Gracie slept through the night last night, in our bed, and when she woke the terror and fear was back. She obviously didn’t know where she was or who we were. Today was our Adoption Finalization appointment at the Civil Affairs office where we first met Gracie...we were to leave at 10 am. Denny and Emma headed down to get breakfast while I played with Gracie but I could tell things just weren’t right. I’m so thankful for the play time I had with her yesterday and could see a bit of her personality and know she wasn’t herself. I gave her some water and she ate a little bit but then ended up getting sick. She almost immediately fell back to sleep only after being awake for 15 minutes. Denny and Emma got back to the room and he then texted our guide to let her know what was going on. Gracie ended up throwing up a couple of more times and was now screaming crying and became lifeless. Denise, our guide, ended up coming to our room to check on her. She was able to calm Gracie as she spoke in her language. Denise also called the orphanage director, who was on her way to our meeting at the Civil Affairs office. She asked her if this was previously happening with Gracie or if there was anything she knew of we could do to help her. She said she has been fine and wanted to make sure we were giving her very warm water and had her in several layers of clothes. This is the way of life here. But that was not the problem at this point. Yesterday we thought the vomiting was because of her nerves but the way it was going today we knew this was not the case anymore. We had to quickly get ready as we were running late at this point.
(On a funny note, at this point we were running behind and Denise told us to just grab clothes and leave. Normally on this day you wear something nice because you’re finalizing the adoption and because there’s a photo. Well we grabbed whatever was on top of our suitcase and only until later did we notice we were both matching in our Maple Street Biscuit t-shirts! lol)
We flew downstairs to get in the van where Denise said we would discuss medical care options. She said we had two options…one being going to the hospital ER where the fee is very low, wait will be all day and no western doctors. Option two was an International Clinic where the fee is higher but it’s much quicker and there are western doctors and western medicine/care. We said we would try the clinic and that would be our stop after our 10:30 appointment. Denise held Gracie to the appointment and comforted her in mandarin. Once we arrived at the Civil Affairs office, the orphanage director came right up to us and wanted to see Gracie and check on her.
(On a funny note, at this point we were running behind and Denise told us to just grab clothes and leave. Normally on this day you wear something nice because you’re finalizing the adoption and because there’s a photo. Well we grabbed whatever was on top of our suitcase and only until later did we notice we were both matching in our Maple Street Biscuit t-shirts! lol)
We flew downstairs to get in the van where Denise said we would discuss medical care options. She said we had two options…one being going to the hospital ER where the fee is very low, wait will be all day and no western doctors. Option two was an International Clinic where the fee is higher but it’s much quicker and there are western doctors and western medicine/care. We said we would try the clinic and that would be our stop after our 10:30 appointment. Denise held Gracie to the appointment and comforted her in mandarin. Once we arrived at the Civil Affairs office, the orphanage director came right up to us and wanted to see Gracie and check on her.
We asked her if she’s ever done this before and she said no and that nothing seemed wrong with her yesterday. We asked if she knew about any feeding problems and she said she didn’t have any. We asked a couple of more questions while she wrapped her in another blanket (she had on her pjs with another outfit over top of that, a jacket and one blanket wrapped around her already) and sat down with her to comfort her. Gracie became calm in her arms but started to gag and I tried to hand the director the towel I had brought to catch the vomit in but that’s not how things work here. The director held Gracie over on her belly and had her throw up right in the floor in front of us and patted her back to get it all out, then turned her over, wiped her mouth, and bundled her back up. On a side note, a friend whose family adopted from here this summer wrote Emma a letter warning her of the puddles here and that they’re probably not made of water…which is SO true! Thanks Alana for that tip :) It’s not strange for people to spit on the ground right beside you, for their child to pee on the floor right in front of you, or to apparently throw up on the floor in a building.
It was time for us to start our paperwork and the director said she would hold Gracie. When we sat down our guide told us that it is now the adoption becomes official. But she wanted to know if we still wanted to move forward with it. Denny and I were confused by this and just looked at each other. She continued to talk and was trying to ask us since this is happening to Gracie if we still want to continue the adoption. Denny stopped her mid sentence and said no we aren’t backing out…she is our daughter! We were just trying to find out the best way to care for her and if there’s something we can do to help her. She understood and just wanted to confirm. We answered the paperwork questions of will we ever leave her or abandon her and why we want to adopt her.
