Orphanages Are No Place for Children

Today was adoption day. It's now official, he is and forever will be a Joy! He's stuck with us now. 

Onto the heavy stuff.

With any international adoption there is a lot of education required and a tight network of support from other parents. One thing that is often discussed is the concept of being prepared for the unexpected. There will undoubtedly be surprises when your child is handed to you on gotcha day. 

With Daniel our surprise was that he was terrified and very very anxious. That took months of work to begin to overcome and is still a work in progress. That was pretty much it, no other big surprises. He received excellent care at Shepherd's Field and is doing so very well.

This time things are very very different. Several surprises. Unexpected things that we had no idea about. The first thing is that Luke did not cry when he was handed over to the strange looking, different smelling, and funny sounding woman. He accepted it and did not bat an eye. In fact, he has not shed a single tear or cried even once. At all. Institutionalized children often forget how to cry. It serves them no purpose. It gets them nowhere. Luke has been content, playful and giggly. He is super easy going and easy to please. The long term ramifications of what this first surprise means are unknown at this point. It may be nothing or may be a big deal. I have a feeling we will be referring to our copy of "Empowered to Connect" frequently over the next few months. Attachment is so very very important, this is a battle we will have to fight hard and diligently.

The bigger surprise is in regard to Luke's size. The last weight we got on him was in February and it contained an error which I saw right away. It said he was 12 kilos. No way was a little 8 month old 12 kilos. I asked our agency about it and we agreed that it was an error and nothing we could do about it. Sadly I had no hint to even have this surprise on my radar. He is so very thin. Frail almost. From the moment I first held him, I felt his little rib cage and knew this little guy was no hefty, chunky Daniel. It is so hard for an institutionalized child to thrive in an orphanage, even the best orphanage on the planet. These institutions are no places for children. Our little Luke is quite undernourished, he has definitely known hunger in his short little life, my heart breaks at the thought. He is frail. The thinnest 13 month old I have ever seen. No body fat at all, anywhere. This is a second battle we will fight hard and diligently. Hang tight for the six month home pictures, we've got some chunking this little guy up in our future! He needs to get healthy. Thank you already to the mamas who have adopted severely malnourished children for the advice over the last 24 hours, keep it coming! 

The third thing we had an inclination about. The crib life of an orphan. Without a doubt Luke has spent the vast majority of his life confined to a crib. Again, this can't be helped, the nanny to child ratio is so very high. Luke's head shows the mark of being on his back for long periods of time. A few pictures we saw last month gave us a sneak peak at the flatness of one side if his head. The shape of his torso also indicates long periods of time in a horizontal position. And his muscle tone is so weak. He cannot keep himself sitting up, even though he is 13 months old, he cannot sit up. Tears for my baby. There is absolutely no way his legs will be able to support him anytime soon, they are so thin and weak. He rocks the army crawl starring his lucky fin though. His right hand reaches for what he wants as his short arm hustles to get him there. Again, we will work hard on this and hopefully within a year or two he will be completely caught up.

Orphanages are no place for children. This is fact. Anyone care to bring one home? I can tell you about quite a few who need a home.

Speaking of orphanages, we will make the very long drive to visit Luke's tomorrow. It will undoubtedly be a long and hard day. But it should help us understand where he has been and learn a little piece of his story.