Thursday, April 14, 2011
Photos from Last Weekend
It's been a busy week, and I haven't had a chance to post about our trip to see Emily, Omar, and Sophia last weekend. This doesn't do it justice, but here are some fun photos. We always have such a good time!
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Potty Postscript
In my last post, I rather flippantly recounted Sarah's run-in with an automatic flush toilet. I wrapped up the story declaring confidently that I was ready for the next interaction with said machine and would conquer it with a pad of P*st-It notes. Oh, how wrong I was.
This past weekend, we made the trek to W*unakee to visit Emily, Omar, and Sophia. It was a delightful trip, as usual, until Sarah announced on the drive back that she had to go potty. Luckily (we thought), the next rest area was just a few miles down the road. I was relieved to see it was an older building, which reduced the odds of the dreaded auto-flush. That didn't seem to matter to Sarah, however, as she immediately started swearing she no longer had to go.
I carried her to the stall and, with great flourish, stuck a "magic paper" on the manual handle. I figured it was a good chance to practice with the P*st Its, when there was no chance of failure. Sarah didn't feel the magic, though. She refused to sit on the seat and grew increasingly anxious, until she was screaming. I pleaded and prodded for a few minutes, until it was obvious there was no way I could win. We returned to the car, and I resigned myself to an accident.
A few miles down the road, Sarah indeed declared, "Wet." We got off the next exit and pulled into the deserted parking lot of an office building. When I took her pants off, however, she was dry. Noticing the narrow lawn in front of the building, I decided it was worth a try to have her go in the grass. I held her by the waist and told her to bend her knees, and she went right away. Problem solved, for the moment.
Since it's finally spring and we live in a rural area, knowing Sarah can "use a tree" brings some relief. We should be able to schedule our outings around her fear of public restrooms, with one notable exception. This Friday, she and I are flying back to M*ss. to visit my family. From the time we leave our house until we reach my mom's will be about nine hours. That's a long time to go without a potty break.
So, yesterday, I got on the Internet in search of a fully portable potty chair. Lo and behold, there is such a thing, called the K*lencom P*tette Plus, no less, and, wouldn't you know, I could get it shipped from W*lmart to arrive by tomorrow -- all at a not-too-exorbitant price. It should fit into my backpack for the trip, and, I've rationalized, will come in handy in the car and boat this summer.
I can't tell you how discouraged I felt Sunday afternoon, when it was obvious something that had come so easily for Sarah (and me) had been taken away. She was a breeze to potty train and always went without incident in public toilets. It seems as though I spend every free minute researching and brainstorming ways to work with the latest challenge that she's presented me, and I couldn't believe that a notable achievement had just disintegrated.
The next day, however, I set about overcoming the latest roadblock, and I think I have. I've decided that being a mom later in life must be good for preventing Alzh*imer's disease. Raising a child is a perpetual chess match, and I'm constantly plotting my next move. I hope it's keeping my brain young, if not my body. I'll have to admit I sometimes miss the simplicity of the N*w Y*ork Times Sunday crossword, though.
This past weekend, we made the trek to W*unakee to visit Emily, Omar, and Sophia. It was a delightful trip, as usual, until Sarah announced on the drive back that she had to go potty. Luckily (we thought), the next rest area was just a few miles down the road. I was relieved to see it was an older building, which reduced the odds of the dreaded auto-flush. That didn't seem to matter to Sarah, however, as she immediately started swearing she no longer had to go.
I carried her to the stall and, with great flourish, stuck a "magic paper" on the manual handle. I figured it was a good chance to practice with the P*st Its, when there was no chance of failure. Sarah didn't feel the magic, though. She refused to sit on the seat and grew increasingly anxious, until she was screaming. I pleaded and prodded for a few minutes, until it was obvious there was no way I could win. We returned to the car, and I resigned myself to an accident.
A few miles down the road, Sarah indeed declared, "Wet." We got off the next exit and pulled into the deserted parking lot of an office building. When I took her pants off, however, she was dry. Noticing the narrow lawn in front of the building, I decided it was worth a try to have her go in the grass. I held her by the waist and told her to bend her knees, and she went right away. Problem solved, for the moment.
