Part 4/8: Meeting Magaret Nuthamon
After more than a year of no news, information about our daughter now came fast and furious. The original photos and referral documents arrived by DHL the day after the faxes. A few weeks later, more photos and a brief video came from our SW, now back from Bangkok. Nuthamon -- dubbed "Margaret" or "Meg" in our household -- had grown a lot since May. The video, to be rewound hundreds of times, showed a toddling, bawling tyke who was not at all happy about being filmed by our blonde, American SW.
It also showed the beautifully clean state of the orphanage, and the affection of the caregivers. Watching one of them calm Meg down from her crying fit reminded me once again that our child might not necessarily view her adoption as a terrific event. In fact, from my reading and discussions with other a-parents, I was convinced that she would be mad, sad, or both. Alice, weak and sick when we met her, had been so relieved to have undivided adult attention that she showed nary a transition issue. Nuthamon was older, stronger, and probably a good deal more attached to her caregivers.
Once the high of the referral passed, we settled back into the endless waiting mode. Travel times for WACAP families adopting from the Thai Red Cross ran from two to five months -- and given our experiences, we didn't expect quick action. We had no idea what kind of paperwork or Y2K hassles might still arise.
Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went with only three of us in the family. So did the debatable "millennium." Y2K turned out to be a worldwide nonevent. We got together another "care package" for Meg in early January, including a video showing our snowbound house. I had been studying Thai with a tape every night, and we led her on a video journey of our home, with me narrating in my laughable accent. (If nothing else, we figured, the caregivers would get a chuckle out of our efforts.)
Weeks dragged by. My spirits were as gray as the Chicago winter. Through a wrenching effort I forced myself to be productive at work, and even managed to develop and launch a long-anticipated Website on Thai adoption (www.neiu.edu/~rghiggin/Thaiadopt/start.html). "If you've been waiting for me to finish this work, God," I muttered, "I'm really ready to go now."
A hoped-for February "panel interview" date with the Dept. of Public Welfare -- the key step in any Thai adoption -- became impossible when it was discovered that Meg's file was missing some crucial documents. More weeks went by as they were located. We made tentative plane reservations and canceled them twice. Finally, we were told that we could count on being asked to the March 23 panel meeting -- which meant we'd need to arrive in Bangkok around March 17. A complicated tango of paperwork between the state child welfare department and the Chicago INS -- always a dicey stage of international adoption in Illinois -- came off smoothly. Suddenly, in the first week of March, it became clear that we were good to go.
Now came a time of frantic preparation. Packing was easy; we knew the ropes. But I had to finish getting ready for a two-month adoption leave from my part-time newsletter editing job -- and to finalize plans for Alice's care during our absence. After waffling for months, we had decided not to bring her. A poor traveler and a creature of routine, Alice had every likelihood of exhibiting so many "issues" on a tough trip like this that we thought it better to leave her in Chicago under the care of a close family friend (three nights) and my mother (the rest of the trip). We feared Meg might be having her own big issues for us to grapple with. As I had for more than a year, I prayed every night that our child's heart would somehow be prepared to receive us.
Tired and keyed up, we boarded our Northwest flight to Minneapolis at 10 a.m. on Thursday, March 16. The quick hop was followed by a 12-hour trip to Tokyo -- giving me many hours to ponder what we were doing. I paid fitful attention to the in-flight movies as my brain whirled in anticipation and anxiety. Unlike our last trip, I was feeling less "mommy desperation" and more well-informed trepidation about what the future might bring. In a sense I loved Meg already; in another sense, we were total strangers. But I also knew that we were flying down the only path we had ultimately felt right pursuing. For whatever reason, I believed Margaret Nuthamon was the child God meant us to raise -- and that we were the people meant to be her forever family.
By the time we hit Tokyo, I was feeling nauseated due the stale air in the plane plus a dipsy-doodle approach and landing. Our stopover allowed only time for a quick cola and a couple of Dramamines before we headed out on the 7-hour flight to Bangkok. This leg was quite bumpy, and even the flight attendants sat strapped in for most of the trip. All of them blamed prevailing winds and seemed completely unconcerned -- but I was glad I'd spent some time on a "fear of flying" Website before leaving home. A couple of Thai flight attendants oohed and ahhed over Meg's pictures, which I carried everywhere in a tiny album.
