending" and I'm not just talking bout' the experience,  Criminy!  Meh.  Gah!  Why'd he have to go and say that?  I might lose my ever lovin' mind just pondering what he's implying.  Did you read my last two posts?  He was there for all that mayhem.  What makes him so resilient, I would love to know?!? 

Well, then again...they are pretty spectacular...maybe they make him resilient...

 

  

  

  

  

  

Mmmkay.  It's ridiculous...I know...and I can't even take credit for how ridiculously cute they are either...it's certainly not my DNA.  

Mucho love-o from Camp Tired,

We interrupt this three part saga for...

 

  

  

  

  

  

and maybe it's just me, but I think they look alike...or sort of...in a cute kid squealing sort of way

 

My goodness, they are something...

The Middle

This is Part II of a three-part post.  You can read Part I "The Beginning" by clicking here or scrolling down.  

Gentle reminder that I prefer we do as our mothers taught us:  if you don't have anything nice to say, don't leave it in my comments.  

This particular portion of our story is so difficult for me to relive long enough to get it down.  I don't think we could put enough distance between the experience and the telling of it to actually assuage the pain associated with it.  So, in other words - no time like the present to get it out.  

I'm asking for one kindness: understand.  Understand that it's hard to re-tell, but oh so necessary and cathartic.  Understand that I want truth and so should you.  Understand me.  Understand the meaning behind the words...that some will seem unkind or hard, maybe even seem immature or childish, maybe foolish or in poor taste.  Just try to understand me.  Try to see, feel or experience this the way we did.  Understand me.  Understand her.

And so it goes...

When Keira was handed to me in those first moments in China, those first frantic overwhelming moments, she went rigid.  Not just on the outside - which you could hardly tell if you weren't holding her, because of the massive amounts of layers she was wearing.  On the inside too.   She cried a deep agonizing cry.  There was no salve, no remedy, no clear-cut path to fixing it.  

At first, I was sad for her.  "Oh sweet baby...it's ok...I know...I know".  Like that.  Then I was a little flustered.  Think what you will of me, but I crossed over to frustrated fairly quickly.  We were in that room for about 40 minutes total and I went through those stages in rapid order.  I was panicked I think, on some level.  Why isn't she stopping?  Is she hot?  Is she hungry?  Wet?  Confused?  

Angry?

Sad?

Either or all of them...she was screaming.  I was so sure of myself coming into this moment.  The arrogance...the (remember) cavalier know it all...so sure I would flip my wrist and all would be well.  That even if she cried, she would be calmed by my "expert" mothering.  (oh help me! it's so hard to type it)  That she would be upset, but once I worked my mommy magic, we would be seeing smiles and hearing giggles.  Seeing the girl in the pictures.

That didn't happen.  I think you know by now.

Instead, my mind was a jumble of thoughts.  In a room full of people, I made every effort to keep my cool...stay calm...find a solution.  I took off her coat and a jacket underneath that.  She was sweating profusely.  I retrieved a toy from our bag, but she was not interested.  I walked her around, rocked her, spoke to her, sang to her, rubbed her back, wiped away her tears over and over...smoothed the sweat from her brow.  All the while looking on as the other new parents in the room held their already sleeping or otherwise calm babies.  Only one other child was carrying on as Keira was...and she was 2.  This did not comfort me.  I felt so alone in those moments.  So conspicuous.  So raw.

Nothing was effective.

AB took over after I caved in defeat.  She didn't want me in that moment and I was already working to accept that our magic moment was not going to be.  Not right now.  Maybe not today.  And somewhere in the back of my heart I heard "maybe not for a long time" and I brushed it aside quickly.  That was more than I could accept.

I have to tell you; I wanted to curl up and cry myself.  It's not pretty to say, but I was already crushed that she would not be comforted.  Would not be comforted by me.  I was totally frazzled and taken off-guard by her reaction.  I needn't have felt so alone...it became abundantly clear that she wanted nothing to do with AB either.  

Our travel mates gave us pats on the shoulders...hoping to extend comfort to us through glances and brief words of encouragement. 

I told myself that once we left, she would stop crying.  The room was too hot.  There were too many people.  She was hungry.  She was wet.  She was hot.  She was uncomfortable.  She was...angry.

