Zhengzhou-Visiting the Orphanage

We had the opportunity to go and see Lizzie's orphanage. I was pretty confident that the experience would go smoothly, and didn't anticipate the emotional toll it would take on all of us. It is hard to write about, but it is also good. It was much nicer than I anticipated, but very draining and sad. I'll write more about our experience at the bottom of this post. First, the photo's (the fun part).

In front of the Orphanage
(Children's Social Welfare Institute-CSWI)

Lizzie's Finding Place
This is just outside of the CSWI gates, under this tree. She was found on November 9, 2009 at an estimated age of 3 months.

This is the room that Lizzie (Zheng Lan) spent her first year. They take the kids to another room (hers was the pink room below) until it has been determined that they do not have family to claim them, and then move to one of the rooms like this one. This was her crib until she left, and then it was given to a new baby. As they grow older, they are moved around. Most of the kids in this CSWI are placed with Foster families, so there aren't as many. There were 3 families with our group who had children from this orphanage, all had been placed with a foster family. Below are photo's of the CSWI, a therapy room like the one in which she would go, and some of the other rooms, including the "pre-school" room, and the street outside the orphanage where Lizzie was found.
Now, let's see if I can do this without crying. Lizzie has an ear-infection, so she was really tired and emotional to start out the day. The bus ride was about 40 minutes, so she was pretty upset, and she didn't like showing up to the place where she had just left. When she was given to us, they gave us a book with several photo's of her, and some of her foster mom. She is such a sweet looking women, lucky Lizzie. We recognized her outside the doors as we approached, and without thinking, I approached her. Lizzie saw her, reached out for her, her Foster Mom took her to give her a hug, and then she did not want to come back to me. They had to tell her Foster Mom to give her to me and leave immediately. Jake said she left crying, and I took Lizzie into the center crying uncontrollably. What a traumatic experience for the poor girl. I just held her, but we had that really difficult crying day inside the orphanage. So many of the workers and nannies wanted to say "Hello" to her. But they asked them to all stay away so that I could settle her down. I found a corner, and just sang to her, rocking her. After quite a while, she finally fell asleep and let me put her in Jake's arms. She woke up just as we were leaving, so I took her outside as soon as possible and let Jake and my parents finish the tour. While she was asleep, I was able to see where she had been. While I was rocking her, Jake was able to ask many questions. It was bitter-sweet. So neat to see everything, but so emotional. My poor little girl. My heart aches for her and all that she is going through. It has been a very very tough day.

When we arrived back, she wanted me to hold her, and she cried some more. I sat and sang her to sleep....all the songs about Jesus I could think of. I stopped once to tell Jake something, and she pulled my head back to her ear, so I sang more. She has now been asleep for 3 hours, which has been much needed. She is just starting to wake up. I love this little girl so much. I hope she can feel that. It is worth all of the pain I am going through physically and emotionally. I pray Heavenly Father will continue to be with us.

Now, onto the cool stuff we learned. Lizzie was very very small when she was abandoned (hard to believe) and was in the orphanage for about a year before being placed with a foster family. In order to help with the adjustment, they bring them back to the orphanage 2 weeks before they are placed with a family (hence the reason she didn't want to go back there, probably thought I was going to leave her there, too). She lived in the country with her Foster Family who had 1 child of their own and 2 other orphans. She spent a lot of time outdoors without sunscreen. They told us that is why she is so dark, and that we should keep sunscreen on her.

The doctor's feel like she is fine, that she will not have any more problems, but that we should meet with a US Doctor to have her evaluated. They said to make sure and have her head and ears checked. I know she can hear, but they recommended tests to make sure there is not any hearing loss.

The orphanage receives an average of 20 new babies each month, most of them with special needs. There were 4 albino babies that we saw, which are very rarely kept by families. We have one family, Katie and Ryan, who adopted one Lizzie's age. He's so cute. There were some tiny little babies. They only sleep 1 per crib, if possible. This orphanage has been really updated over the past 5 years due to Henan Kids International, an organization through our agency, CCAI, that benefits the CSWI's throughout Henan. It is rated a 9 out of 10. Henan Province adopted out the fewest number of children for many years, but now is one of the top (14 kids in our group, and 1 other family with another agency just this week).

You can't help but leave and want to do something for those left behind. I wish I could have just sat and held each of the babies individually and sang a song to them. It was a very humbling experience. "If ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me." I'm glad we went, but we cancelled our touring for tomorrow so we can spend the day playing and bonding. We need it!