Since it's finally spring and we live in a rural area, knowing Sarah can "use a tree" brings some relief. We should be able to schedule our outings around her fear of public restrooms, with one notable exception. This Friday, she and I are flying back to M*ss. to visit my family. From the time we leave our house until we reach my mom's will be about nine hours. That's a long time to go without a potty break.
So, yesterday, I got on the Internet in search of a fully portable potty chair. Lo and behold, there is such a thing, called the K*lencom P*tette Plus, no less, and, wouldn't you know, I could get it shipped from W*lmart to arrive by tomorrow -- all at a not-too-exorbitant price. It should fit into my backpack for the trip, and, I've rationalized, will come in handy in the car and boat this summer.
I can't tell you how discouraged I felt Sunday afternoon, when it was obvious something that had come so easily for Sarah (and me) had been taken away. She was a breeze to potty train and always went without incident in public toilets. It seems as though I spend every free minute researching and brainstorming ways to work with the latest challenge that she's presented me, and I couldn't believe that a notable achievement had just disintegrated.
The next day, however, I set about overcoming the latest roadblock, and I think I have. I've decided that being a mom later in life must be good for preventing Alzh*imer's disease. Raising a child is a perpetual chess match, and I'm constantly plotting my next move. I hope it's keeping my brain young, if not my body. I'll have to admit I sometimes miss the simplicity of the N*w Y*ork Times Sunday crossword, though.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Putting the Fear of Flush Into Her
After spending many Sundays in the church nursery with Sarah and still having her freak out when I left, we decided a few months ago to keep her in the service with us. She's remarkably well behaved and keeps busy with snacks, sorting the offering envelopes and membership brochures, and "reading" the Bible and hymnal. She even goes up front for the children's message, as long as I tag along and sit on the sidelines.
She usually needs a potty break part-way through the sermon (don't we all?). I take her downstairs to the kids' bathrooms so she has a chance to stretch her legs and use the shorter sink. This morning, she wouldn't go before we left the house, so I was on alert. When she gave the potty sign a few minutes before the children's message, I decided to go to the bathroom just outside the sanctuary, hoping we'd return in time.
As I set her on the toilet and noticed the automatic flush mechanism, I had a moment of panic, knowing that it would be a bad scene if the toilet flushed beneath her. The downstairs one never had, and I hoped this one was set conservatively as well. No such luck. Before she even got started, the sensor clicked, and a torrent of water roared below her bottom. She erupted in tears and lept into my arms.
Once she was calmed down, I persuaded her to go downstairs to our usual commode. She apprehensively took a seat, but she was too shaken up to go. After about five minutes of reassuring her that nothing would happen until she was done (I've always had to push the button), the darn thing flushed. Again, she screamed and dove into my embrace.
At this point, I remembered that there was a small toilet stall in the nursery with a manual flush. Knowing that Sarah wasn't crazy about the place, I assured her that we would just use the potty and go back upstairs. It was no use, though. She refused to have a seat and insisted she no longer had to go.
We returned to the sanctuary, where the minister was in mid-sermon, and I spent the rest of the service praying we'd avoid wet pants (and pew). Thankfully, Sarah has pretty good bladder control these days, and we made it all the way home without an accident.
Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to our next visit to an automatic toilet. After a quick Google search, however, I'm ready to give it a shot. It seems you can put a Post-It note over the sensor to disable the automatic flush, so I've added some to my bag of tricks. Now I just have to convince Sarah to give it another try.
She usually needs a potty break part-way through the sermon (don't we all?). I take her downstairs to the kids' bathrooms so she has a chance to stretch her legs and use the shorter sink. This morning, she wouldn't go before we left the house, so I was on alert. When she gave the potty sign a few minutes before the children's message, I decided to go to the bathroom just outside the sanctuary, hoping we'd return in time.
As I set her on the toilet and noticed the automatic flush mechanism, I had a moment of panic, knowing that it would be a bad scene if the toilet flushed beneath her. The downstairs one never had, and I hoped this one was set conservatively as well. No such luck. Before she even got started, the sensor clicked, and a torrent of water roared below her bottom. She erupted in tears and lept into my arms.
