One Year Ago . . . January 12th

Kellin slept well through the night until early morning. We had nothing planned until our guide would be arriving in the early afternoon to take us to the adoption office to finalize the adoption, so I spent the morning just hanging out with Kellin. He eagerly drank his bottle of formula and crushed-up biscuits. Afterward I gave him a bath. He did not cry but his body tensed up and I suspected that he was not familiar with a bath. It was so nice to get him clean-smelling! As I was choosing clothes for him to wear, I discovered that 18-month size clothes were about right for height (remember he was 3 ½ years old) but they were way, way too baggy. He couldn’t wear regular pants because they wouldn’t stay up around his waist. I chose a one-piece outfit instead.

I discovered that this child, who could not sit up at all on his own, enjoyed standing up (with support) and “walking.” By “walking,” I mean that he would stomp his feet on the floor but not necessarily in any particular direction or pattern (like a young infant does). I would hold his two hands and we walked back and forth across the room, again and again. Over the next couple weeks, Dad and I would take turns walking him back and forth across our hotel rooms, sometimes for what felt like hours at a time.

We also began to suspect that Kellin could see light, despite having been told that he had no vision. He loved the floor-to-ceiling window in the room that looked out over a sort of courtyard (it was a beautiful indoor restaurant area but the ceiling was all skylights so it was bright). Kellin loved to stand at this window, but I learned to stay close because he often lost his balance.

I was determined to see if I could get him to eat something other than just drinking from a bottle. After all, the “schedule” from the orphanage had listed many foods that he supposedly ate on a regular basis. Here I am, trying to get him to try one of the biscuits left by the orphanage staff.

I was so naïve at this point, with no idea how deep Kellin’s eating issues ran, and how intensive a process it would be to teach him to eat. Kellin would not touch the biscuit with his hands or allow me to touch it to his mouth. He would not tolerate a pureed food pouch, straw, or spoon touching his face either, let alone let me put ANYTHING into his mouth other than a bottle. After a couple days of this, there is no way anyone could convince me that the orphanage had fed him anything other than those bottles of formula. He was completely unfamiliar with food in any other form.

I talked with my family at home briefly. Kellin is sitting on my lap here, doing what he wanted to do ALL THE TIME – one finger poking his eye, the other hand flicking his lips, and spit going everywhere.

There was no way to stop him from doing this, short of restraining him. And for a child who generally was very weak, he could muster a surprising strength when he felt confined, leading me to wonder if he had had negative experiences with being restrained. Although I have no evidence that anything like that happened, it is not uncommon for orphanages to tie children to their cribs or otherwise restrain them to make them easier to control.

I tried to hold and play with Kellin throughout the morning.

These show the best moments, but the reality is that Kellin could only tolerate interaction like this for a short time and then I had to put him down in his bed and leave him alone for a while. He did very quickly attach to his blankie, which made me wonder if he had had something similar in his crib in the orphanage. This was his preferred position – on his right side, curled up in a fetal position.

In the early afternoon, we headed out to complete the paperwork to finalize the adoption. Our guide took us first to a small photo place where Kellin and I had to be photographed, and then to a bank to exchange the very large amount of American money I had been carrying around for the last few days (glad to get that taken care of). At both places, the staff remarked on how Kellin was dressed. The weather was in the 50’s and felt very pleasant to us, so I had Kellin dressed in a pair of overalls and a shirt, with a heavy winter coat. I felt that this was appropriate, but in Chinese culture, he was considered significantly underdressed and we received many comments about how inappropriate it was for his legs to be bare (when I held him – his pants would pull up a bit and expose his ankles). Our guide showed us that he was wearing long johns under his pants, as well as three shirts. After leaving the bank, I put a second pair of pants on Kellin to hopefully avoid this for the rest of the day.

Our guide then escorted us to the adoption office, where two of the orphanage staff from the previous day were waiting. Our guide helped us take care of the orphanage donation (a large amount of money paid directly to the orphanage director) and some initial paperwork, and then we waited. And waited and waited. Somehow there had been a miscommunication and the official needed to complete the final paperwork was not there.

Kellin was very restless and became whiny (he still hadn’t had a good cry, but he would whimper). At one point, I gave him a bottle I had brought along (at room temperature) – and the orphanage director remarked on how cold the liquid was. Apparently, children are given bottles made with very hot water in China. Kellin drank it just fine, nevertheless.

The official FINALLY arrived and the paperwork was completed. I had to write a couple paragraphs, promising to care for Kellin and to never abandon him, and I had to sign more papers. I was asked if I really wanted to adopt him, and once I answered yes, everything proceeded smoothly. Kellin was really and truly ours, legally. We still had more paperwork to do in the coming days to get permission to bring him into the U.S., but he was our son from that moment.

After four hours out and about, we headed back to the hotel. By that point, I knew that Kellin desperately needed to be put down in his bed because he was completely overwhelmed with the constant holding and touching, so I put him in his bed as soon as we arrived in the hotel room. Dad went out and got food from Pizza Hut for supper, and the rest of the evening passed quietly.