In January 2005, this paper published an article on the adoption of Pearl Xing Lovett Mariano [Cover story, Jan. 12: "From China With Love"]. That story covered the two years leading up to the actual adoption day in China. Here's what happened next.
Fourteen months ago, my husband Michael and I held our daughter in our arms for the first time. We'd spent almost two years navigating the adoption maze; we'd filled out endless forms, we'd passed numerous inspections, we'd reached deep into our bank accounts, and we'd journeyed 5,000 miles. Finally, on the morning of Oct. 10, 2004, our 13-month-old daughter was ours to take home.
***image1*** First impressions of our daughter: a tiny, vital and courageous bundle; a pale oval face framed by wisps of dark hair; a baby frozen somewhere between terror and exhaustion.
In retrospect, it's clear she was in shock. She'd just arrived in Nanchang via a rough, six-hour bus ride; she'd been separated those few hours from the most important person in her brief life, a loving caregiver at the orphanage.
We were in shock, too. This institutional hand-off was our "delivery room" experience. There were eight families in our adoption group and we all received our babies within minutes of each other. We'd been told each baby would adjust in her own way. Several wailed all the way to the hotel. A few calmed down very quickly; at a glance, they seemed amazingly unfazed by the whole exchange. Our daughter was the only baby in our group who fell asleep to the rumble of the bus.
At the hotel, the new families quickly retreated to the privacy of their rooms. Behind our closed door, another reality-wave hit: We were now a threesome. Michael and I climbed into bed with a still-snoozing Pearl between us.
We both stared at her with the unspoken question:
Who are you, little one?
She looked rumpled and drained. Her orphanage clothes were faded and threadbare, the yellow sweater balled with lint. We'd been cautioned not to bathe her for at least 24 hours-she would need the comfort of familiar smells, colors and textures. Everything else in her world was abruptly foreign: our faces, our scent and our language; the hotel, the city.
The rest of that day remains a series of sensory memories and soft-focus images-the sound of Pearl's breathing, the smell of stress, the shape of her eyes, the perfection of her hands, the distant sound of the city outside our world.
We breezed through the last bureaucratic requirements, collecting Pearl's Chinese passport, and joining 40 other families at the US Consulate for an adoption oath and a stamp of approval. The 12-hour flight from Beijing to Los ***image3***Angeles was worthy of a
Fear Factor
episode. There were at least 20 newly adopted babies on that flight. Pearl took the first screaming shift. Michael carried her up and down the aisles. She cried, she screamed, she threw up on his sweater. (An incident that might have had something to do with Michael's decision to swing her upside down in the terminal immediately following her dinner, during which she'd sampled spaghetti, a tuna sandwich and pudding.) After vomiting, she continued to cry. I carried her, doing laps around the steward's stations. I spent two hours huddled in the only private place I could find, the tiny airline bathroom, holding a finally sleeping baby on my lap.
Then, after one last leg from LA to Albuquerque, we were home.
The adjustment period continued in Santa Fe-for Michael and me, as well as our two dogs. Pearl settled in with amazing ease. The dogs accepted her as soon as they discovered she was a fascinating food source. After a couple of weeks of family leave, Michael returned to work.
It was Pearl and me-and the inescapable realization that I was no longer an autonomous person. In the course of a few weeks, I'd gone from an independent, if workaholic, writer, a person who thought little of wasting hours gestating creative projects, to a mother tied 24-7 to a 13-month-old-baby.
I remembered the question writer Alice Walker had asked her own mother-Should a writer have children? Her mother's response became my mantra:
Yes, one, yes, one, yes, one, yes, one…
I panicked often, and I left frequent frantic messages on Michael's voicemail-
If you come home to a trail of beer bottles, it's me going over Mommy Deep-end.
As for Michael, he worried about turning 50 with a two-year-old in the house. After a year of experience, he laughs and says: "I think I make up for lack of youth with my immaturity."
Pearl is energetic and extroverted. She's developed a strong attachment to both her parents, and yet, she also loves the company of other children and adults.
We have the usual hassles: the juggle of work schedules and child care, the extreme sleep deprivation, the stresses of***image4***negotiating parenting styles. We also celebrate the joyful milestones-birthdays, first steps, first (English) words.
On Thanksgiving morning, Pearl marched into the living room wearing a diaper and her Spiderman T-shirt. On her own, she'd put on her shoes-one snow boot, one pink suede Merrill. Her purple sunglasses drooped to her chin. She held up her new pink and white retro "handbag" and laughed. "Ready?" she said, smiling. "Let's go party!