Once she was calmed down, I persuaded her to go downstairs to our usual commode. She apprehensively took a seat, but she was too shaken up to go. After about five minutes of reassuring her that nothing would happen until she was done (I've always had to push the button), the darn thing flushed. Again, she screamed and dove into my embrace.
At this point, I remembered that there was a small toilet stall in the nursery with a manual flush. Knowing that Sarah wasn't crazy about the place, I assured her that we would just use the potty and go back upstairs. It was no use, though. She refused to have a seat and insisted she no longer had to go.
We returned to the sanctuary, where the minister was in mid-sermon, and I spent the rest of the service praying we'd avoid wet pants (and pew). Thankfully, Sarah has pretty good bladder control these days, and we made it all the way home without an accident.
Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to our next visit to an automatic toilet. After a quick Google search, however, I'm ready to give it a shot. It seems you can put a Post-It note over the sensor to disable the automatic flush, so I've added some to my bag of tricks. Now I just have to convince Sarah to give it another try.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Bye Bye Naps, Hello Little Bed
Sleep has been our focus once again recently, and the crux of the problem is Sarah's drive to give up naps and my determination to hold onto them. I've fought a good fight, but I've decided to let go for good, and I think it might all work out for the better.
The Elmo sticker and Play-Doh reward system worked for a while, but that had run its course by early February. I could no longer read a few books and leave Sarah in bed to fall asleep on her own because she wouldn't -- she'd get out of bed and into mischief. I started sitting in the rocking chair in her room so she'd lie quietly and fall asleep. I'd give her 30 minutes, and most of the time, she'd nap.
That lost its charm a week or so ago, and she began taunting me -- rolling around, sitting up, dangling her legs off the bed, whatever she could do to get a rise out of me. I finally decided it was time to give up, and yesterday we "officially" switched to quiet time. She has to stay in her room quietly reading books or playing with her stuffed animals (or anything, really, since I can't control what she does) for half an hour. She did pretty well, calling me only a couple of times. I hope we can work our way up to an hour so that I have a bit of a break to get things (like blogging) done.
Meanwhile, our nights have been challenging once again. As a result of my sitting in her room at naptime (I believe), Sarah started wanting me there at bedtime, too. I agreed to sit in the hall while she fell asleep, which often took 45 minutes or more. Soon, she was waking and crying during the night and insisting I sleep with her. Before I knew it, I was back in her bed most nights and feeling resentful. [Probably some of you are thinking that we're letting Sarah manipulate us and we should put our foot down, close the door, and let her cry herself to sleep. I won't say you're wrong; I'll only say that's not right for us (and you might agree if you could hear Sarah in hysterics behind the closed door).]
Through all of our sleep struggles, I've often heard from other adoptive families who co-slept with their children and believed it was the answer for them -- their kids felt secure, and everyone got a good night's sleep. We had planned to do this with Sarah from the start, but she was such an active sleeper that Don and I would have gotten no rest with the three of us in our queen-sized bed. Since a king-sized bed would barely fit in our room (and be a big expense), we've tried to comfort Sarah by my sleeping in her room whenever she needs me.
When we moved Sarah to a full-sized bed in October, I devised a "nuclear option" for our sleep struggles. I resolved to sleep with her when she needed until I started feeling resentful, then we would put her crib mattress on the floor of our room, and she could sleep there. Having reached the resentment threshold, I hauled the mattress back upstairs and made a cozy nest between my side of the bed and the wall. I showed it to Sarah and told her that, if she woke in the middle of the night, she could come in and sleep there. You should have seen her eyes light up.
The first evening, she wanted to go to bed in the "little bed," but I held firm and told her she always has to go to sleep in her big bed first. (I draw the line at putting her to bed in our room -- that's too disruptive for Don and me, and it seems as though it would only compound the difficulty of eventually getting her to spend the night in her own room.) That night, she awoke crying at 4:15. When I went in, she asked me to sit in the hall. I asked if she wanted to sleep in the little bed, to which she responded, "YES!" She settled into the nest and slept until 7:20.
Soon she was waking and crying between 11:00 and 12:00 each night. I'd go in; she'd say, "Little bed;" and I'd escort her into our room. After a while, I convinced her that she didn't need to cry (she was obviously faking it by then), so she now just calls for me. I hope eventually she'll just quietly come in and go to sleep, but that might take a while.