In a daze, we reached Don Muang airport at almost 11 p.m. on March 17, having lost most of Friday to the international dateline. We changed some dollars to baht at a kiosk. We had arranged for our hotel, the Novotel Siam Square, to send a driver for us. He gave us a quick trip through mostly quiet highways and streets. We knew we'd see a lot more traffic in the days to come, but it was a serene beginning. We checked in and crashed -- knowing that we were supposed to go to the orphanage the next day, but not sure whether we would be able to meet, or take, our child.
Saturday morning began with a wonderful Western-Asian breakfast buffet at the hotel, where we met a nice Finnish family who were adopting a Thai son. We walked around Siam Square to orient ourselves and wrapped the gifts we'd brought along for the orphanage staff. Neither of us was interested in lunch. We'd been told we could visit the orphanage around 2 p.m. -- so at 1, we called to confirm our plans. In my fractured Thai, I asked for the nurse, who told us we should come. (As we had been warned might happen, the English-speaking chief social worker, Khun Voraporn, wouldn't make it in that day.)
We decided to leave our gifts behind, feeling sure no official business would be done. Not for the last time, we missed the group dynamic of a China adoption; in Thailand, depending on what agency you use, you may be very much on your own. I battled a bad case of nerves during our 20-minute walk south on Henri Dunant Road -- dodging food carts and hundreds of motorcycles parked along the perimeter of the Bangkok Royal Sports Club. It was just as hot as we'd anticipated: somewhere in the 90s, and muggy.
The nurse, or "payaban," was waiting for us outside the orphanage doors. We slipped out of our shoes and climbed several flights of stairs, where we were ushered to what we learned was the "toddler room." It was not too full - perhaps 10 children, several in cribs, still looking sleepy from their naps. I couldn't see anyone I could identify as Meg. Eventually she emerged from a back area where her caregivers had been preparing her to meet us -- a terrified-looking toddler in an orange-striped dress. One of the caregivers tried to hand her to me, and she immediately howled and vigorously turned away. Obviously this wasn't going to be easy.
The nurse then beckoned us to leave the room and follow her down the hall, to a toy-filled playroom. Meg stayed behind with her caregivers. The nurse flipped on the air conditioner, told us to wait, and left. We were alone for perhaps 30 seconds. It was too quiet.
Then the door opened, and a caregiver walked in, holding Meg in her arms. I could only guess what the woman might be saying to her in hushed tones. She gently but firmly disentangled the whimpering child and placed her on my lap as I sat cross-legged on the polished floor. "Mama," said the caregiver as a parting shot, pointing at me and then walking out the door.
Meg paused a second and then let out a wail, arching her back and struggling to escape. So far, our meeting was going exactly as I had envisioned. Jiggling and singing didn't help. I dug in our bag for a toy, only to see that Meg was now spitting up milk. Finally, I stood up, wiped her off, and started carrying her around. The movement seemed to calm her, so I kept walking, avoiding eye contact that might set her off again. Instead, we stood for a while, looking out the window at potted tropical plants on a terrace. "Suay," I said, pointing. "Pretty."
And quite suddenly, for no reason I could discern, Margaret Nuthamon decided that her father and I might be OK. Rod started pulling toys from the shelves; Meg took an immediate interest. She spent a good deal of time playing with a toy piano identical to one Alice had at home, copying us as we smacked each colored key in turn. She snuggled into Rod's lap as he read her a book; she let me hold her and feed her an afternoon snack of rice porridge and water. We played peek-a-boo with Rod's straw hat, and were rewarded with eye contact and giggles. A pair of Burmese-Thai twin toddlers came in with their soon-to-be mom from Switzerland, who had visited them several times before. Their rowdy play seemed to loosen Meg up even further. Finally, at around 4:30, we were dismissed, but advised to return on Sunday at 2.
We walked back to the Novotel, sent a mass e-mail to friends and family, and relaxed with another Asian-Western buffet. (One free evening meal and all our breakfasts were included in the attractively priced package we'd purchased on the planetholiday.com Website.) We called my parents to report the day's promising events, and watched bits of a creepy sci-fi flick on Cinemax. A late-evening stroll through the sois of Siam Square showed us that the area was a thriving teen hangout; we figured some must be students at nearby Chulalongkorn Univ. Double-parked cars, left unlocked and in neutral by their owners, were routinely moved by other drivers who needed to extricate their vehicles. Like Dorothy in "Wizard of Oz," we definitely weren't in Kansas anymore.
Too keyed up to sleep, I needed a pill to wind down. Tomorrow, we could do some serious sightseeing -- but the sight I most wanted to see was only 30 inches tall, with a heart-tugging grin and surprisingly curly hair.