It was time for us to start our paperwork and the director said she would hold Gracie. When we sat down our guide told us that it is now the adoption becomes official. But she wanted to know if we still wanted to move forward with it. Denny and I were confused by this and just looked at each other. She continued to talk and was trying to ask us since this is happening to Gracie if we still want to continue the adoption. Denny stopped her mid sentence and said no we aren’t backing out…she is our daughter! We were just trying to find out the best way to care for her and if there’s something we can do to help her. She understood and just wanted to confirm. We answered the paperwork questions of will we ever leave her or abandon her and why we want to adopt her.
I just wanted to get out of there and get her to a doctor. When we finished the paperwork, we packed up our stuff again and got back in the van….the orphanage director wanted to come with us as she was genuinely concerned about Gracie and wanted to make sure she was ok. She held her while we rode to the clinic and once we got there she tried to give her more warm water….which in turn just came right back out….and of course, all over the floor. Just then a doctor with his hair sticking straight up and who had a quirky smile said…oh, well we need to move away from this and see what we can do! We ALL went into the room and we told him about the last 30 hours. He looked her over and said all looks well, but she’s probably got a stomach bug that’s been going around the last two weeks.
He said we had two options. One….going to the hospital ER where they would insert an IV into a vein in her head for her to get some fluids. This is where they give the IV for little ones who are dehydrated. He said this hospital is crazy but not to get him wrong…the doctors are great and have a ton of experience because they see 100 patients a day…it’s a city of 8 million people but there are only 2 pediatricians at the ER…he said it’s probably something we’ve never experienced before….not western doctors and they don’t have time to discuss what’s wrong…they just try to fix it and won’t explain it. He said option two was to give her a suppository here at the clinic to hopefully stop the throwing up. This doctor was from Germany and said he had to bring these into the country because they aren’t appoved too well by the locals but he had them locked up for his “friends”. We were really hoping we were his “friends” by this point. We chose option two. He also suggested for only her parents to be in the room as he gave her the suppository because they are not used to this type of medicine and they believed warm water and being bundled up would help her the most. So out they went. He told us in about an hour to start giving her a tablespoon of water every 10 minutes and hopefully she would keep that down. Now this sounded familiar!!
He then gave us a deadline. If by 3:30 pm the medicine was NOT working, we would then need to go to the emergency room and he was very serious about this. He said there is a shift change at 4pm and things get even crazier at the ER at nighttime and waiting until tomorrow morning would be too late for her. I did not worry ahead about this situation…. we contacted our prayer warriors and I knew God would have this all worked out by the deadline. Not to say we weren’t scared….we did not like seeing her this way and weren’t sure how to really help her since we had only had her for 24 hours but we knew God had brought us this far and He would see us through it. The doctor explained to our guide and orphanage director about what he had advised us to do. They had quite a look on their face when he told them she could only have a tablespoon of water every 10 minutes! It’s just not how they do things here but they were respectful of what we were supposed to do. Instead of having to catch a cab back to the hotel, the orphanage director had her van take us back….and comforted Gracie as we got back out of the car. We thanked her so much for her concern and care and that we would see her in two days. We were supposed to go to Gracie’s orphanage tomorrow but we decided to give it another day and see how she feels by Thursday. Our guide, Denise, told us she would stay at the hotel until 4pm in case we needed her or if we needed her to take us to the hospital. Denny set Emma up with a couple of movies while we cared for Gracie. Denise ended up coming up to our room a few minutes later as she too was concerned about Gracie and wanted to see if we needed her to talk to her in her language. The Lord provided another "mom" for us on this trip...Denise has a 9 year old daughter of her own and truly loves children and she loves adoption. It was so comforting to have her with us and for her to comfort Gracie with her words like she did. Gracie had fallen asleep as we were leaving the doctor’s office and we ended up having to wake her at 2:45 to start giving her water.
Denny set his alarm for every 10 minutes and we started slowly giving her liquids and she was able to keep them down. 3:30 passed….and then 4pm. Praise the Lord she did not get sick again! And we were NOT going to the emergency room today! Our guide stayed a while longer and told us to call her no matter the time if something changed. I don’t remember anything else about that night other than it’s just another example of how when God tells you to go…you go…and He will provide the way.