Doug Comes Homepart eleven in the adoption series

(To read all the posts in this series, click here and read from bottom to top!)

Doug's adoption was vastly different from our previous two adoptions. Our first two adoptions had been through Holt International, using a local social worker (since Holt, at that time, did not have a branch office in the Kansas City area). We had used the same social worker, Judy Y., for each of our previous adoptions. Over the years we had grown to feel very close to her as she did our homestudies and our post placement visits (extending through the first year after each placement) and, also, as we attended adoption monthly adoption meetings that she spearheaded. So, of course, we called Judy the moment we decided to adopt Doug. Since she was just finishing up our post-placement visits for Rayna, it only took her a week or so to whip out a new homestudy for us.

We were off and running. The adoption had it's share of snags and red-tape frustrations (don't they all?!), but, even in spite of the snags and delays, it only took eight months to complete. Our biggest headaches were with our local INS office (Immigration Naturalization Services, as it was called in the pre 911 days, I still can't remember what it is actually called these days!...it will always just be INS, to me!). Eventually, though, with a lot of extra legwork, we were able to finally circumvent the worker at INS who DIDN'T know the facts, but certainly thought he did and was being a major roadblock to us. As I recall, Judy got us an "inside" (secret) phone number that got us past the filters and mechanization the normal public had to go through to get to key people at INS. We were able to pass that number on to several adoption parents after us who ran into the same frustrating idiocy we had run into. (Seriously, back in those days at least, the right hand did not know what the left hand was doing at that INS office. You could get five different AUTHORITARIAN answers to the same question, all in conflict with the others, for any given question asked. You would wait in line HOURS to be told do "X" by one staff person. You would return later after having done "X" and wait HOURS once more for your time at the window, just to be told by another staff member that you should have done "Y" INSTEAD of doing "X", come back another day!)

There were close calls on the Taiwan side as far as timing went, as well. There had been a group of American college students who had spent part of the summer in Taiwan helping out at the children's home. They all had plane tickets to return to the United States on July 17th. The hope, for weeks, had been that Doug's adoption would be finalized in the Taiwanese Court in time for him to obtain his VISA and travel back to the U.S. with those college students (rather than having to wait until a later time when he could be escorted here by a traveling Taiwanese businessman). It was close. As I recall, it was down to the wire...with him just receiving his VISA the day before his plane left Taiwan....and it took a few strings being pulled by our local INS office. Judy's secret number had led me to a sympathetic soul at the INS office who had the power to get things done expiditiously.

So, it was, that our son, whom we had not yet met, was in the air, on his way to Iowa, where we would meet him at the airport.



This adoption had been so different from beginning to end. Instead of our social worker, Judy, informing us as each step of the adoption developed, we were the ones informing her. The Children's Home communicated directly with us and left it up to us to inform our social worker each step of the way. Our social worker had never completed an adoption in this manner. Nor had we. It was just so different from the pattern we were accustomed to. Also, there was much more anxiety associated with this adoption. I remember worrying, AGONIZING, (quite needlessly) as we had gone through the lengthy process of Rayna's adoption that maybe I would not be capable of loving any other child as much as I loved Darcy. My worries with JenGwo's adoption were different. By then, I no longer worried whether I would be able to love succeeding children with the same intensity with which I loved Darcy. That bridge had already been effortlessly crossed! But, with Doug, my anxiety centered around all the unknowns....the unknowns regarding the depth and scope of his special needs...the unknowns regarding how his needs would impact the balance in our family. Darcy and Rayna got along so beautifully together. Our family "felt" so "right" just as it was...what would the addition of an older child with extra needs do to that balance? We heard report after report about how frequently he got into very serious physical altercations in the Children's Home. We wondered what measures we would need to take to keep our daughters safe from harm. Honestly, it was a very upsetting adoption. I am glad that the adoption process, from the moment we said, "Yes, we will adopt this child" until he was arriving at the airport in Iowa, only took eight months...because those eight months were emotionally grueling on us. Just putting one foot in front of the other and continuing forward with the adoption took every ounce of faith we had. In the back of my mind, that fear just kept whispering, "What if he is dangerous to Darcy and Rayna? What if you are bringing a child into your home that will hurt your other children. What if.... What if...."

We prepared for Doug's arrival home by making T-shirts for all the family and friends that would be meeting him at the airport. The T-shirts were color coded...yellow for friends...gray for Grant and I....white for Doug's sisters.....and each set of grandparents had their own color. That way, it was easy to tell which Grandma went with which Grandpa. All three sets of grandparents came to Iowa to meet Doug at the airport. Each T-shirt had a large picture of Doug on the front and, on the back was that person's title (ie "Doug's Mom", "Doug's Dad", "Doug's little sister", "Doug's big sister", "Doug's Grandma", etc). At least, he would be able to tell at a glance which people in the crowd at the airport belonged to him...we would all be wearing big pictures of him on our fronts! We even had a T-shirt for him with that some picture on front and his name on back.