Since the little bed appeared, Sarah is noticeably happier and more affectionate. She is also less controlling and defiant. I think she feels more secure. She still has meltdowns and struggles to control her emotions, but she is improving there, too. An unexpected perk of the little bed has been progress with potty training. She's been good during the day for a couple of months but was still wet at night. Now, she goes potty before coming to the little bed and is often dry all night.
With waking in the night handled, that just left sitting in the hall at bedtime to deal with. While my iPad was a lifesaver for that situation, Sarah had become a wiseguy then as well and started challenging me by playing with her animals and getting out of bed. She obviously was not ready for sleep at 7:30 if she'd had a nap. The End of Napping has taken care of that. I now turn out her light (after books, prayer, and massage) and go across the hall to our room, where I get ready for bed. She's happy as long as our light is on, and she's usually asleep in about five minutes. I can't tell you how refreshing that is.
I had really hoped that Sarah would nap until she was four. I know naps are important for young brains and bodies, but I've tried everything I can think of, and I'm out of ideas. With letting go comes relief. I no longer have to structure my day so she doesn't nap too late, then spend 20 minutes on a pre-nap routine that was often followed by 30 more minutes of struggle, ending all-too-often in anger. While Sarah can be a little whiny and testy by dinner time, she does surprisingly well without a nap, and bedtime is a breeze, which saves me another 45 minutes or more of sitting and waiting for her to fall asleep. She sleeps 11-12 hours at night now, compared to about 10 when she was napping, which isn't bad, either.
And, finally, I can stop feeling like a hypocrite. It was tough insisting that Sarah nap when I'm basically incapable of it. I don't know how old I was when I stopped napping, but, as an adult, I've done it only a handful of times (when I was literally on a deserted island or remote peninsula). Try as I might, I can't wind down during the day, no matter how tired I am. I'm usually out like a light at bedtime, however, and, left to my own devices, good for 10 hours or more. Sarah seems to be wired the same way. Like mother, like daughter. :)
The Elmo sticker and Play-Doh reward system worked for a while, but that had run its course by early February. I could no longer read a few books and leave Sarah in bed to fall asleep on her own because she wouldn't -- she'd get out of bed and into mischief. I started sitting in the rocking chair in her room so she'd lie quietly and fall asleep. I'd give her 30 minutes, and most of the time, she'd nap.
That lost its charm a week or so ago, and she began taunting me -- rolling around, sitting up, dangling her legs off the bed, whatever she could do to get a rise out of me. I finally decided it was time to give up, and yesterday we "officially" switched to quiet time. She has to stay in her room quietly reading books or playing with her stuffed animals (or anything, really, since I can't control what she does) for half an hour. She did pretty well, calling me only a couple of times. I hope we can work our way up to an hour so that I have a bit of a break to get things (like blogging) done.
Meanwhile, our nights have been challenging once again. As a result of my sitting in her room at naptime (I believe), Sarah started wanting me there at bedtime, too. I agreed to sit in the hall while she fell asleep, which often took 45 minutes or more. Soon, she was waking and crying during the night and insisting I sleep with her. Before I knew it, I was back in her bed most nights and feeling resentful. [Probably some of you are thinking that we're letting Sarah manipulate us and we should put our foot down, close the door, and let her cry herself to sleep. I won't say you're wrong; I'll only say that's not right for us (and you might agree if you could hear Sarah in hysterics behind the closed door).]
Through all of our sleep struggles, I've often heard from other adoptive families who co-slept with their children and believed it was the answer for them -- their kids felt secure, and everyone got a good night's sleep. We had planned to do this with Sarah from the start, but she was such an active sleeper that Don and I would have gotten no rest with the three of us in our queen-sized bed. Since a king-sized bed would barely fit in our room (and be a big expense), we've tried to comfort Sarah by my sleeping in her room whenever she needs me.
When we moved Sarah to a full-sized bed in October, I devised a "nuclear option" for our sleep struggles. I resolved to sleep with her when she needed until I started feeling resentful, then we would put her crib mattress on the floor of our room, and she could sleep there. Having reached the resentment threshold, I hauled the mattress back upstairs and made a cozy nest between my side of the bed and the wall. I showed it to Sarah and told her that, if she woke in the middle of the night, she could come in and sleep there. You should have seen her eyes light up.