Not a moment too soon I heard our guide calling out to us "ok, we can go now".  Back to the hotel and maybe we could get control of this.

I can tell you now, we did not.  Not really.  Not there.

What I want to tell you now is not a play by play of every day of the rest of that trip.  It's not important to this telling.  I could rattle off to you detail after detail and all we saw and did - and it would not matter here and now.  Factually speaking, we saw many wonderful sites.  We ate wonderful meals and some not so wonderful.  We loved many, many things about China.  Some things, not as much. 

I want to tell you what really happened in those days from the moment she was in my arms to the moment our plane landed in the USA.  

Understand me.  She was angry.  Angry like no other 7-month old I've ever known or even heard of.  Angry to her core.  Hurt.  Wounded.  Broken.  Angry.

The three days following our first meeting she rejected every single attempt at affection, love, care, and physical contact that Anton and I brought to her.  She wanted nothing to do with us.

Her preference was not to be touched at all.  She would tolerate only her basic needs being met.  She allowed (and I use that word intentionally) us to hold her, but generally only if she was in the Bjorn and facing away from us.  She did not allow us to touch her hands or face without jerking away and going rigid.  Often if we would touch her hands, she would cry.  

If I looked into her eyes and tried to speak love to her, she would cry.  So would I.

She cried when we tried to feed her - and for 24 hours, she refused food.  When she did eat, she came to reject the idea that we were the ones delivering the food.  She wanted almost no skin contact.  Once I captured Anton struggling to get her to eat.  She exhasuted herself struggling away from him - so he finally put pillows between his skin and hers.  She was red with fury and sweaty from crying.

She cried when she was held and she cried when she was put down.  Not a painful cry.  An angry, furious cry. 

She would lose herself in her crib, playing with a toy and coo-ing to herself.  When I would approach her to attempt interaction, she would see my face and begin wailing.  Recognition that she did not want to accept.  Still you.  You again?  When will you leave me alone.

She felt the same for her new Daddy.

She would wake in the night crying and I would reach out a hand to comfort her instantly.  She would turn to face me, and upon seeing who was offering the comfort...she would scream and cry until I would stop touching her.

I want to tell you what this does to your heart.  And it's not pretty.  

I was so angry with her.  Rejection.  Total and utter rejection.  Honestly?  You think irrationally.  We made a mistake.  What have we done to our little family?  What were we thinking?  It's not too late.  We haven't left China yet.  It's not done yet.  

Irrationally.  I can never love a baby that behaves this way.  We've ruined our son's life.  This is not my daughter...it can't be.  This is not Keira.  It's not.  I can't do this.  We can't do this.  This was such a mistake. 

We went through checklist after checklist.  Hunger?  No.  Gas?  No.  Teething?  Yes, but we had a pediatric nurse in our group and we took care of any medical issues that arose.  She was not in physical pain. 

She was in deep emotional pain.  And every time I held her only served to remind her that she was in that pain and why.

On and on she cried and refused us.  Day after day.  Morning and night.  Nights were the hardest.  Every evening like clockwork, she would grieve heavily.

I can tell you what hurt the most.  Looking at her and feeling....nothing.  Except anger and hurt.  Nothing except pain.  Nothing.

The rejection was overwhelming.  We had waited so long, labored so hard, rallied so many people to our side...raised the funds, waited the excruciating process out, renewed and renewed the paperwork, prayed for her, cried over her, loved her...

Maybe we just loved the idea of her.  It certainly wasn't love we were feeling in those hotel rooms all over China.  It was obligation.

You might think this is cold of me.  I do too, in a way.  I felt cold.  I felt numb.  I had compassion for her, but I was so hurt I could not use it to my advantage.  I had feelings for her, but they were broken up.  I wanted to love her, and hold her, and comfort her...weep with her and cradle her.  Tell her she was safe and that we had come to rescue her.  But she did not want to be rescued.  How could she know what that would mean to her?  She's so little...so hurt herself.  What could rescue mean when all she wanted was familiar, comfortable, known...and we had none of that to give her.

A friend reached out to me with words of hope..."you promised to love and care for her...start with care and love will come later".  I hung on those words.  I read and re-read them day in and out.  Care for her.  Do the basics.  Like you're babysitting. 

