Wrestling

Be prepared for the real side of adoption; the ugly side, the sad side.

We may never really know the truth about our daughter's first 22 months on this earth before I met her face to face.  Her birthdate is at best, an estimate based on her dental development.  But I do know that she was relinquished at the gate of the orphanage around a month and a half after she was born.  I know that she was in an older orphanage, but at some point, her town opened a brand new, beautiful orphanage and all the kids and caregivers were rehoused there.  The pictures we have in the scrapbook I was given on Gotcha Day show a beautiful, clean building with play rooms, classrooms, toddler rooms with cribs, et cetera.

A view of her bandaged leg in the orphanage.

While facilities may be nice and pristine, the care may not be as spotless, in our eyes.  After we received our referral and were matched with L, we were so anxious to receive more current photos of her.  When we received those treasured photos, I quickly noticed what appeared to be a bandage on L's left ankle.  Her feet fit into identical shoes, but the ankle and lower leg clearly looked different from her right.  I inquired about it and weeks later, my agency heard from China that L was healthy and had sustained no injuries, there was no cause for alarm about her leg.

Not too long after that, a friend also adopting from China posted a picture of her waiting daughter on her blog with a tether around her ankle.  My eyes were opened to the fact that some orphanages around the world tether children to cribs, chairs, toilets and the like.  It's not just something you read about in the news and wonder if it's really a half-truth.  It happens.  It's unthinkable, isn't it?  But it happens.  I looked back at the picture of L and her bandaging on her leg.  Could that have been some sort of protection to her skin for times when she had been tethered to her bed or was it indeed a bandage concealing a hidden scar, bodily harm caused by being tied to some immovable object?  I may never know the answer.

L's ankles today.  Notice the purple scars, especially on her right leg.

Upon coming home with L, I certainly noticed marks on her right ankle, not the one bandaged in the picture.  She has faint lines on her left ankle and deep lines on her right.  Wanting to put the idea of tethering out of my mind, I put my hopes into the thought that maybe the lines on L's ankles are amniotic bands.  In reality, there is a chance that they are scars from being tethered.  Pediatricians can guess, but we may never know the truth.

We've found additional reason to believe L was tethered to her crib.  Lately we've been dealing with L's RMD - Rhythmic Movement Disorder - when she sleeps.  She'll lay there in her crib and will kick a foot to soothe herself into slumber.  She didn't do this until after she had been home for a few months and it has forced us to put her to sleep upstairs in her own room rather than sleeping in our room for bonding's sake.  Her RMD would keep us up at night.  Guess which foot she kicks?  The right one - the one with the deep scar.  It is, perhaps, just a little bit of a glimpse into her past.

However last week brought more disturbing behavior from my daughter.  I witnessed something fascinating, but in a heart wrenching sort of way.

I was doing school with my boys on Thursday morning.  C was in the back bedroom reading his history book and I set E up at the dining room table doing his handwriting activities while I quickly looked over the home inspection report that had just come into my email box.  I moved into the living room to read the report while L played in front of me.  She was lying in a pile of couch cushions and pillows that had been left by my boys from their most recent fort building spree.  L was laying on top of it all and was making a strange noise.  I can best describe it as a third fake, a third angry or frustrated, and a third sad or upset.  Needless to say, it was a strange sound, one I'd never heard from her before.  I looked up from my iPad to see what was bugging her.  She was on her back, on top of all the cushions, with a light blanket over her midsection.  Her head, arms and legs were all uncovered and free.  She was not pinned or trapped in the slightest.

Let me interrupt this story by saying that L dislikes blankets.  In China she was indifferent to them.  Once home, she simply didn't want one.  I'd lay one across her at bedtime and I'd later find it on the floor outside her crib.  She never cried over them but she'd toss them out once I left the room.  I quickly stopped even offering one.  We recently had a cool day here in Texas.  I didn't want to turn the furnace on, but it wasn't cold enough for a thick blanket sleeper for L to wear at bedtime either.  I laid L down in her crib and pulled a baby blanket out of the drawer behind me.  She screamed an enormous fit at the sight of it.  This was a whole new reaction entirely.  It was not a battle I was going to fight with a tired 2 year old at bedtime.  If she was fine without a blanket, I'd fold it up and lay it back in the drawer.  No need for drama.  Case closed.

So, watching L with this blanket in the living room was curious.  She'd lay on her back, blanket hardly covering her, she'd kick and wrestle it with this angry, yet sad, fake cry.  Not even 5 seconds later she'd roll onto her belly, out from under the blanket, looking almost like a cat that had just pounced on a mouse, and she'd immediately stop her fussing.  Five seconds later, she'd roll back onto her back and then reach and pull the blanket back over her belly; her arms, legs and head still free and unencumbered.  A few seconds of odd fussing again, then roll back over and stop fussing.  Then onto her back again with fussing repeated, then roll to her stomach without a sound further.  You get the picture.  Over and over and over again she'd wrestle with this blanket for a good 5-7 minutes while I silently watched this odd drama from the couch.  She was acting something out.

I wrote to my adoption community on Facebook and without offering my inference first, one friend in particular confirmed my unspoken suspicions.  She knew of some orphanages in China where children are bound in blankets and then strapped to their cribs.  And this wasn't her educated guess.  She had seen it with her own eyes and had even taken a picture.  In an instant, L's drama in the living room brought to light the idea that she was most likely bound in blankets and tied to her crib, unable to move freely.  It would also explain some raw skin L had on her waistline when I got her in China.  Thankfully, those lines went away with love and care and lots of baby lotion which she loved!  Her little act on the living room floor was acting out her anger and sadness over being trapped in her metal crib.  And rolling over onto her belly and being out from under the blanket was her escape.  She was wrestling for her freedom - freedom that she didn't have in China, freedom that she does have here.

We're not naive enough to believe that these practices don't exist.  We went into our adoption knowing that some orphanages, not all orphanages in our world, may use these practices.  Our required adoption training referenced it.  But we never imagined our daughter may have witnessed it herself.  This is tough!  So tough, it brings me to tears.  I would guess that the average person like me wouldn't understand how a 2 year old can have the memory, the recall of the traumatic events in her short little life.  But my daughter is proof.  She remembers and she's wrestling with her sad past and her happy present.  It's a heartbreaking reality.  No child should have to endure what my daughter may have endured.

Rest assured that my sweet girl is happy and has adjusted very well.  This was just a very rare, eye opening incident.  The rest of her day was happy and uneventful and the days that have followed since have been without incident.  But I'm just so thankful that L is now free with us here at home, yet I seek your prayers for the healing of her body, mind and spirit and that she can move on, free from the weight of her past, free to embrace her freedom and the love we desire to pour into her life.

I know God will do amazing things through my daughter and her story - her whole story.  I trust Him.


PS...  You don't read many stories like this online because many people don't talk openly about it.  I do not write this to blast my daughter's home country for their actions because this happens in other countries too.  Without China, we wouldn't have a daughter.  We love her culture and we will raise her to honor her rich heritage.  Its our utmost privilege to raise one of China's beautiful, precious daughters.  And I certainly do not want to open any of this up for debate or human rights discussions.  I'm not even opening up the comments section on this post.  This is simply our story.  It's just what we are dealing with now and I am choosing to speak out with the hopes that this might reach another family struggling with similar concerns so they would know they are most certainly not alone.