The Ugly Side of Adoption

I must start this blog by saying that when it comes to international special needs adoption...we hit the jackpot with our daughter. Yeah, she has a few "orphan quirks" like occasional finger sucking, rocking backwards (and due to having Down syndrome, girlfriend can touch her butt with the back of her head while rocking...creepy, yet impressive...) but overall, she doesn't really act like what I thought she would. She bonded to us almost immediately (She still prefers me over everyone else for basic needs like feeding, and changing diapers, but she's coming around and let Dave change her without putting up a fight 3 times so progress is being made!)...the other night instead of rocking herself back to sleep, she called for "Mumma" at 3am and wanted ME to rock her, which is huge! So excited that she's learning that it's my job to comfort her and make her feel safe, she doesn't have to take care of herself anymore. <3

But, even though my sweet daughter is a rock star, everyday we find more signs of neglect. I'm hesitant to use the word "abuse", but it's on the tip of my tongue...but for the sake of my heart I'll stick with neglect, which is hard enough to swallow when the target of said neglect was my beautiful baby girl. There are the obvious things, things we noticed while visiting her in the orphanage...

She is tiny, only 33 inches tall at 3 years, 8 months old...she wears 12 month clothing, and 3-6 month size shoes. 

She has terribly bottle rotted teeth from only being fed a bottle for 3 1/2 years. 

She (was) like a rag doll, very untrusting, very lethargic...on each trip it wasn't until the last visit, day 5 or 6, that we started seeing her personality, that we started getting smiles and giggles.

Then there were things I started noticing when I busted her out of the orphanage and spent time with her in hotels for over a week

She was obviously drugged. The tired, lethargic, "passive" child we were always presented with ceased to exist after the first night out of the orphanage, and she became even more bubbly, personable, and lively and the days went on.

She was dying of thirst. Her tongue was so dried out it looked like a dry sponge. Her lips were cracked, she had dull sunken in eyes, her hair had no shine, her skin had no glow...literally within 3 days of getting proper nutrition, being bathed, loved on, she physically looked like a different child. Her skin now glows, she has beautiful shiny blonde hair (that is growing fast!), her eyes have a beautiful sparkle...I love how she is progressing but it hurts to know that all her orphanage needed to do to make her this way was feed her, bathe her, and show her some affection. Three years without affection, without being loved...I cannot imagine.

She was left unsupervised with other children, who bullied her. She had scratches, bite marks, and bruises. She is very defensive, she hits (hard!), she pulls hair...we are working on those things now but we understand that it's a defense mechanism that she HAD to develop to protect herself and it's going to take time to undo that behavior.

Then...reality really set in when we got home. Her eyes, which had been "gooey" had gotten progressivly worse. Her medical report stated she was receiving eye drops for pink eye...for 8 months (pink eye was first reported in April, her eyes were runny and goopy everytime we saw her)...she wasn't receiving any eye drops because when we were leaving I asked if I could see her eye drops so I could pick them up at a pharmacy, they had no idea what I was talking about. So we get home, I take her to urgent care even though she already had a Dr. appt scheduled for the 4th (today), I figured she didn't need to wait that long since she seemed miserable. Girlfriend had double inner ear infections, pink eye in both eyes, sinus infection, throat infection, and upper respiritory infection. Anything that could get infected, was, essentially. Today, after 5 days of antibiotics, her eyes look 100% better. They let this poor child suffer with pink eye in BOTH eyes, for EIGHT MONTHS. She also got RSV, for the SEVENTH time in her life right before our court trip. 

We were told she wouldn't walk, that she COULDN'T walk, that she couldn't talk, that she would be just as she is now, a small person with DS, unable to do anything for herself, unable to communicate, unable to learn anything, drinking from a bottle her whole life...horrible existence.

"Are you sure you want to adopt this one, she's not going to get better."

"Yes, we're sure."

"You maybe like to see other healthy children before you decide?"

"No. We love her, we want her, she was meant to be our daughter."

Today, 14 days after walking out of a Russian orphanage with my daughter...she is walking, she knows her family by name (Mumma, Dadda, Bubba *for both brothers*), she is drinking from a regular cup, something my almost 3 year old is still learning himself, she is SMART...as in she has learned how to open doors, open baby gates, and unbuckle herself from her carseat (and promptly RE-buckle herself when given a look), she is so happy, playful...she is NOTHING like what the described her as, and it's because they never gave her a chance. She was born with little flat feet, beautiful almond shaped eyes, one extra chromosome, and her fate was sealed. 

Worthless.

Just admitting to myself that the above word was what my daughter was defined as her entire life is enough to make me curl up in a ball and ugly cry. For the rest of my life I will be grateful for every single person who helped us ransom this little girl's life. This process was never about us, it wasn't about us wanting, or needing a third child. It was always about her, about what she needed, and to everyone who saw that need too, and stepped up and did something to get her one step closer to home. Thank you.

Knowing my sassy little girl will be loved and cared for (and lets face it...spoiled rotten) for the rest of her life brings me some peace, but truthfully, not much...because I know what I left behind when I walked out of that orphanage for the last time. 

I know her crib where she spent most of her life was filled with another orphan within an hour of her leaving.

I know what it's like to look at sweet little ones, their eyes pleading to come too, their little arms raised, saying "Mama?"...it haunts me knowing that I'm here, in a warm house, with everything I could ever need, most of what I could ever want, 3 happy, loved, provided for children...and those sweet babies are in row after row of cribs, motherless, unloved, and considered worthless.

That is the ugly side. Leaving them behind, knowing you can't save them all, knowing that what you've done for one sweet little orphan is just a drop in the bucket...a bucket the size of an ocean.