It is Wednesday evening, close to 11pm. All the windows are open. The air is thick and muggy, and we are sweating in spite of a shower only an hour ago. The sounds of techno-dance-pop float into our room from the all-night disco barge located at the grungy beach, directly down the hill from our hotel.
Tomorrow may be "Gotcha Day!" (This is celebrated in addition to birthdays for adopted children.) This afternoon we ran through what to expect at the court proceedings tomorrow with our agency lady, and then rehearsed our answers after dinner. We must know her medical record summary by heart to convince the judge that we are aware of her issues. We have a list of arguments to convince the judge to waive the ten-day wait period and allow the adoption to go into effect immediately. Our agency rep has been talking to the judge. Our rep says that the judge is aware of our case, and the judge’s opinion of whether to grant the waiver has flip flopped from a supportive stance to a concern that we are not fully aware of what we are getting ourselves into. Well, the judge may be right in that latter analysis, but we are still prepared to barrage her with reasons why we should get Lidia sooner than later.
We had expected our luggage to come this evening. We returned to the hotel at 9pm, and asked about it at the front desk. "No," they answered, they hadn’t seen any luggage arrive. Victor persisted and asked the receptionist to question the security guard who has the key to the storage closet. Somewhat reluctantly, she spoke to him and then reported to us that he hadn’t seen any luggage arrive either. We asked the receptionist to phone Korean Air for us, but she appeared bewildered by the request, and just plain uninterested. We gave up, and headed for our room. Then Victor realized that the security guards changed shifts in the past few hours, and he decided to approach the security guard personally. He asked the guard to open the closet for our inspection. The guard agreed, and lo and behold, there was our stuff! Our luggage had arrived! No one at the hotel really cared except us, but we were pretty darn happy to see our bags. Just in time to have clean clothes for us to go to court in as well as diapers, formula, baby clothes, medicines, toys and books for Lidia. We must bring her a set of clothes when we pick her up because she will be handed over to us in the same condition she was in on the day she was born.
This morning’s visit was perhaps the hardest yet. Lidia cried inconsolably for the first 30 minutes. She cried a lot harder than she has previously, and her tears were accompanied by kicking feet and an arched back. She did calm down finally, and when we took her outside she did great!
She is walking much better than she did 3 months ago, only needing a hand to hold to feel confident. At the end of our time one of her caregivers showed up. Lidia was walking with Victor at the time. She led him straight over to the caregiver. When Lidia got within range, she let go of Victor’s hand altogether and went directly to this woman. After that moment she wanted nothing to do with us anymore. This is a great sign. She is well "attached" to her caregivers and prefers them above strangers (like us). Our adoption books tell us that a well-attached child will attach well again when moved to a new home. We fully expect that Elena will experience trauma of losing her "home" and grieve the loss of those who’ve cared for her during her entire life. We don’t know how long the trauma will last, but if she is like other children, it will take a few weeks, or even months.
It is off to bed for us. Tomorrow is a big day.