I remember meeting with friends and family to eat out together as we waited for time for that plane to arrive. It was so different. I had not been part of the "airport crowd" before! I was used to us being the ones bringing home the new baby while everyone else waited at the airport eager to meet us. This time, we were the ones waiting at the airport to meet our son. My heart was not filled with the joy and eager anticipation that it had been bursting with prior to each of our previous adoptions. I remember just being overwhelmed with apprehension. I remember feeling like our family was coming to an end. It did not feel like a new beginning. It felt like a funeral.

Then, his plane arrived. A large crowd of college students began disembarking...and, there, coming through the airport was our son, happily riding upon the shoulders of the leader of the group.






Doug was happy enough to sit down on the floor next to us and open the presents we had brought him. Grandma and Grandpa Cochran gave him a tube of minature M&Ms which he emptied in one fell swoop into his mouth and seemingly swallowed whole in a singe gulp. As I watched the M&M's pour down his throat, the memory of the warnings of the Home's directors that we should not give him any chocolate or sugar because he would go berserk, reverberated in my ears. JenGwo seemed ill at ease, but, the draw of presents lured him into sitting with us. He became anxious, though, as the college students milled around us....I could tell that he was afraid they were going to leave him. As they, indeed, began giving their good-byes, he became visible upset. The more Jeff (the leader) lingered, trying to reassure Doug, the more upset Doug became. Finally, though it broke his heart to do so, Jeff simply had to turn and walk away. Grant and I had to hold Doug back to keep him from running after Jeff and his wife. Realizing that things were only going to get worse quickly, we decided that the sooner we all left the airport the better. I carried Doug out of the airport as he kicked with all his strength and screamed, hysterical with terror.




It was horrible. It resembled a kidnapping far more than an adoption. Getting to the car, we quickly realized that I was going to have to continue holding Doug to keep him from yanking the car door open and throwing himself out. So, I sat down in the backseat using all my strength to hold in my lap my frantically struggling six year son. I kept trying to reassure him in Chinese, but he would not even acknowledge I was there. He refused to make any eye contact with me or give any indication that he could hear me talking to him. Instead, he kept screaming over and over again that he wanted out. He directed his pleas to his father's back (by now in the driver's seat driving away from the airport), addressing him over and over as "Baba" (father). Finally, I switched gears from trying to reassure him and simply told him in Chinese that Baba could not speak Chinese. Instantly, Doug dropped his pleas to Baba and swiveled around so that he could see me. For the first time, he directed his pleas to me, instead.

Once we were out of sight of the airport, Doug began to calm down a bit. Grant and I were just at a loss to know how to proceed. Should we make the long trip home or get a hotel room? Would our son try to make a break from us? What if we stopped at a hotel room and he managed to get away from us?

In the end, we decided that it would be better not to prolong the car ride any longer than we had to, so getting a hotel there in Cedar Rapids seemed like the best plan. We went through the drive through line at McDonalds and ordered meals for everyone. We ordered chicken nuggets for Doug because we had been told that he liked chicken nuggets. Though no longer screaming hysterically or trying to thrash free from my grasp, Doug was not at all willing to eat anything. The girls ate their meals in stunned silence while we drove on, looking for the quickest hotel we could find. After Rayna finished her chicken nuggets, she reached into the back, behind her car seat and got her large Spiderman figure. I had bought a Spiderman figure for Doug, too, along with Spiderman PJ's and matching Spiderman shirts for all three kids...but, en route to the airport it had belatedly dawned on me that Spiderman might seem SCARY to our new son and I had been kicking myself all day for having gone with the Spiderman theme. Now, however, I saw Doug cast furtive glances at his little sister's toy.

Arriving at the hotel, Doug calmly walked beside us, holding our hand as we went to our room. He still expressed an extreme preference for Grant over me. He tolerated me because I was the only one in the group that spoke any Chinese, but, obviously, he IDENTIFIED with the man in the group and didn't want to waste his time with the woman. Because he LIKED Grant, we decided that it would make more sense for Grant to stay in the hotel room with him and for me to be the one to make the trips bringing our stuff from the car to the room. As I carried in the last sackful of stuff, Doug spotted, from the far side of the hotel room, a miniscual tip of the corner of a box peeking out. WHAM! He FLEW across the room like greased lightening and was diving into that sack. The corner of the box he had spotted from the far side of the room was the package holding a new Spiderman figure. The one I had bought for him. He was SO EXCITED. We got it out of the package for him and his face lit up with his first smile for us. Soon, he and the girls were playing together. Grant and I were inwardly breathing a sigh of relief. The storm had passed and we had made it through intact!

