Our trip to the orphanage

It took 2.5 hours to get to the orphanage yesterday, on a highway that ran through rice paddies and fields where farmers used water buffalo instead of tractors to plow. The city of Wuxue has about 100,000 people, with 300,000 living in the surrounding area. That's actually really small, compared to where we've been -- Beijing (14 million) and Wuhan, which has about 9 million. The Wuxue Social Welfare Institute provides social services for orphans, the elderly, the disabled and homeless. When we got there, we met with the SWI's director and the caregivers, who made us homemade dumplings (i'll never be able to eat a frozen one again) and gave us a tour of the facility. About two dozen seniors, mostly men, live at the SWI. No orphans live at the SWI; as soon as they arrive, they're assigned to a foster family.

About 70% of the SWI's orphans are eventually adopted by overseas families; they showed us a bulletin board of photos of many of the girls with their families. That's quite a difference compared to China overall; according to our guide, about 60% of orphans in China are adopted domestically and that figure is growing. In 2002, the province of Hubei recorded 900 international adoptions. This year, it's expecting to do just 400, in part because fewer babies are being abandoned and also because more babies are being adopted by families here. Which is all very positive news and helps explain why our wait for June took so darn long. Currently, the Wuxue SWI has 32 orphans in foster care. Their foster parents are required to bring them to the orphanage once a month for a medical checkup, photographs and to meet the other children.

We toured the facility, which was very clean and cheerful, and saw the playrooms where June and the other girls got together every month. We found the toy car and the chair that she posed with in her referral pictures. It was so emotional, to picture her in the room, playing with the toys, having fun with the other kids, being loved and cared for so much by her foster parents and the orphanage staff. One of the little girls in our group, 14-month-old Abbie, jumped on her favorite red rocking horse as soon as she got in the playroom. God only knows what was running through June's mind. She didn't cry or fuss or give any indication of being scared.

Walking around the place, all I could think about was the trauma she and the other girls have been through the past few days -- new people, new language, new smells, new everything. How terribly frightening to lose everything that is familiar to you. The social worker traveling with our group told us something in Beijing that I've thought about alot the past few days. We've been waiting forever to meet our daughters. But they haven't been waiting for us. It's so true. They were leading perfectly happy lives with their favorite red rocking horses and foster parents who loved them. And yet, they've adapted to their new families and surroundings so well. June clings to me as if I've known her for years, not four days.

Just when I thought the trip couldn't get any tougher, we piled back onto the bus to visit the "finding locations" where our daughters were abandoned. Four of the 8 families in our group made the trip to Wuxue so we visited four sites. It was like the orphanage caregiver had a GPS system, that's how precise she was with the locations. She brought one family to a sidewalk across the street from a hotel, to a specific spot between two trees. June was found at one of the entrance gates to a big pharmaceutical company on the outskirts of town. The entrance area was quite large, but the caregiver led us to a specific spot near a potted fern. A security guard tried to shoo us away and stop us from taking pictures, but thankfully our guides intervened. June was fast asleep in my arms the entire time, but I hope she'll have a chance to visit that spot again someday. What happened there on March 3, 2006, changed all of our lives forever.

P.S. These pix aren't at the orphanage. We just thought you'd like to see the way June falls asleep every night.