Days bled together, honestly.  The crying and wailing continued.  The stoic baby we did our best to care for.  I felt totally trapped.  I told my husband "she hates me".  He said "she doesn't hate you".  But he left it there.  What more could he add?  He was feeling the same way. 

We were tired and worn down emotionally.  On excursions she would charm the locals and even our travel group.  Smiling and cooing.  It was those moments I tried to snap pictures of her to share with those back home. I have many, in fact.  Smiling Keira.  Even giggling in some.  But unhappiness seeped around the corners of her eyes and you could see she was coping the only way she knew.

I heard that others in our group were beginning to experience some of the same issues with their little ones.  It gave me comfort to know I wasn't alone.  It made me sad and left me feeling we were wrong for doing this to her.  Wrong for taking her from her home.

I knew we weren't technically "alone", but after a long night of Keira screaming and refusing to be comforted, our hotel neighbor and travel-mate offered me a hug and an understanding sigh the next morning.  She had heard it all.  She couldn't even find the words to try and support me in that moment.  She knew it was bad.  Keira was crying herself to sleep...exhausting herself until she could fight us no more.  Everyone had to be able to hear it.

And I think many of them knew what we went through.  Because I was lousy at hiding my pain.  I was tired.  Exhausted.  Of her.  I know how bad that sounds.  It does to me too.  But it's the truth.  

I felt so bad for Quint.  What had we done?  What had we brought down on him?  This crying, inconsolable, broken, angry little girl that would want nothing to do with him.  What had we done to our sweet boy?  How much would he lose when we had to devote so much of ourselves to her and her pain?  I had never imagined I would be thinking these thoughts...but here they were...biting at me and tormenting me.

And I know what you might be thinking.  Maybe that I was childish to think she would be fine to begin with.  Maybe that it was immature to have those dark thoughts and not to give her time.  Maybe that I didn't give her a chance. 

Funny thing about crisis - you don't think clearly or rationally.  You think that right now feels like forever.  It feels like forever, I can vouch.  Sweet Lord, it feels permanent and never-ending.

What if she never accepts us?  What if she develops severe Reactive Attachment Disorder?  What if we get home and she spends the next 18 years rejecting us and our love?  Could I handle that?  Could I love her anyway?  Could I accept her or hurt her more by struggling to love her?  How would this hurt our family?

Over and over and over...

Each day I would wake up and smile at her and each day she would wake up and see me and cry.  Each day I would hold her and she would squirm away from my touch.  Each day I would feed her the only way she would accept it.  Facing away from me.  If I tried to hold her like an infant and feed her, she would squirm and cry and push me away.  Unfathomable to me.  I was so broken.

Where was my little girl?  Where was my Keira Joy?

I would like to say that looking back, each day improved a little bit while we were still there.  By "little bit" I am implying hardly at all.  That's what you should hear.  A little bit meaning - not much at all. 

On the outside looking in, she was smiling to others and behaving normally.  Crying at normal intervals, eating, sleeping, etc.  It was behind closed doors that she unleashed her pain.  The only time I felt free from her was when she slept - and it was fitful sleep at best.  It nearly broke me.

I was devastated.  Weak from the brokenness I felt.  Shattered on the inside, trying to smile on the outside.

My strong wonderful husband...amazing father to our son...also so deeply wounded by her rejection of us.  

Walls had gone up that I didn't realize.  We were protecting ourselves now.  Going through the motions of her proper care.  But inside...oh the pain and despair.  Wondering how we could have misjudged ourselves so badly.  Wondering how someone so small could make us feel smaller.  Could make us hurt so badly.  

When my son was placed in my arms for the first time, it was love at first sight. First touch.  I loved him with a deep abiding love that has not wavered for one second of his little life.  I adored him.  I cherished him so deeply from that first moment on.

I did not love Keira.  Think what you will, but I am speaking truth even if it's ugly to hear.  I tolerated her.  I longed for her.  I longed for my own version of her. But I did not love her.  I merely did whatever it took to get through a day.

There was no magic.  There was no bonding.  Just three people trying to make it through that trip.  Trying to get home and figure it out.  

I've looked over the pictures...many times.  I see her smiling and I know it was through a lot of cajoling.  And it almost looks sincere to me.  But I know it was in the midst of a lot of confusion and pain for her.  There were moments I think she just forgot on some level, and let herself giggle or smile for us.  I have the pictures as a reminder to myself that the pain I felt was also calmed by those rare moments we could get a smile or laugh out of her.  It was a hope offering of sorts that we were given to get us through.  And it worked...because we did get through it. 