Doug still would not eat. Soon, it was bedtime. I wondered how that would go, since there is a 14 hour time difference between here and Taiwan. Our first hurdle was getting Doug out of his clothes. He was not at all keen on the idea of his mother undressing him. At least, not until I brought out the brand-new Spiderman PJs! After that, he couldn't get out of his clothes fast enough! We put Darcy in the rollaway bed. Rayna and I took one of the regular beds. Grant and Doug took the other regular bed. Doug was a perfect little angel. We told him it was time to sleep and he crawled into bed next to Grant and laid his head right down on the pillow. He was still holding his Spiderman figure, quietly messing around with it. Grant told him to stay in bed, but Doug misunderstood and thought Grant was telling him he had to put his Spiderman down. He quickly put the Spiderman down and closed his eyes. I laid in my own bed with my eyes mostly closed, watching our new son out of the tiny slit of my eyes. My heart just went out to him. I wanted to make sure he was sleeping peacefully before I went to sleep myself. Doug didn't go to sleep. He laid there, still as a mouse, but wide awake.

About 2:00 in the morning, Doug was still lying still, but he seemed a little restless. Remembering my own trips to China and how I would get raveningly hungry about 3 am, I whispered to Doug in Chinese, "Are you hungry?" He nodded his head "yes", so I tiptoed over to where we had put his uneaten chicken nuggets and brought them to him. He quietly sat up in bed. He wolfed the first chicken nugget down hungrily, but, then he hesitated. He kept looking first at Rayna and then at Darcy, both sound asleep, and kept telling me that they needed to eat, too! He kept indicating that he would share his food with them. I told him it was okay, that he could eat it all, but he was genuinely WORRIED that his sisters were HUNGRY. His deep concern for his sisters touched my heart. It was my first lesson that this little boy had the tenderest of hearts and a genuinely generous spirit.

A few moments later, Rayna and Darcy did wake us, hearing our whispered conversation and sensing the movement in the room. Soon, all three kids were happily sharing Doug's chicken nuggets while Grant went in search of vending machine food to supplement. The kids ate and then they jumped around on the beds, having a silly good time for a few minutes, before we put everyone back down for the night. This time, Rayna and Darcy wound up on the rollaway bed together and Doug wound up in my bed. Everyone fell back to sleep quickly, except Doug. He laid next to me, so still, but so awake. A very long time later, I felt him slowly sliding out of the bed. Thinking he was sneaking out of bed to play, I turned over to tell him he had to stay in bed, but the words never came out of my mouth. There was my little boy, silent tears STREAMING down his face as he knelt there by the side of the bed with his eyes closed, quietly praying. His little heart was breaking. He was all alone in a roomful full of strangers whose language he couldn't understand. He missed the people he knew. He missed his friends he had left behind. The terror had passed...and now there was only overwhelming grief and sadness.

Grant had awakened, too, by this time. We prayed together with Doug and then, Grant turned the nearly muted TV on, thinking maybe it would help get Doug's mind off his sorrow. Of all things, the show that was on was some documentary about the making of "Spiderman". Doug was instantly captivated. The show was perfect...not scary, but with enough clips from the movie that it held Doug's undivided attention. By now, Doug and I had joined Grant in his bed. Doug sat up between us as Grant and I laid there half awake, half asleep. After the documentary, Doug JenGwo watched old fashioned Looney Tune cartoons until he, too, fell peacefully asleep, lying between us.

By the next morning, we knew in our hearts that we had not made a mistake bringing our son home. All the apprehension had burned away like dew in the sunlight. It was obvious that this little boy had a tender heart and an empathetic nature. It was obvious that the things we had feared before meeting him were ridiculous. In that hotel room, we had crossed beyond the point of having to walk by faith alone. Our son was here. We could see with our own eyes what a sweet child he was. And we were smitten. There still would be rough times ahead...and attachment proceeded much more slowly and hesitantly than it had with his sisters before him...but, we left that hotel room knowing with certainty that we had not made a mistake. This was OUR son and we were blessed to have been given him.





These last three photos were shot during an impromptu photo shoot on our back deck, on Doug's first morning home. Rayna was being her melodramatic self, objecting to having to participate in this photo shoot! Meanwhile, I was trying to get Doug to hold Darcy's hand and Rayna's hand. The shot definitely did not pan out as I had envisioned it, but these three pictures give a very accurate peek at our family!