I have been reading the Open Adoption Roundtable posts for quite awhile, but I haven’t felt comfortable enough in our openness to write much before now.  The current topic, First Meetings, is something I should preserve for L, so I am going to give it a go.  You can read other posts on this topic at the above link.

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Before we went to China, we had received three tiny photos of L’ birth family.  One of her jiejie (big sister), one of her didi (little brother) and a teeny tiny photo of her baba that had been copied from his QQ account.  We didn’t have a picture of her mother.

I had spent the four years since we met and adopted L wondering and worrying about her mother.  It seems somehow appropriate that I wouldn’t see her face until we could meet in person. I admit, I was a little afraid to meet her.  I was afraid to see the sadness she carries.  I was afraid to see her love for her kept children.  I was afraid I wouldn’t see love in her eyes for L.  I was afraid she would think I was too foreign, too strange to mother her daughter.

We were waiting in our rundown and gritty hotel room when our translator called and said they were heading upstairs.  I was pacing back and forth.  Mr. A stood up.  Then he sat down.  Then he stood up again.  I ran over to turn on the digital tape recorder I had stashed in a bag, just in case this was the only time we got to hear L’s story.  In case this was our only meeting.

I heard the elevator door open.  Then I heard a screaming child.  I opened the door.  The first person I saw was our translator, followed by our local contact (the person who had made this moment possible).  Our contact was nervous.  We shook hands while a baby cried in the hallway.  I think Mr. A talked to our contact via the translator for a moment.  I don’t remember.  I only remember seeing L’s baba peering into the room, presumably looking for L.  I saw a little girl in the hallway, L’s jiejie, her face solemn.

Then I saw her.  L’s other mama.  She was holding a struggling, yelling toddler, trying to quiet him down.  After all those years of wondering and imagining, I didn’t think I would be surprised to see her, but I was.  She didn’t look at all like I had imagined her.  L’s baba is undeniably cute, as is Mr. A.  L’s mama is not beautiful, but she also isn’t unattractive.  She is average-looking, not unlike myself.  Huh, I think.

The whole family is wearing brand new clothes, from head to toe.  Even their winter coats, shoes and boots are brand new.  L’s baba’s hair is newly cut.  They are the tidiest looking Chinese family I have seen on this trip.  I want to apologize for looking so rumpled and frumpy and tired, even though we are wearing the nicest clothes we brought with us. (Mr. A and I had and argument the night before because he sent my blog address to a ton of business contacts and I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about the starving boy we saw that day.)  Both girls are in new dresses, but their Land’s End jersey dresses look too informal for such a momentous occasion.

Our translator, the contact and Mr. A were talking, so it was up to me to greet L’s parents.  My chinese is terrible.  I stutter as I try to think what to say.  Somewhere along the way of my sorry attempts to learn Chinese, I have picked up the habit of saying “Ai” (short for aiya) instead of “um” or “hey” or “oh” as I search for something to say.

“Ai…Ni hao!” I said, “Hello!”

We all jerk our heads, in that almost-bow that Chinese people do when they can’t understand each other. We smile nervously as our contact leaves. The little boy continues to cry and try to get away from his mother.

“The little boy doesn’t remember them.  They just came home from another province last night.  He wants his Nainai (grandmother).”  I remember what it is like to have a child who doesn’t recognize you as her mother.   I hustle the girls off to find some toys for him.  L brings her light-up bouncy ball.  She shows him how it bounces and blinks and he is mesmerized.

I see her mother looking at her.  She can’t take her eyes off L, now that the little boy has stopped yelling.  Her parents sit down as L runs around the room like a top spinning out of control.  Her baba is staring at L too.  He says something to the translator.

“This is the first time he has seen L.” The translator says,”As soon as L’s mother called and said she was in labor, he tried to come home to see L, but he was too late.  She was already gone.”

Later, I will wonder over that information.  I know the decision to let L go was a difficult one.  If he had made it home time and seen his tiny daughter, would they have changed their minds?  Was a delayed bus or train the difference between this family and an orphanage for L?

I call L over, afraid she will misbehave.  We have given her a sucker in hopes it will keep her happy.  The day before she threw a fit when our contact tried to pick her up.  She is not a girl who takes kindly to strangers.  After 3 weeks of traveling in China, she was particularly unfond of strange Chinese adults who have a tendency to stare at her or get in her face and talk to her in a language she doesn’t understand.

I asked her father what L should call them.  He looks like a deer in the headlights.  He says “auntie and uncle”.  I immediately regret asking.  I introduce them to her as auntie and uncle, using only the chinese words without telling her what they mean.  We told her we thought these were her mama and baba.  If we tell her they are now “auntie and uncle” she is going to be very confused.

I give L the photo album we made.  She climbs on her mama’s lap and shows it to her.  Her mother smells the top of her head.  She runs her hand over L’s hair.  She puts her hand on the small of L’s back as L leans into her.

Her baba sees one of the pictures and his eyes light up.  He pulls out his phone and shows L he has the same photo of her saved there.  She smiles.  He asks if he can hold her too.  She lets him pick her up.  I see a man holding his daughter for the very first time.  The translator asks if L will give her baba a kiss.  She wipes the stickiness from her sucker off her lips with the back of her hand and we all chuckle as gives him a peck on the cheek.  He holds her close.

That is when I know that this thing that I did was the right thing.

It is funny, looking back at my first words to them.  ”Ai…,Ni hao.” can also be translated as “Love… hello.”  When I see them, even now, all I see is their love for L. L deserves all the love in the world.  As her mother, how could I want anything less for her?  We are still figuring it out and it isn’t easy, but there is room enough for all of us.