I will try and recap for you (lol)
We arrived in Lithuania on Monday, October 8th. It was a long trip and we were exhausted!!!! We brought our baby (22 months) with us, so we still needed to care forher and couldn't fall into bed and sleep for 24 hours like we wanted!
Bright and early the next day our wonderful facilitator Silvia came and got us, and drove us to the orphanage. I think we were both so nervous. We had been imagining and anticipating this day for so long, and to literally be able to reach out and touch him now seemed almost...scary? We were taken up to the third floor of his orphanage. We saw a bunch of kids in the hallway, all getting ready for the day. I scanned faces, looking for my son. One of the caregivers said, "Eimantas, your mama and papa are here". I saw a little head pop up and he walked right over to us! He was beautiful. He didn't want to be hugged, he was on his was to group time and on a mission. It was a little surreal to see him in the flesh. I had imagined this moment so many times in my head, thinking i would cry and hold him. He had other plans...lol. He took my hand and walked us to group time with him. Truthfully, i felt a little numb. We sat behind him while he participated in group. He kept looking back at us and so we kissed his hands. He liked that and kept lifting his hands for us to kiss again. I did tear up a little at this point. AFter group it was time for the kids to do an art project. He didn't want us to help him, telling us to go away. We wanted to respect his feelings and gave him space. After art the children had free play. I was still feeling a bit numb over the whole thing. I knew intellectually that it was very healthy that he was wary of us...but it wasn't the way i had pictured it, if that makes any sense. When the kids were playing we kind of followed Eli around, and he did let us interact with him some. We played with the other children also.
At one point, one of the other children went up to our facilitator and pointed at me and asked if i was his mama. That was so hearbreaking to me...seeing all these other children here. We were so suprised to see so many TYPICAL children, we were excpecting them all to have disabilities.
We left around lunch time and fed the baby and we all laid down with her to rest. When we came back after naptime, Eli saw us and came running, "my mama" he shouted and pointed, raising his arms for me to pick him up. My heart cracked wide open and all those feeling that had been so numb came rushing in. I felt love and happiness and all these other things. He nuzzled into me and let me cuddle him. It was crazy to be holding him after so many months of longing to have him near.
Ok, enough for now! to be continued at a later time!!!!
second visit with daddy and eli
No comments:
Post a Comment