The first evening, she wanted to go to bed in the "little bed," but I held firm and told her she always has to go to sleep in her big bed first. (I draw the line at putting her to bed in our room -- that's too disruptive for Don and me, and it seems as though it would only compound the difficulty of eventually getting her to spend the night in her own room.) That night, she awoke crying at 4:15. When I went in, she asked me to sit in the hall. I asked if she wanted to sleep in the little bed, to which she responded, "YES!" She settled into the nest and slept until 7:20.
Soon she was waking and crying between 11:00 and 12:00 each night. I'd go in; she'd say, "Little bed;" and I'd escort her into our room. After a while, I convinced her that she didn't need to cry (she was obviously faking it by then), so she now just calls for me. I hope eventually she'll just quietly come in and go to sleep, but that might take a while.
Since the little bed appeared, Sarah is noticeably happier and more affectionate. She is also less controlling and defiant. I think she feels more secure. She still has meltdowns and struggles to control her emotions, but she is improving there, too. An unexpected perk of the little bed has been progress with potty training. She's been good during the day for a couple of months but was still wet at night. Now, she goes potty before coming to the little bed and is often dry all night.
With waking in the night handled, that just left sitting in the hall at bedtime to deal with. While my iPad was a lifesaver for that situation, Sarah had become a wiseguy then as well and started challenging me by playing with her animals and getting out of bed. She obviously was not ready for sleep at 7:30 if she'd had a nap. The End of Napping has taken care of that. I now turn out her light (after books, prayer, and massage) and go across the hall to our room, where I get ready for bed. She's happy as long as our light is on, and she's usually asleep in about five minutes. I can't tell you how refreshing that is.
I had really hoped that Sarah would nap until she was four. I know naps are important for young brains and bodies, but I've tried everything I can think of, and I'm out of ideas. With letting go comes relief. I no longer have to structure my day so she doesn't nap too late, then spend 20 minutes on a pre-nap routine that was often followed by 30 more minutes of struggle, ending all-too-often in anger. While Sarah can be a little whiny and testy by dinner time, she does surprisingly well without a nap, and bedtime is a breeze, which saves me another 45 minutes or more of sitting and waiting for her to fall asleep. She sleeps 11-12 hours at night now, compared to about 10 when she was napping, which isn't bad, either.
And, finally, I can stop feeling like a hypocrite. It was tough insisting that Sarah nap when I'm basically incapable of it. I don't know how old I was when I stopped napping, but, as an adult, I've done it only a handful of times (when I was literally on a deserted island or remote peninsula). Try as I might, I can't wind down during the day, no matter how tired I am. I'm usually out like a light at bedtime, however, and, left to my own devices, good for 10 hours or more. Sarah seems to be wired the same way. Like mother, like daughter. :)
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Sweet, Sweet Spring(?)
On Saturday, we left our cozy cocoon and took a family outing to the "Sweet, Sweet Spring" celebration at N*rskedalen Nature and Heritage Center, about 40 miles from home. Tucked into a tiny valley (or "coulee") off a winding rural road, the property includes an "authentic" 19th-century Norwegian homestead recreated from buildings moved from nearby properties, along with a nature center and hiking trails.
It didn't feel much like spring, with temps in the 20s and winds gusting to 30 MPH, but we dressed warmly and had a great time (although I really wish I had a snowsuit like Sarah's). Sarah loved riding in the horse-drawn wagon and petting the calf that was penned up within reach of small hands. We all enjoyed a yummy organic pancake brunch with fresh maple syrup, scrambled eggs, sausage and homemade blueberry yogurt. (Okay, I didn't eat the sausage, and Don and Sarah didn't touch the yogurt, but it all evened out.)
On the way home, Sarah talked about the horses (up until then, she called them "neighs") and the "BA-by moo cow" (pronounced the way you'd coo to a human baby). After a short nap in the car, she lounged in the sunroom, enjoying her afternoon snack and her Wild Animal Baby magazine.