Each day we would see her smile and say to each other "I know she's in there...somewhere...under all this pain...you can see it when she smiles".  It would melt us.  Melt our tired hearts and give us reason to believe that she was that smiling happy baby somewhere underneath the rejection.  Somewhere down inside, she was this amazing beautiful girl...and we had to find a way to get to her.

But oh, I wanted it to be so much more.  I wanted it to be pretty.  I wanted it to be amazing.  But it wasn't.  It was painful.  It was broken and long and heart-wrenching.  

I wanted to scream at her "do you know how long and far I have come to be your mother?  How much I have sacrificed?  How much others have sacrificed?  How many people love you already and have prayed for you and longed for you?  Don't you know how much you are wanted?"  

But it would have made no difference, as you know.  For she could neither understand nor did she know or comprehend any of that.  How could she?  Of course she couldn't.  And so I just felt it to my core and wished she could for both of us.

I believe that Keira was very attached to her nannies.  She had two dedicated to her.  Just her.  She slept with them, and I believe was carried a lot.  She was well-fed as you can tell, and from the pictures in the orphanage we could see her big smiling face - telling us she had a big personality. 

 That she was happy at one time.  That it was possible to see her smile again...a meaningful unfettered smile that came naturally and instinctively to her little face.  Not cajoled or forced.

What she knew with us was her own deep pain.  Her loss.  Her deep cutting loss.  She knew that her nannies were no more.  Gone, just like her mother.  Everything...every single thing was different.  Sights, smells, tastes, clothes, temperature, beds, people, eyes, words, voices...faces...so different. 

Can you imagine that loss?  I can't.  Maybe that's why I felt so inadequate to care for her pain in those moments.  

In those days, I tried over and over to remind myself of this.  But I would hold her little hand to extend myself to her, and she would rip it out of my grasp.  I would kiss her cheek, and she would arc her back and arms away from me, whining.  I would hold her feet, hoping she wouldn't notice - and she would twist and turn to get away.  I would try to cradle her at night, and she would struggle, arc her back again, and cry until I would release her.

So painful to even think of it now.

This is how it went, my friends.  For the whole of our trip.  And I've wanted to share it with you because it matters.  

My heart was broken.  But its healing.  My spirit was broken, but its mending.  My pride was humbled and my mouth, too quick to give advice, silenced.

I've come to learn in a short time what good lessons these are.  How they grow you.  How they move you.  How they force your hand at change and that goodness comes from them.  Can come from them, if you're willing.

Coming home was profound in so many ways, but that's The Ending, and it's not time for that just yet.  

Let me tell you about tonight.  Yes, tonight will tell you how my broken heart is healing and my broken spirit mending.  My pride still being humbled, even now...because you're reading this truth and it's hard to share...so hard to share.  

Tonight will show you...and so will The Ending...so look for that soon.

Tonight, I was curled up in the corner of our lovely, comfy couch.  I love that couch and always have.  You could die from the way it soaks you up and puts you to rest instantly.  The lights were very dim and all was quiet, except the low hum of the calming music playing.  I was sitting with her and we were going through our nightly ritual.  She was in her pj's.  I was in mine.  She was drinking her final bottle of the day.  This is our time.  Just ours.  Her little body nestled snugly against mine and curled tightly to me.  Her left arm folded underneath mine, in comfort.  The other  hand free and grasping my cheek or her bottle...or resting on my own hand.  

She drifted off to sleep...still making the sucking motion, though the formula was gone.  I gently removed the bottle from her lips and set it aside.  Now she just sighed and I felt her go limp.  Her feet, in constant motion, now calm.  Her hand, resting on her chest.  Her eyes closed and those long beautifully shaped eyelashes resting.  I touched her face with the smallest gesture.  I whispered "I love you, sissy-girl.  I do".  I reached down again, those irresistible cheeks of hers calling to me, and softly planted my lips on one and then the other.  Eyes still closed, she smiled.  Irresistible.  I told you.  I repeated the kisses.  She smiled again, a small beautiful smile.  Then she very slowly opened her eyes and looked at me.  Saw me.  And her smile grew bigger at the recognition.  So did my heart.