I spent a month in China last week. At least that is how it felt.
We flew to Beijing, then Ghangzhou with our daughter to meet our new son, Kye. Expectations were high.
Kye toddled into the room of the Civil Affairs Building and little bells started going off in my head. "He is so much smaller than I envisioned him from his pictures," I thought. "He seems more like a 2-year old than a 4-year old." But Kye had a sweet, shy smile and he was likely scared as well, right? I watched our daughter, Katrina, try to interact with him, and more bells started ringing as he looked almost through her - the first child we had come into contact with since arrival in China that wasn't drawn to her aura and her golden hair.
Hours, and eventually days with Kye confirmed what my subconscious already knew - Kye had more emotional and developmental issues than his caregivers and evaluators had realized and that we were prepared to take on. The lack of interaction, both physical and emotional, that these children receive in an orphanage stunts their development and creates a host of other issues as they as unequipped to deal with their own feelings. While sweet and engaging some of the time, Kye had a dark side as well which manifested itself physically through hitting, kicking and fighting. Katrina referred to him as "rough," which coming from a little girl who loves to wrestle and can hang with the best of the boys, means really rough.
In the end, after calls back to the States in the middle of the night, refusing to sign paperwork to finalize the adoption, lots of tears and little sleep, we made the best decision we could for all - we decided to not move forward with our adoption.
This little boy, who I had waited 4 1/2 years for, needed more than we (I) could give him. He needed a mom who could focus only on him, not dividing her time between a busy 6 year old while helping him to grow and catch-up with his age. Bringing Kye home would have been a selfish decision on our part that would have negatively impacted him, our daughter, our marriage and likely resulted in my resenting him on some level.
While much of the guidance we received in-country was that we should "pray harder and give it more time," I was pretty confident that if I could have heard God speak aloud he was saying, "Laura AmRhein, I gave you two helpings of common sense and intuition - listen to it!" And in the end, I did, and make the most difficult, emotional decision that I could - in partnership with my family. Kye needed a great family, but we weren't it.
People can judge us as they will. I answer to myself, my family and a higher being that helped to guide us through our decision. I am not a quitter and I can still look at myself in the mirror. Sadly, we had room in our hearts for another child, and this is likely now not to be - but we have a wonderful little girl who deserves her own blog entry for how amazing, intuitive and well behaved she was through the entire trip, and we'll find other ways to fill that place. Our marriage is likely stronger because of it. John and I have never had to partner and balance each other through anything like this before, and I am hopeful that nothing will come close for a long time to come.
We dropped Kye off at the Civil Affairs Office and worked through the specifics of closing the legal pieces and parts. They weren't surprised we had called, and agreed that he likely needed to be an only child or at least the center of attention for some family. He happily jumped from my arms back to his caregiver as if he had returned from an extended sleep over. He laughed away as we proudly showed his caregiver the big-boy Micky Mouse underwear he was wearing. I gave him a hug and kiss and waved good bye.
The easy part, if you can call it that, was saying goodbye to Kye. I still cry, a lot, when I go back through the past week in my mind. The harder part is to come - dealing with the end of this chapter. My primary focus in the short term is ensuring that our daughter is okay. I'll deal with the rest of the emotion over time.
Chapters in life are a roller coaster. Emotional ups and downs. Experiences that you would do again in a heart beat, or happily check off of the bucket list and never look back. This one is a combination of the two for me. I did the right thing for all parties - I truly believe that. The end result is the right one, and it still sucks.
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