These are the little shoes that Shi Wu picked out yesterday. I took a picture of them in our hotel room because they seemed to me to symbolize what adoption has done for one little girl. This little girl who loves pretty, feminine things so much, has never gotten to pick out anything new for herself, and probably never really had any of her own posessions at all. She was left on the riverbank, on the wrong side of the river, and she ended up in an orphanage. Conditions there were not the best, but she is a little survivor, and she managed to charm her nannies and get a little extra attention. She has delays, but she is basically a bright and charming little girl, and she doesn't miss anything that goes on. She was a favorite of the nannies but she is malnourished and hasn't received some fairly basic medical care. When I changed her diaper for the first time I was horrified at the rash I saw there. It was so bad that if I were in the US I would have taken her to the ER. She was so dehydrated that she just couldn't get enough water the first two days. Surprisingly, she doesn't really have a lot of the typical orphanage behaviors, since she isn't desperate to hoard food, but she is always ready for a snack so we basically feed her constantly.
The diaper rash and seeing the reality of how deformed her poor little feet were just broke my heart. It hurt me to see it, and knowing that she needed more care than she was getting. It broke my heart again when I asked the guide to ask the assistant orphanage director about her name. The assistant director said that she picked it. When we asked the meaning, the answer was that there was no particular meaning, but that it was easy to say. That made feel so sad. It is a cute name when the locals say it, with the bit of drawl that is the local dialect, but that isn't how a name is chosen for a child who has a family. We picked our kids names after careful consideration, and chose names that had meaning for us. We are not keeping her Chinese name as her legal name and now I'm more glad we didn't. She is getting a new life, where she is a daughter. No child who has a mom and dad should be in the condition she is in.
Adoption to a foriegn country is a last resort for a child who couldn't get what she needed in her birth country. The experience of carrying a child with severely clubbed feet around town has shown me why she has to come to America. People stare and talk openly about her feet. The sad thing is that she can understand everything they say. That is one reason she was so happy about the shoes. They are useless and in fact a hindrance when she is getting around on the hotel room floor, but when she is being carried or in the stroller they help disguise how deformed her feet and ankles are. She is a bright child and knows they don't look like other people's feet. No Chinese families have come forward to adopt her, and people seem surprised that someone would come this far for a child with medical needs. The reaction of the sales staff in the shoe department was one of almost disgust, surprise, and then warming up when they saw her beautiful little face smiling and laughing with joy. I suppose they thought it was a waste of money to buy shoes for a child who cannot walk, but it was worth every penny to show her and them that she is precious.
Shi Wu is now officially Therese Marie, and she has a mommy and daddy, brothers and a sister, and she will get all the medical care she needs. She can have pretty things to wear and develop her talents. She will have the freedom to do many more important things that choose shoes. I think there will be some difficult times ahead, with surgeries and therapy, but we will get through it together as a family.