It didn't feel much like spring, with temps in the 20s and winds gusting to 30 MPH, but we dressed warmly and had a great time (although I really wish I had a snowsuit like Sarah's). Sarah loved riding in the horse-drawn wagon and petting the calf that was penned up within reach of small hands. We all enjoyed a yummy organic pancake brunch with fresh maple syrup, scrambled eggs, sausage and homemade blueberry yogurt. (Okay, I didn't eat the sausage, and Don and Sarah didn't touch the yogurt, but it all evened out.)
On the way home, Sarah talked about the horses (up until then, she called them "neighs") and the "BA-by moo cow" (pronounced the way you'd coo to a human baby). After a short nap in the car, she lounged in the sunroom, enjoying her afternoon snack and her Wild Animal Baby magazine.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Searching for One in 1.3 Billion
When we were first matched with Sarah, we were told that she was living in a social welfare institute (i.e., orphanage). A few weeks later, we learned that she had instead been in foster care for most of her young life. We knew that meant she had likely received good care and developed a relationship with her foster mother, making it easier for her to attach to us. It was welcome news.
Before we traveled to China, we sent a care package for her to the orphanage. It included a bound book of questions we hoped her caregiver would answer to help us learn about her routines and preferences and the milestones of her first year. The book was returned to us when we received Sarah, and many of the questions were answered, including the name of her foster mother. The FM indicated she would like to stay in touch, if possible, and gave the orphanage address as her mailing address. I was happy to hear it, as I thought perhaps we could send her an update on Sarah each year and maintain contact, in case Sarah wanted to communicate with, and perhaps even meet, her one day.
Soon after we returned from China, one of the other moms in our travel group hired a Chinese man via email to find her daughter's foster mom. He met with the woman and garnered priceless information and photos from the baby's first eight months. At the time, I was still overwhelmed with our day-to-day existence and under the naive notion that I would be able to communicate with Sarah's FM directly, so I didn't follow suit. I thought there was plenty of time to act.
During Chinese New Year last year (February), I composed a letter to the FM and asked our local Chinese friend to translate it into Mandarin for me. I mailed it to the orphanage, to the attention of the FM, along with some dried fruits and candy, which are common Chinese New Year gifts. I included our mailing address and our email address, in hopes that the FM had access to the Internet. And I waited....
There was no response. I don't know whether the package was even forwarded to the FM, as it seems direct communication between adoptive families and foster families is frowned upon by orphanage officials. For all I know, the orphanage employees enjoyed the food and the letter was discarded.
Last fall, I decided to give the guy in China a try. I got his email address from the other mom and sent him a message with the FM's name and town. He responded within hours and told me he could locate the FM and travel to Y*feng (where Sarah's from) to take her out to dinner and get answers to a list of questions I'd provide, along with photos from Sarah's first year. His fee was several hundred dollars.
It's a bit unnerving, especially for someone as cautious as I am, to make a deal via email with a stranger on the other side of the world. I had one reliable reference for him, though, and, after posting a message on some of the China adoption Yahoo groups, I received a few more. He told me he didn't expect any payment until he located the FM. I knew this would be priceless information for Sarah, and there was no way I was going to tell her years from now that I let it slip away. It was worth the risk.
I told him to go ahead and search for the FM and waited anxiously to hear back. The next day, he wrote saying that he'd learned the FM had left Y*feng and traveled to Zhej*ang Province to take care of her grandchildren while her migrant son and daugher-in-law work. He was confident that she'd return to Y*feng in February for Chinese New Year, however, and he would try to locate her then.
The mobility of modern China was serving as a roadblock to our search. I've read that it's common for children to live with their grandparents in the countryside while their parents move to the cities to work, but I haven't heard about the grandparents moving to the cities to provide childcare. I wonder if this is a more privileged arrangement, as the children get to live with the parents, instead of seeing them only once a year, at most.
About a month ago, as CNY approached, I sent an email to "the searcher" asking him to be on the lookout for the FM. He responded that he'd learned that she wasn't returning to Y*feng for the celebration. Ugh.
Then, a week or so later, he sent a note saying she had indeed returned and asking me to send a list of questions I'd like her to answer. Score! I received the note in the morning and sent the questions that evening, awash in anticipation. He wrote back an hour later saying that the FM had already returned to Zhej*ang Province because her grandson was sick and that he hopes she'll come back to Y*feng in a few months. Double ugh.
