Haiti First Adoption Trip Journal, Day 2 (11/23/12): Our First Playdate

As we walked out to the beach Friday morning, we were quickly greeted by a couple of teenaged salesmen anxious to show us their “work”. While I doubt they actually created any of the jewelry and such that they were carrying in the baskets on their heads (there were some items that I suspect were not even made in Haiti), Patric and Tutu were certainly charming and worked hard to try to close a deal. D, who himself is skilled in the art of sales, engaged the boys in conversation as I perused their goods. I told Tutu I didn’t have money with me but that if he would meet me back at the beach the next morning, I would buy something from him. He seemed to think that was an acceptable arrangement. He pulled out a bracelet and handed it to me and said, “for you, for no charge, for being my friend.” I told him no thank you. He said “Please. Take as a gift. No charge. No problem for me.” I replied that “taking for free is a problem for me”. He smiled. I told him I’d look for him on Saturday.

We went to breakfast. Pancakes for D. Ham and cheese omelet for me. Passion fruit juice. And coffee—surprisingly good coffee! After breakfast, we returned to our bungalow to finish getting ready for the day and to text our good friends Brian (and Jen) and Joy. Brian, Joy and D have been friends since 4th grade. Jen is one of my VBFFs. These peeps have not only been a constant source of encouragement through the adoption process and life’s ups and downs but they also happen to be an integral part of the big dream I mentioned a few posts ago.

Once I had my face on and my hair fixed (as well as I could fix it given the humidity), it was time to head to the children’s village. We walked out of the gates of faux Haiti and through the neighborhood behind the resort. Goats, pigs, chickens and an occasional cow roamed free along the dirt road. Men at work filling potholes with gravel stopped and watched as we walked by. They seemed to appreciate a friendly “Bonjou!” We turned and walked down a more narrow dirt road leading to the children’s village. The view was incredible. We were uphill from the ocean and could see it over the bushes to our right.

To the left were green mountains—the tops hidden by fog.

We had to jump over what appeared to be (and smelled like) a puddle of raw sewage dumped from an opening in the wall of another orphanage. We heard what sounded like a brand new, just-born baby crying in the brush. We could tell there were little homes tucked away in there and wondered if someone had just given birth. The cries lasted less than a minute, at which point I hoped the wee one was contentedly nursing.

We reached the gates of the children’s village, took a deep breath and knocked to summon the guard. He opened the gate for us and walked with us back to the boys’ cottage. J was asleep in a pack-n-play just inside the cottage entrance. A special mother said he'd probably sleep for a couple more hours, which meant he’d be waking up about the same time M and the other children returned from school. We oohed and ahhhed over him for a few minutes and decided to go back to the hotel for a bit to let him sleep and return after school/naptime.

As we approached the reception area of the hotel, one of the men at the desk waved us over. He told us they forgot to give us our welcome drink when we arrived the night before and to follow him to the poolside bar, where he pulled out two fruity drinks. We sipped our drinks and watched a bit of soccer on the TV behind the bar.

We waited about an hour and finally couldn’t take it anymore. We decided to go back out into the neighborhood and explore the area behind the resort as we moseyed back down to the children’s village.

We wandered down several different dirt paths that led to points overlooking the ocean and made our way to the village promptly at one o’clock. The guard opened the gate and we walked back to the boys’ cottage. As we entered the doorway, we saw a silhouette of a naked little boy in the doorway to the back patio. We immediately recognized it as our M. He’d just received a bath. There were two special mothers in the cottage. One of them lifted J out of his pack-n-play, at which point the children in the living room area of the cottage all started saying calling out his name, emphasizing the SON at the end of his name. A big ol’ grin spread across his face. He’s the baby of the cottage (the youngest child in the village) and they all seemed to think of him as their baby brother. While one special mother took M into one of the bedrooms to get him dressed for our play date, the other carried J onto the front porch and handed him to us. In our arms at last!

There is no moment that compares to holding your child for the first time. And as someone who has become a mother both by giving birth and by adoption, I can say that it is equally special and just as meaningful no matter what path you take to get there. Adoption is just as miraculous as childbirth. And just as life-changing. In that moment, the volume of love in your heart miraculously multiplies. You feel a surge of pure, unconditional, overwhelming love, protectiveness, anticipation of a lifetime of joy and memories, and the serious responsibility of sheltering a precious little, innocent body and shepherding a heart. I’ve been blessed to experience it five times and on this trip, twice in one day.

I couldn’t believe how loveable our little J was. He’s the smiliest, happiest baby you ever met. Anytime I looked at him and talked baby talk he would get the biggest grin on his face. He’s got two bottom teeth and I think more must be coming in because he wanted to put everything in his little wet and drooly mouth. He was such a content little thing and had such a sweet personality. Adorable as he can be, with little arm dimples and squeezable thighs.

As we sat on the porch making a big fuss over J, a special mother walked M out onto the porch. He was wearing a pajama shirt with a picture of the Incredible Hulk and Spiderman. The special mother nudged M toward me and took J out of my arms motioning that she was taking him in to change him. I could tell M was unsure about the situation. I sat him in my lap and took a minute to kiss his head and breathe in his sweet, just-bathed-and-coated-in-baby-powder scent. I didn’t want to rush things, though. A benefit, perhaps, of the Haiti adoption process? You’re free to take it slow and there’s time to build a relationship, to lay some sort of foundation before whisking your child away. We figure by the end of the process, we will be more like a fun aunt and uncle that comes to visit every few months than parents. But at least we won’t be strangers. Hopefully there will be some level of comfort and trust and familiarity. At this point, though, we were still strangers to M. We didn’t look like him and we didn’t speak his language. Our plan was to take an easy, relaxed pace, try to make sure he felt comfortable with us and that he had some control of the situation and to get to know him through laughter and play.

