Where Kate's Journey Began

Sorry I didn’t post anything yesterday. We got into the hotel late, and I was laying on the bed, playing with Kate, and I remember that Kevin went to answer the hotel room door, and the next thing I know, it is about 3:am and Kate is still right next to me, there’s a blanket over us, and I’m still in my jeans. I told myself to get up and use this time to be on the computer, but my body wouldn’t listen. (You know, where you’re so tired, you become one with the bed)

Okay, now be honest…I want a show of hands as to who laughed when I said I would work on the computer on the plane with a 20 month old in tow. I have no idea what I was thinking. I guess that’s what makes it easy for me to have another baby…I don’t remember clearly the difficulties, only the butterfly kisses and beloved artwork on the fridge. :)

But before we go to the wonderful plane ride here…let me backtrack to the previous day. Kevin and I had felt it was really important, to us, and later, to Kate, that while in China, we visit the place where she had been abandoned…the place where her journey began. On the day we decided to go, we talked about Kate’s privacy and decided that maybe we should leave the details of this part of our journey to her, to reveal as she chose, at a later date. But what we did not know in the morning, was that the drive and time there would be a journey in and of itself. By the end of the day, we had a different perspective on it and decided that the people we had shared the website of her coming home with in the first place, were people that were cherished friends and family, folks that had supported us wholeheartedly, and wished only the best for this new member in our circle. So we are sharing it with you, and know without a doubt, it will be respected.

When May tells us the address, I paused…I know it sounds silly, but hearing that she was an “abandoned baby” is abstract and distant, but to know there was a real place where someone laid down this little angel, and turned and walked away, is a different feeling. I keep wondering what her mother was thinking when she laid her down. I knew it was near the post office, (official buildings are common places to leave babies), and I hoped it was a heavily traveled place. When we get to the address, May reads it is here, on the first floor of the apartment building next door. We get out of the taxi, and walk in. It’s a very windy day, and at least it is out of the wind, and people walk through this area somewhat regularly, but it’s not very nice…at all. There is a big table of fireworks for sale outside on the sidewalk, and a woman sitting on the corner with two big bowls of sunflower seed for sale, lovingly flicking a bug, I think, out of the bowl.

May goes next door to the post office to ask if anyone knows anything about an abandoned baby a year and a half ago. Kevin and I take pictures and wait for May to come back. It’s kind of dusty and creepy in here…I wouldn’t want to live here. Then May comes back and let’s us know that the post office has only been here for a year. We are in the wrong place. Oh, thank goodness, I think to myself. She wasn’t left here. May says “please, you wait here, and I find out where post office was 2 years ago…I will come back for you here”. About 15 minutes later, May has tracked down where the post office was (which took more work than you might think). It is only a couple blocks away. No need to get a taxi. I tell Kevin I’m relieved, and he tells me that the post office probably moved to somewhere nicer. (I groan) I have somewhat a feeling of dread, but an intense desire to find out the truth to her past.

As we walk down the side street, there are a few very nice new, tall buildings you can see about a block or two away, and many very small, very rundown buildings on this street. She points out the apartment building, which looks, like…a ghetto. I whisper, oh please, not here. There is a little tiny hair salon/barber shop, with 2 or 3 chairs in it, next door to the entryway. May hops up the curb in front of the apartments and salon and asks this sanitation worker (a kindly looking man in his 60’s) if he knows of a baby abandoned here. I see him shake his head and she tells us he doesn’t remember. Doesn’t remember? Doesn’t remember?! How the heck does someone not remember finding a baby?! (It’s probably best that we had to speak through May) She tells us, though, that he says it was very rude of the mother to abandon her baby. Yes, we acknowledge, it was…rude.

As they are talking, I also stand up on the tall curb and look inside the entryway. My heart sunk. I closed my eyes and looked away. “Oh Kevin” I sigh. The entryway was small and dark and filthy. It went up to stairs that were equally dirty and creepy. There was trash on the stairs. If it were here in the states, you would expect some guy selling crack or heroin to be there to greet you. I pictured laying my baby Colton or Brendan down there, and the thought was unbearable. I try to picture what her mother must have been thinking. (For some reason, the pictures make it look...cleaner than it was!) Maybe there was more foot traffic near when the post office was here? May is now talking to a few people and translating to us. We are being watched with interest through the small barbershop window, and one lady comes out to see what’s going on. (I have come to see that people here eavesdrop, not nec. to hear your conversation per se, but also to practice their English, and see if they can understand any of it.) May talks to this very nice lady, who quickly goes to “fetch” another woman, very pretty, in late 20’s/early 30’s from the salon. May excitedly tells us that her friend knows about the baby, and saw the man walking with her. The man? It wasn’t her mother who left her. It was probably her father.

The other beautician comes out, and I can already tell, I like her. (What is it about beauticians? They all have the same cheerful, nice aura). She tells May (as a small crowd gathers around us to hear what’s going on) that more than a year and a half ago, she was questioned by police about a baby that had been abandoned. She told police that she saw a man in a yellow jacket walking back and forth, carrying a baby in a red blanket. She thought he looked very poor. Five or ten minutes later, some children came running to tell the adults that they found a baby. (It was never clear where these adults were…in the salon? On the street?) “Did you see the baby?” I ask her. “No, she was wrapped up in a blanket” Did he lay her in a box or baby seat? “No…just a blanket”. The adults called the police who came and picked her up, and drove her to the orphanage…where they changed her clothes and threw away her red blanket.

May tells us that the police tried to find her parents by putting a ‘found baby’ ad in the paper where anyone knowing of this child is asked to call the police. Here it is illegal not to raise your child…even if you are very poor, and you cannot afford food for them or they have a medical need and you cannot afford the necessary medical care. She also tells us that in the blanket had been placed 100 Yuan…about $13.00. May and the beautician (sorry, I don’t know her name) agree that he was probably hoping someone would find her and use the money to buy her food, and get her started wherever she ended up. Thirteen dollars. That’s all he had to send off with his baby girl. Is life in this world so incredibly different that a cleft lip is obstacle enough to leave your child, in the hopes they can have a more secure future? Did he know that she would become a ward of the province? I would think so. Does she have a sibling somewhere? I would not be surprised. But there is no way to trace her sibling or parents, or to help them. It’s a tie that has been cut permanently. It’s hard not to have a heavy heart, and my anger begins to be replaced with empathy or trying to understand how someone can feel so desperate as to give up their child. I don’t know if I can ever completely understand it. What must it feel like to contemplate abandoning your child, whether for your own, or their benefit?

Someone else in the crowd tells May that it was rude of her father to leave his child. (I ask May about that later…she says, ‘Maybe I use wrong word…rude, um hard? Oh, I understand now) Numerous people tell May that we must be very kind hearted people with children, and that she is a lucky baby. Everyone there nods in agreement. All I can do is shake my head, and put my hand on my chest…No…Lucky Mommy.

I feel like Kevin and I have made allies and friends in this group of strangers who speak a different language. They wish all of us well and look at us very kindly, as we thank them for their time and help. They have given us a large piece of a puzzle, that we are trying to put together. The beautician says to May that something bad has turned into something good…that is a happy thing in life. I agree.