While there is still hope we will find Sarah's FM, it's hard not to feel as though we're searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Just how do you locate someone in a nation of 1.3 billion people that is an eclectic mix of old and new? I can communicate almost instantaneously via email (in English, no less) with the searcher 10,000 miles away, yet he can't connect with a woman in his own country. Modern China is a land of contrasts, and it seems we're caught somewhere in the middle.
Before we traveled to China, we sent a care package for her to the orphanage. It included a bound book of questions we hoped her caregiver would answer to help us learn about her routines and preferences and the milestones of her first year. The book was returned to us when we received Sarah, and many of the questions were answered, including the name of her foster mother. The FM indicated she would like to stay in touch, if possible, and gave the orphanage address as her mailing address. I was happy to hear it, as I thought perhaps we could send her an update on Sarah each year and maintain contact, in case Sarah wanted to communicate with, and perhaps even meet, her one day.
Soon after we returned from China, one of the other moms in our travel group hired a Chinese man via email to find her daughter's foster mom. He met with the woman and garnered priceless information and photos from the baby's first eight months. At the time, I was still overwhelmed with our day-to-day existence and under the naive notion that I would be able to communicate with Sarah's FM directly, so I didn't follow suit. I thought there was plenty of time to act.
During Chinese New Year last year (February), I composed a letter to the FM and asked our local Chinese friend to translate it into Mandarin for me. I mailed it to the orphanage, to the attention of the FM, along with some dried fruits and candy, which are common Chinese New Year gifts. I included our mailing address and our email address, in hopes that the FM had access to the Internet. And I waited....
There was no response. I don't know whether the package was even forwarded to the FM, as it seems direct communication between adoptive families and foster families is frowned upon by orphanage officials. For all I know, the orphanage employees enjoyed the food and the letter was discarded.
Last fall, I decided to give the guy in China a try. I got his email address from the other mom and sent him a message with the FM's name and town. He responded within hours and told me he could locate the FM and travel to Y*feng (where Sarah's from) to take her out to dinner and get answers to a list of questions I'd provide, along with photos from Sarah's first year. His fee was several hundred dollars.
It's a bit unnerving, especially for someone as cautious as I am, to make a deal via email with a stranger on the other side of the world. I had one reliable reference for him, though, and, after posting a message on some of the China adoption Yahoo groups, I received a few more. He told me he didn't expect any payment until he located the FM. I knew this would be priceless information for Sarah, and there was no way I was going to tell her years from now that I let it slip away. It was worth the risk.
I told him to go ahead and search for the FM and waited anxiously to hear back. The next day, he wrote saying that he'd learned the FM had left Y*feng and traveled to Zhej*ang Province to take care of her grandchildren while her migrant son and daugher-in-law work. He was confident that she'd return to Y*feng in February for Chinese New Year, however, and he would try to locate her then.
The mobility of modern China was serving as a roadblock to our search. I've read that it's common for children to live with their grandparents in the countryside while their parents move to the cities to work, but I haven't heard about the grandparents moving to the cities to provide childcare. I wonder if this is a more privileged arrangement, as the children get to live with the parents, instead of seeing them only once a year, at most.
About a month ago, as CNY approached, I sent an email to "the searcher" asking him to be on the lookout for the FM. He responded that he'd learned that she wasn't returning to Y*feng for the celebration. Ugh.
Then, a week or so later, he sent a note saying she had indeed returned and asking me to send a list of questions I'd like her to answer. Score! I received the note in the morning and sent the questions that evening, awash in anticipation. He wrote back an hour later saying that the FM had already returned to Zhej*ang Province because her grandson was sick and that he hopes she'll come back to Y*feng in a few months. Double ugh.
While there is still hope we will find Sarah's FM, it's hard not to feel as though we're searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Just how do you locate someone in a nation of 1.3 billion people that is an eclectic mix of old and new? I can communicate almost instantaneously via email (in English, no less) with the searcher 10,000 miles away, yet he can't connect with a woman in his own country. Modern China is a land of contrasts, and it seems we're caught somewhere in the middle.
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