A referral is information. It's the complete file that has been produced about a child by the CCWA (China Center for Child Welfare and Adoption.) In general, an orphanage decides which children that it's going to do the paperwork on and thus make adoptable. Then, in partnership with the CCWA, the paperwork is made official and the child is released to what's called "the Shared List" (agencies match their families to kids off of the Shared List) or, if the child is at risk of waiting too long on the Shared List, to a specific agency to have individual attention for home-finding. So, a referral is a child's Chinese file, that file translated into English, and pictures! Sometimes, when you're really lucky there's a video. Squee!
When we requested to see Luna's file, this is what we requested to see. "Tell us what you know about her." When we'd asked for her file it had been early one Friday evening, our agency is in Oregon and it was already closing time for them. So, we waited all weekend and it was the evening of the following Monday when my phone beeped and I saw an email from the agency on my phone. There I was, standing in Panera Bread Company, fighting back tears, holding my coffee in one hand and my Banana Bread in the other and rushing out of the store to my car so that I could put it all down and look at that tiny screen on my phone. I waited very impatiently as the video (there's a video!) refused to load, and then I gave up and opened the picture that accompanied the file. I stared at her little face, sniffed back tears and asked myself, Have I just found my daughter? I mean, for real? I took a deep breath and looked up to see directly in front of me, you guessed it, another gorgeous full moon.
Let me take a moment and say that while I do love full moons, I do not look for them, I have not ever made a conscious effort to find them. In my life, they just sorta appear like magic, I enjoy them, and then they go away. I am an artsy person, things on a schedule like seasons, tides at the ocean, and moon phases, always just seem to sneak up on me. This finding full moons everywhere that I look is definitely a new thing. While the mascot of Q-Boo's adoption did seem to be owls, the mascot of Luna's has definitely been full moons.
According to Luna's file, she was a healthy little girl with albinism. She lived in Zhejiang Province - find Shanghai on the east coast of China, Zhejiang is the province underneath it. In February 2013, she was moved to a kindergarten, "...the only one... which could accept normal kids and kids needing rehabilitation. She lived with other local kids." Luna, as a child with albinism, would be one of those who "need rehabilitation." This is a pretty big deal. Most kids from orphanages do not go to school outside of the orphanage (in fact, going to school inside the orphanage is usually reserved for a really good orphanage) school costs money and most Chinese parents do not want their kids attending school with very unlucky, special needs, orphans. The fact that she goes to school in the community is unusual, the fact that there is a kindergarten that accepts special needs kids in her city is unusual and the fact that "she lived with other local kids," is something that I've never even heard of.
There was one picture. In Q-Boo's referral there were six photos of her at different ages and she was one year old when we accepted her referral. Luna is five. I have to accept that this may be the only photo that I ever of her at this age or younger, I may never have infant photos, first smile photos, first step photos, I may never know whether she had chubby cheeks or if her hair stuck up in the morning. This is the reality of older child adoptions. We have this one picture:
I've played with it, trying desperately to see her little face in more detail, and I've ended up with these:
Ultimately, it's just the one picture. I've heard stories of adoptive parents, after finally arriving at the orphanage, being handed their kid in one hand and a CD full of pictures in the other. I can hope. The Chinese version of information that we received was her orphanage file actually scanned into a computer, so we've been able to cut and paste two more photos off of the paperwork. One was another pose of this original yellow coat picture and one was a very damaged wallet-size one of her when she was infant. It is probably the photo taken when she was processed into the orphanage, right after she was found. There is also a black and white photo of her very faded "Finding Page" in a Chinese newspaper. I'd heard of "Finding Pages" but I'd never seen one. Finding Pages run periodically in Chinese newspapers after children are found, in the hopes that someone will come forward and claim the child. If the child is not claimed, and they almost never are, then the child officially becomes a ward of the state. We've been able to match the damaged infant photo in her file to the one used in the newspaper, she's the only red-headed baby on there and you can tell the difference even though it's faded and black and white. Luna was one of a total of twenty-four infants found abandoned and whose pictures appear on this one Finding Page, in this one newspaper, in this one city, in this one province, in this huge country of China. The whole deal hurts my heart and I just sat and looked at the picture for a long time. There are times, while going through this process, when the magnitude of what we are dealing with becomes painfully evident. This was one of them.
A referral is a lot of information and it can be very overwhelming. With Q-Boo, we'd sent another email almost immediately after receiving her file, to an "International Adoption Specialist." IA specialists are basically medical doctors whose specialty is international adoption, they understand the special circumstances surrounding each country ("She's anemic, but that's normal coming out of China") and they can decipher the very confusing medical information that comes along with each referral. We didn't send Luna's file to an IA specialist for several reasons, one of them being how we found her -she was so obviously ours- and another was because in her referral was also this video, dated January 2015:
What I've been able to deduce about what is going on here is that she's basically been doing adoption stuff, paperwork, etc. and now they're done. They've come to get her and according to my Chinese teacher, the woman is saying to her, "Say 'good-bye' to the Aunties." She does, and then she's told, "Go to class," and off she goes to class. This video (on my computer the resolution is great, on Blogger, not so much) was an amazing thing to have - she walks, she talks, she makes eye contact, she follows directions, they treat her with kindness, they touch her on the head as she goes by, the man takes her hand. For all intents and purposes, she's a normal little girl whose being well treated by the people in her life. You can't tell much in a nine second video but you can tell those things. It's nice for a momma, who doesn't have much, to have and it told me, We're okay, here. She's okay.
Okay, let's talk albinism.
Actually, I'm going to give you a video to watch. It's the easiest, best, explanation of albinism and all it's possible complications, that I've found. Really, it's only seven and a half minutes long and it's very interesting.
Watch This!
According to her file, her eyesight hasn't been tested but it does say that she prefers to play inside so that's our first indication of her photosensitivity. Most people with albinism are at least legally blind - that's an eyesight of 20/300. In a fun little twist, I am legally blind without my glasses -they actually can't tell me the numbers because we get to 20/400 and then I'm off the charts. So, in the beginning when I'd wonder if I could deal with a child with real vision issues, I'd take off my glasses, look around, and remember Oh, yeah. This is very doable. I couldn't read without help and I couldn't drive, but it's so very workable.
It's not easy to explain. I'm not sure that I really understand it...but adoptive parents talk about seeing the face of a child and KNOWING that it's their kid staring back at them. I would be extremely skeptical except that it's already happened to me once with Q-Boo. Luna is no different. There's something in her eyes, the shape of her lips, the way her little chin sticks out just so. That's my daughter. Your heart knows but your head, the one that's lived this life for a bit and knows how hugely unfair and cruel it can be, warns you desperately about getting too attached. You don't know how this story ends, DO NOT put yourself out there too far (and for god's sake, DO NOT announce this publicly until she's safe in her bed, in her room, under YOUR roof.) And, I haven't listened to the warning signs, not because I'm stupid or because I'm not cautious but because I have done due diligence, I've covered every base that I can cover and now, I'm just left with fear. I won't be victimized by my own fear. I just won't. It's not easy but I choose to stare that fear in the face and proclaim, Yeah, I feel you, but you don't get to dictate my life to me. I get to do that. I'm not a hero, I still cower in my little corners often, AHHHHHH..... But, I've finally lived long enough to figure out what most wise old women know, the feelings pass and all that you are left with are your actions. I choose to act, no matter how I feel. And so, I wrote that email: "We want her, she belongs in our family. We commit."
And then, my soul saw you and it kind of went,
'Oh, there you are. I've been looking for you.'
This quote is in a collage of quotes that hang next to Q-Boo's bed. Yeah, it's like that.
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