Somewhere A Child Waits

By Kristin Gunst

I am often questioned about adopting an older waiting child. "Didn’t you want a baby?" people will ask. "How did you decide what special needs you would accept? How did you choose her?"

These are very personal questions. The truth is I had been thinking about adopting an older waiting child for several years. I had always said I’d go back for another & as I looked through the waiting child listings online, I realized that many had medical problems that are easily treatable here in the US. I had to decide what issues I felt were appropriate for our family & realized that for me, the limit was a mentally challenged child.

And no, I did not want an infant. I thought I may be too old to get up three times a night with a younger child. Four seems like a good age, potty training is out of the way & kindergarten starts at five. No shuffling between two different schools. Kids are kids, & whether a child is two or four they all need a home.

It was fairly simple – I wanted a child & she was there, waiting. I had approached Lillian at a reunion of my first adoption group thinking I would like to adopt a little boy, perhaps about the age of four, two years younger than my daughter Anna. When I asked Lillian about the Waiting Children’s Program at CAWLI, she began to tell me of the children whose files she held. I was immediately struck when she mentioned a girl who was four-and-a-half-years-old.

I frequently counsel people considering adoption to be flexible & to remember what they really want out of adoption. It’s not the photo of the cooing baby that their aching hearts want. What they want is to fill that hole, that gap, that only a child’s love can fill. When I found out Fu Yuanyuan was actually going to be six-and-a-half by the time I traveled, I admit, I hesitated… but for only a few minutes. My daughters would only be two months apart & I know that many in adoption frown on what is called "artificial twinning." However, to me a commitment to a child is the strongest commitment you can ever make. I wasn’t "shopping" for that "ideal" child & to reject Fu Yuanyuan because she turned out to be older than I originally had imagined & not a boy, well, so what? I may have missed her infancy but I could share her future. Sometimes you have to go out on a limb & trust your heart. And that is what I did with my adoption of Fu Yuanyuan.

FuYuanyuan's Referral Photo

In August of 2003 I returned to China to adopt my second daughter who was six & a half years old & residing in Xinyang, Henan Province. I traveled with a bit of anxiety because the initial paperwork that I had received on Fu Yuanyuan had been written two years previously. It stated that when found at 18 months she weighed about 9 pounds. According to my pediatrician, such a low weight at that age was likely indicative of serious cognitive delays. Lillian conveyed assurances from the orphanage that there had been a mistake & that she was healthy, but I still worried. What if I got there & this little girl who stared back at me from the black & white photo couldn’t learn to read or write or even tie her shoes? What if something happened to me & my other daughter had to take care of a seriously learning disabled sibling? Would it be fair to my older daughter? In addition to worrying about serious cognitive delays, I found myself coming back to the same worries I had with my first adoption. Am I doing the right thing? Will she learn to love me?

And so I found myself flying halfway around the world with all these unanswered questions banging around in my head. Lillian told me that I could decline the child if she was severely delayed. But could I really? Could I do that in order to protect my daughter at home?

All this worry disappeared when I met Fu Yuanyuan in the hallway of the hotel that steamy day in Zhengzhou. It was obvious she was "all there" & also apparent that she didn’t think this Mom thing was such a good idea. She clung to her nanny’s hand & whimpered, holding back tears. When the kind director & his associates departed, she backed herself against the wall & tears just fell down her face.

Her fears & mine have long disappeared as our lives have grown together. Now we can’t seem to imagine life without each other. My older daughter, Anna, who once yelled, "I don’t want a stupid sister!" has more recently been caught wrapping her arm around her sister’s shoulder & saying "I love you, Addie." They are each other’s best friend.

Fu Yuanyuan, now called Addis (Addie) Yuanyuan, did not start life out so easily. She was born with a severe cleft lip & palate. The lack of an upper lip made it necessary for someone to drip food into her mouth to keep her alive as she could not suck without an upper lip. Feeding an infant this way takes a lot of time & dedication. Fu Yuanyuan was later abandoned at 18 months in the Xinyang train station. In my heart, I know whoever kept her alive all that time, watched with a broken heart to see her discovered & taken away to the police station. What a sacrifice! From the police station she made her way to the care of the Xinyang Social Welfare Institute. The orphanage had her upper lip repaired when she was about two & then when she was five, she was sent to Children’s Hospital in Beijing where her palate was repaired.

According to the paperwork, the orphanage staff found Yuanyuan to be an engaging child. She liked to laugh & giggle. She knew how to recite some poetry when we met & she could write some characters & do some math. They had obviously nurtured her, one nanny even took her home for a few months to experience life with a family. This family’s grandmother wept when Addie left to start her new life. Any fears of learning disabilities quickly disappeared like an ice cube on a summer sidewalk in Zhengzhou. Adjusting to each other took longer.