Krueger Adoption Trip: Orphanage Trip

We’re here in Zhengzhou waiting for our childrens’ passports to be finished. We applied the other day and they should be ready by tomorrow when we fly to Guangzhou.

This morning we went to see the orphanage where our children came from. This is where Susan spent the first 10 or 11 months of her life before being placed with her foster family. We were not able to meet her foster family although they lived very close to the orphanage (we’ve seen video of her using the orphanage playground). We chose not to bring Susan on this trip in case we were able to meet her foster family. We didn’t want to cause any additional trauma to her so she and Todd had some nice quiet time back at the hotel.

She’s slept a lot today. Probably recovering from last night. It was a better night overall than the one before (less desperate wailing) but she was still up quite a bit crying.

I’m so glad we got to go to the orphanage today. It was a nice facility with lots of nannies looking after the kids. But it was still so sad to think of these kiddos there with no families – picture daycare 24-7. We got to see the set of rooms where Susan spent her time as an infant. The nannies there remembered her. There’s usually a set of nannies for a certain number of children. They are assigned to a group of rooms, a play area and one or two bedrooms. The children spend almost all of their time there. Susan’s area was in a special wing of the orphanage that is sponsored by our adoption agency. These rooms were quite a bit larger and nicer with more nannies it seemed. I’m so thankful that she had that opportunity.

This evening our hotel had live Christmas music in the lobby. So fun. Then they did a special dinner. The boys were laughing when the waiter told them that they could have beer if they were 14 years old.