Viewing Pictures of the Orphanages....

Below is a post from our favorite Rumor Queen (she keeps the lines of communication open and has saved us during the long wait). Before you view A Child's Right pics of the orphanges (see the Our Links section of the blog), please read her personal account with her children. some pictures are comforting, some are not. If you don't think you can handle the picture of a child sleeping in a cardboard box - only view the first 75 pictures or so.



Orphanages June 16th, 2007 From Rumor Queen (www.chinaadopttalk.com)


After having some conversations with a few people, I need to talk a bit about the condition of orphanages in China.

I have personally now seen two orphanages, and those two were the difference in night and day.
One of them full of sunshine, tile floors, music playing, colorful posters and pictures on the wall, and toddlers all over the place toddling around and hugging on each other. The other with teeny windows and not much lighting, concrete block walls, very little stimulation, and babies that mostly showed little emotion as they laid in cribs or were propped up in walkers.

Not surprisingly, the child that came from the dungeon-like atmosphere has lots of sensory issues, as do many (but not all) of the babies from our travel group.


That’s not to say that the caretakers were better at one than the other, because I know that my daughter with sensory issues was loved by her ayi. I saw the affection between the two of them, and the tears that her ayi was trying to hold back as she said goodbye to her.


Both of our girls came to us severely underweight, with marks that told us they had been tied to something, and developmentally about half or less of their age. Our daughter from the sunshiny orphanage came to us very soiled, while our other daughter came to us relatively clean.
What I’m trying to say here is that not all orphanages look like these orphanages. But even the ones that look like terrible places can have wonderful people working at them.


If you discover your child is from an orphanage that doesn’t look like these orphanages, don’t assume the child is getting substandard care. And the opposite can also be said, if you discover your child is from one of the “model” orphanages, don’t assume they are getting much better care. They could be, but I don’t think it’s a given.


Once you get your referral and join your child’s orphanage group you’ll be able to get a good idea of the condition of the children from other parents who have recently adopted. This will give you a good idea of what to expect, but you’re not going to know how your particular child fared in the orphanage until you actually meet your child.

My first blog posting...

It's June. Referrals have come out for this month for those persons with LID (Log in Dates) through November 7, 2005. Our LID is November 21, 2005. To most that might seem CLOSE and in some measurements, it is. Consider that it has been 19 months of waiting for us, so 'close' is an interesting term. We are starting to feel like it is going to happen soon, but due to the fact that it takes months to refer one month of log in dates, it isn't going to be very soon. Our fondest hope is Christmas. In the meantime, we are working on teaching Raleigh to share....it is going to be quite a lesson. He was fine with his cousin, Catherine, playing with his toys until she touched the car toy Nana gave him for Christmas - then he tried to bite her. I don't think I will mention to the Chinese government official that our dear son bites.



Okay, so I have made my first official blog posting...