Monday:
Monday morning we headed over to the orphanage at about 10am. We were both so nervous it was ridiculous. Between the excitement, the anxiety and throw in some added stress because our cab driver got lost big time and we were late, Dave and I were a mess! We finally show up about 20 minutes late. The orphanage/ children’s home is situated in a fairly large residential home. When we got there all of the children were playing on the porch, we spotted Maya instantly. She was so sweet. We walked up and she walked away. She’s a very timid little thing. The director Saovanee told us to take pictures of her with our digital camera & camcorder and show them to her. It’s funny how even in
On the flight over, Dave asked one of the flight attendant what Omo meant. She said it’s a laundry detergent. We all thought well, maybe we’re not saying it right. Needless to say, when we got to the orphanage we asked. Yes, laundry detergent. There’s a laundry detergent named Omo with a slogan whiten things white or something along those lines. Saovanee named her Omo because she’s white, as white as a Thai person can be. It’s nothing that we would have noticed but after they said that, yeah, I guess she’s a little paler in comparison. It was funny though.
We probably spent about 20 minutes at the home most of the time was spent going through some paperwork with Saovanee. Saovanee gave us all of Maya’s medical records, photos since she was a newborn, information on Maya’s mother including photos, Maya’s passport and more legal paperwork. After this, Saovanee told us we needed to leave soon. She didn’t want Maya to think that we were just volunteers. Here’s where it got really, really sad. Maya was scared to death. She knew something was up. A cab pulls up for us and a couple of the nannies tell her it’s time to go. She freaked out. Dave and I felt horrible. It felt like a kidnapping. Maya would not go in the cab at all and started to panic and fight against the nannies. They told us to get in the cab. We both get in and then they picked up Maya and put her in the cab on my lap. She completely broke down. She wailed while holding onto me so tightly. Dave and I felt horrible. Our heart was broken for this sweet little girl. She cried for just a quick few minutes and then it was almost like she went into shock, catatonic-like. I swear it was as if she knew that she was never going back there again.
I can only describe that entire day as bittersweet. Maya was a mess the rest of the day. She was just devastated and freaked out. She did not eat the entire day, as much as I tried she just wouldn’t do it. I did get her to drink this formula that the orphanage gave us so she got some nourishment. She cried most of the day and would not let me out of her sights, usually not out of my arms. She fought sleep that night so I stayed by her side the entire time. At about 11pm, she followed me into the kitchen area and stood there. As I turned around, she started to vomit on the floor and on herself. She seemed fine afterwards and hasn’t done it again. Poor sweet Maya. She was just so sad and just so scared.
You have to realize that she had never really left the confines of the children’s home except for some blood work and to get her passport. Now, not only was she with complete strangers but she had the entire world to absorb. I’m talking the little things that we all just take for granted, a car, people walking, elevators, crowds, random noises and etc. She completely freaked out when we went up the escalator at the hotel. I mean freaked out. She almost leaped out my arms to have Dave hold her. The biggest hurdle has been her exposure to men or rather lack of. They don’t see many if any male volunteers at the home so spending 24/7 with Dave has been a huge shocker to her. She still hasn’t warmed up completely to Dave but she is coming around. She’s not crying every time when he comes around her so we are making HUGE strides. It will take time but she is going to LOVE her dad. Monday was a hard day for all of us. Maya finally fell asleep at about midnight. Julia woke up at about 1am and was up to about 5am. I ended up sleeping for about an hour that day. It was tough dealing with everything on so little sleep. To be brutally honest, at one point that night I thought to myself, what have I done? I think we’ve made a huge mistake. After saying that, I have to follow up with I am so happy to have this little girl in our lives. Each day I have seen her grow so much. It’s absolutely amazing. She’s going to fit in to our family perfectly!
Tuesday:
On Tuesday, I took Maya along with our on-ground agency rep to get some photos done for her visa and then to the hospital to get an exam for the visa. I was so exhausted but we had to get this stuff done. Dave stayed back at the hotel with Julia. It just didn’t make sense the drag the entire Griswald family out. We were gone from 12pm to about 5pm. The Immigration office needs a physical exam and current vaccinations in order for an orphan to be let into the country. The day went great. I actually got a little glimpse of her true personality then. At one point, she was actually walking in front me alone. This was a huge step. She had wanted me to hold her constantly and I mean constantly. I can’t even walk away without her crying. So, she goes with me everywhere, yes, even the bathroom. Heh. I think the poor girl is afraid I am going to leave her so she has become attached to my hip. This is actually a good thing when it comes to adoptions. She’s let me do everything for her: change her, dress her, give her bottles and feed her food.