About a week before we left, the girls found a little Matchbox Monster Truck with “Gravedigger” emblazoned on the side in one of their toyboxes. Must have made its way to our house in one of the boxes we received from the cleanout of Mom and Dad B’s house, probably something our nephews played with 10 or 12 years ago. As I was packing the night before we left, Miss A gave it to me to give to Max. It was the first thing I grabbed when I reached into my “bag of tricks” while sitting there on the porch. I rolled it over M’s legs and arms and made my best truck engine sound, interjecting random “beep-beep!”s, which I knew he would be familiar with if it was Mario who drove their van to and from school. I sat him down on the porch and moved a few feet away from him and rolled the truck to him. He cracked a little smile and rolled it back. After a few minutes of rolling it back and forth, I decided to get silly and rolled it under my legs, behind my back, upside down, and from any goofy, contorted pose I could come up with. He’d roll it back to me and I’d make big, exaggerated gestures while catching it. He thought it was funny. “Machina!” he kept exclaiming in his sweet little Kreyol accented voice. I got some happy squeals and belly laughs.

The special mother returned with J. I kept playing with M as she handed J to D. She might have thought I was crazy. D thought he could tell that she liked how I was playing with M. I wondered how other visiting parents act with their kids as I noticed the special mothers spying on me and smiling and laughing as I danced and did cartwheels and entertained my son. I do wonder what they really thought, as I recently read that it is not common for adults in Haiti to engage in play with children. But we were determined that M associate us with warm, fuzzy, happy feelings and having FUN! I’m an introvert and most people think of me as quiet and reserved—that is, most people other than my husband and children! I LOVE to make my kiddos laugh, love having a house filled with laughter, and am never more concerned with what others think than I am with making memories.

M’s laughter drew an audience as the other children began to peep out of the door of the cottage. They were laughing and telling the others to come look at the woman on their front porch. The white woman (I heard the word “blanca” several times).

After a little while, we got concerned that we might be causing a distraction from whatever was going on in the house, D and I decided to walk over to the play yard. I offered M my hand and he looked at me and smiled as he took it.

We plopped down in a grassy area next to the swings. Gravedigger’s wheels didn’t roll so easily in the grass, so I reached into my bag of tricks and pulled out. . . Goodnight Gorilla. A favorite book of our girls. And one I thought would be fun to read with M since it has no words. We have a lot of fun sounds and fun expressions that we insert as special effects when we read it—a story about a clever little monkey who unlocks the cages of all the animals in the zoo and they all follow the sleepily oblivious zookeeper home and into his bed. I handed the book to M. He ran over to the path leading to his cottage where he was in sight of the other children and he held the book up for the other children to see. “Ma liv!” he said in a sing-song voice as he flaunted. This was something he would repeat each time we gave him something. We suspected that he must have seen other children receive gifts from their visiting parents and now it was HIS turn to show off. He came back and sat down next to D and they turned the pages of the book together.

I played with J, my little chunk of pure sweetness. He never fussed or got restless like he was tired, but after awhile, he drifted off to sleep on my lap.

I had some cookies in my bag and offered one to M. Once again, he ran toward the cottage to flaunt it before gobbling it up. We ran around the play yard, played on the swings and danced to children’s music that we played on my phone. All the while, M kept careful inventory of his “liv” and his “machina” and J’s little teething toy, never letting them out of his sight. (As an aside, I noticed a LOT of similarity between French and Haitian Kreyol. Not a perfect match, but seems like it would be very helpful in communicating. Ordering Rosetta Stone to refresh my fluency will be at the top of my agenda when I get home!)

The final item to come out of my bag of tricks was bubbles. The bubbles were a hit. We spent the rest of the afternoon blowing bubbles, catching bubbles and running around the play yard with M. M loved to catch bubbles made by D and his silly bubble kazoo. And he had so much fun playing “chase” and “catch“ with D crawling on his hands and knees coming after him. His giggles were priceless. We played and played and played.

At about 5 o'clock, one of the special mothers came out and told us it was time for J to eat. We could see that dinner preparations were being made in the cottages. We thought it would be best to end our time with M on a good note, so we decided to walk him back to the cottage with the special mother. We gave him little hugs and kisses and told him goodbye. We turned around to wave as we reached the end of the little gravel walkway to the cottage. His special mother ran her finger down her cheek, gesturing to us that M was crying. Oh, my heart. Our first goodbye. He doesn’t understand that from now on, our separations will only be temporary. But how many times will we come and go until we’re together forever? These precious boys don’t really know or love us yet but we already love them as deeply as any parents can love their children.

We walked back to the resort with lumps in our throats. We ordered two pina coladas from the hotel bar and carried them down to the beach to watch the sunset. We had the beach all to ourselves. Fishing boats sailed past as the sun set behind the mountains. So peaceful and serene.

The tears that I’d been suppressing all day—I knew M wouldn’t have understood and my ugly cry face would probably have scared all the children—finally came. Tears of sadness for all our boys have been through. Tears of frustration for all the uncertainties and red tape and waiting and goodbyes. Tears of joy for finally being able to hold our boys, play with them, touch their beautiful brown skin, look into their eyes, take in their smells, and listen to their giggles. And above all else, tears of overwhelming gratefulness for what the Lord has done. I can’t help but draw parallels between adoption here on earth and our adoption by the Lord. From brokenness and pain to hope, healing, redemption, joy and purpose. They are so similar and both so beautiful. I am thankful that he has made us His own, rescued us from an ordinary life and called us to this incredible journey. He is so good!