grrlTravels back to China

Hohhot, Day 5: He is happy and sad

The trip on Sunday to see the children's home and the foster parents was good, and draining, just like we expected it would be. We arrived at the children's home around 11. There are 10 young children living on each floor with an office/living room on the third floor. We spent some time with the babies, holding them and visiting a bit with the nannies. Mao-Mao seemed fine, if a little clingy with K. He lived at the home for 5 months and then went to live with the foster parents for 10 months.

The foster parents were waiting on the third floor for us. We walked up the stairs and our facilitator told Mao-Mao in Chinese that we were going to see his foster parents. We opened the door and walked in.

Everyone cried. The foster mother and father and sister cried. We cried. Mao-Mao looked very confused for a good minute, realized what was going on, and began to wail. That made everyone cry more. E. and Z. looked scared and Z. cried a bit. Mao-Mao wailed and wailed. We all stood around feeling uncomfortable and nervous.

After Mao-Mao settled down we had a good chat with the foster parents and learned a lot more about Mao-Mao. Mostly things about his schedule and personality. We asked questions and said thank you a lot, said we can tell he really loves you and thank you so much for caring for him, thank you, thank you, thank you. They gave us a silver necklace for Mao-Mao, a traditional baby gift for a boy. We gave them our gifts. They asked for our address. We told them it was in the letter we gave them.

We invited them to lunch. We all crawled through a fence to cross the street to go to the restaurant. Everyone relaxed a bit. Mao-Mao did a whole bunch of tricks for us like blinking his eyes and waving and dancing. He smiled a lot and laughed and said his words. Of course he ate a bunch at lunch, and they told us that he was the king of the house and especially the dinner table. That wasn't news, but a lot of what we saw was brand new, a peek into his personality. So special.

Finally lunch was over. We went downstairs and the crying resumed. The foster mom and sister said goodbye and we all cried again, Mao-Mao most of all. We climbed in the van with the foster father to go and visit his finding place. We waved goodbye to the foster mom and drove away. The foster dad comforted Mao-Mao. I sniffled.

We got to his finding place. Standing in the spot where your child's first mother left him to be found by strangers is always hard on me. We took photos and some video and I felt profoundly sad and cried by myself for a few moments.

And then we left. We drove out to the highway and traveling along a bit before dropping the foster day off by the side of the road near his house. More tears from everyone.

The foster dad told us a lot of good information, the saddest thing being that the foster parents had wanted very much to adopt Mao-Mao but the rest of the family was against it, saying that they were too old to adopt. They had still been on the fence about it when the paperwork was sent to the CCAA and it was too late.

After we returned to the hotel Mao-Mao surprisingly seemed more settled and content. We had been told this might happen but after the rollercoaster day we didn't expect it. He smiled more and settled in with K. Things were good. Until we went to bed.

Mao-Mao went to sleep for a couple of hours and then woke up and screamed for 2 hours straight. Passed out. Woke up. Cried. Passed out. Woke up. Cried. Passed out. It was a long night. A very, very long night.

Even with the long night, we know how very lucky we are. Lucky to have met them, lucky to have their contact information, lucky to know for sure how very much they loved him.

Babies in the Baotou children's home


Meeting the foster parents


At lunch we learn why Mao-Mao was able to open K.'s cell phone with no hesitation