This day was huge. We had our meeting in front of the Thai Adoption Board at 9:30am. This is where the Thai government approves your adoption. We had my mother watch Julia this morning. The 3 of us and our rep, John headed over to the meeting. It was a little nerve-racking to say the least. Dave was at ease but I wasn’t. This was huge! Anyway, we get in front of the Board and it was kind of funny. I wish I would have taken a picture. It was me, Dave and Maya sitting at this long table. Across from us were probably about 16 people sitting in 2 rows. We all had microphones in front of us, like at the UN. I cracked up when I saw this because they were like uh, 15 feet from us, max, maybe even less. We could have just spoken and they would be able to hear us. Maybe it was an intimidation thing, quite funny though. They would each take turns asking us random questions and then we’d answer and then silence while someone else thought of another question. There were questions like, Why Thailand? Why did you adopt when you did? What are our plans for education, specifically kindergarten? (I thought that was odd- not even college but kindergarten) We answered them as best as we could. We told them it was all none of their business. Haha, just jokes of course.
We told them that we felt very strongly about education and that our plans were for college for her, I am part Thai, gave them our fertility saga blah blah blah. At one point, they asked what we called her. We told her Omo, like the detergent. They got the biggest kick out of that story. They would take turns saying, “Omo!” into the microphone, watch her turn to them and all start cracking up. They must have done it about 6 times. Too funny really. It was a very conservative group so this was a huge ice breaker. After everything was said and done, there was a bit of silence and the woman in charge spoke into the microphone, “We trust you and we approve you. We also want you to come back and adopt a boy next time.” What a relief and what a compliment!
After the meeting, we headed back to the hotel, got Julia and took a taxi to the Homeland Security office to get approval to apply for a visa. We had a ton of paperwork to turn in and evidently, some things were missing. Our rep John, is a 60 yr old Australian that takes no crap, really funny guy actually. He got a little lippy with the “gatekeeper”. I don’t know if that was that or just bad luck but after all the paperwork was corrected; we ended up waiting an additional 2 hours. We were the first adoptive parents in that office and the last ones out (there were about 5 families that were adopting from the States all at the same board meeting). The crappy part about waiting is that if you didn’t have approval by 3pm, you had to wait until the next day to make an appointment at the US Embassy for the visa application. We were at the office at 1pm and did not get in for an interview until 3:30pm. We knew we were screwed and would have to make two trips the next day or wait a very long time. We had Dave holding Julia who was way overdue for a nap, Maya who was tired and was not letting me put her down and me trying to juggle paperwork. Not pretty. I don’t know if they felt sorry for us or didn’t want to hear Julia crying anymore but all of a sudden a woman comes out with our approval and says that she called the Embassy and that they are waiting for us. It was 3:45pm so you can imagine how psyched we were to hear this.
We trek over to the Embassy which is right across the street and submit all the paperwork. Once again, missing document: Maya’s birth certificate. Argghh! The agent must have felt sorry for us (Julia & Maya both not doing well at this point or she was ready to go home herself) but she let us submit it all without it. She told us to bring in the birth certificate tomorrow for our appointment at 9am. Woohoo!! What a day. We ended up back at the hotel at about 5pm, everybody was exhausted. All that was left for us to do at this point to get Maya into the States was to get in for our visa interview in the morning.
We ended up going to a Japanese restaurant that night. Two really big things happened. One, Maya let me put her down in the chair next to me instead of sitting on my lap. Yeah, Maya! Number two, she ate and okay, number 2.5, she fed herself! In case you were curious, she had some vegetable spring rolls (the fried ones) and some Yakitori (Japanese style chicken). This girl has made major progress in just two days. She comes out of her shell a little more each day, a tiny bit. We can’t wait for her to take to Dave but we’ll take what we can get right now. She’s a smart girl though and it won’t take her long to figure out that she could have Dad right under that little thumb of hers.
Thursday -today-
Long story short, after spending the morning at the US Embassy we got her Visa!!! We can leave the country now. All of our paperwork is done! We feel like we had a boulder lifted off of our shoulders. Maya did pretty well today too. She sat in a high chair at breakfast and ate a ton of food: eggs, bacon, potatoes, sausage and fruit. The girl loves her fruit. She also has a thing for freshly squeezed orange juice. Little snob.
Random thoughts:
Julia has done amazing on this trip. We are so proud of her. Even with all of her lack of sleep, she’s still a happy little camper. Dave said he’s so proud of her that he’s going to buy her something. It starts.
Maya is a champion sleeper. This is where the orphanage pays off. The girl can sleep through anything. The funniest thing is we don’t know if she’s fighting sleep or if she’s freaked out but she falls asleep standing up. She stands against the narrow side of the crib and leans back so her arms are resting on the top rails, she looks ‘cool’. Anyway, as starts getting drowsier, she starts wobbling forward. I’ve tried to lay her down but she gets right back up again. She catches herself and rights herself up but then the drowsy’s hit again. This time she falls on her knees. This goes on a couple of times more until she falls over completely and stays there for the night. She doesn’t hurt herself or anything because she hits the mattress. Does it make us bad people that we laughed? ;)
Every day is getting better. Maya is slowly adjusting, grieving but adjusting. I have to say, we are now 100% that she belongs to us. She is our daughter.
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