The Fog Has Lifted

I'm sorry!!! I think we heard people screaming all the way from America wanting to know why I left them hangin. Well it brought you back didn't it? Actually I was tired and went to bed. Now to continue. It had just rained when we arrived for the first time to the baby home and when I got out of the van with video camera in hand my glasses fogged up. I fumbled my way into the home, still fogged up trying to find my boy. It didn't take long for the fog on my glasses to clear and THERE HE WAS. ASLEEP!!!!! I had traveled 11,000 miles to watch my boy sleep. He and his best friend, Dat, were asleep on a hammock, legs intertwined, facing in opposite directions. My first thought of Jayden was that he was even smaller than I had been led to believe. But there he was, my beautiful boy. Finally, the fog had lifted in more ways than one. We have been living in a fog of sorts for many months. But as I stood there over my boy getting my first glimpes of him, all the waiting, the ups and downs, the restless days were all worth it. Maybe it is like what a mother feels after an intense labor. They say once you see your baby, the memories of the pain leave.

We arrived just at the end of nap time. Some of the eight remaining orphans in the home were beginning to stir while others like Jayden continued their nap. We spent five minutes or so taking pictures of the other babies and meeting the staff while Jayden slept. But I kept finding my eyes drifting in his direction. I was eladed with Jayden.

After a little while , one of the five nurses at the home begin to arouse Jayden and soon he was up. He immediately focused his eyes on me and then Angie, me again and then Angie. He was captivated by the strangers who were standing over his bed taking pictures of his every move. We learned later that we probably were not strangers in the sense that the staff had prepared him. He knew his mommy and daddy were coming. We had sent a family album to him months ago and he had seen our pictures and had been told stories about his family that one day would be coming to get him. The next several hours were spent playing with the babies and laughing at our attempts to communicate with the staff. The baby home is small. There is a larger room where most of the babies sleep and spend their day. There is a smaller back room where the babies are changed and where a few of them sleep. The five nurses, or care givers, all sleep in one bed in a back bed room. There is a small dining area with a table and 8 chairs. There is no other furniture. They cook in another room adjacent to the baby home.
It is very small, simple, but clean. We could not help but notice how clean the floor was and how attentive the nurses are to every child's needs.

We had been told by Thouc and others who have preceded us in adopting from the home not to expect Jayden to immediately come to us. And they were right. He was stand-offish for most of the first few hours we were there. We brought him toys and books and begin slowly to introduce him to one toy at a time. We also brought him a ball and we begin to play some ball with the older children, including Jayden. Still, while I had held every child, at the end of the day, I had not held my son. We even had a birthday party for Jayden as he turned two on Sept. 14. All this attention, yet when we left for the evening, I had not held him.

Angie had begun later in the day to make some measurable contact with him. During the birthday party, Jayden began to play a game with her we will call, "Mama, have some peanuts".
He would give her a peanut, she would say thank you, and this repeated itself over and over again until Angie had had enough peanuts for one day. Several times during the day, Angie would reach for him but he would turn away or run every time.

We left that first day knowing that it would take time. Again, he KNOWS in his little mind that we have come to take him away from the only world he has known, a two room haven where all his needs are met, where he is loved and cared for, and where his life is.