Children of Dreams, An Adoption Memoir (18 page)

Later that night back in my hotel room, the phone rang. I picked it up and it was Anne. I had hoped to hear words of encouragement but instead I was accused of causing the problem.

“If you hadn’t postponed the trip, this wouldn’t have happened,” she berated me. “The mother was ready the last time for the adoption if you had come. Why don’t you go out and have a good time sightseeing and maybe she might turn up.”

I was livid! How could she suggest I go out and go sightseeing? I had waited three years and traveled nine thousand miles to adopt a child. I hung up the phone feeling outraged. “God, where are you?” I cried.

Sleep eventually overtook me but I was awakened by nightmarish, consuming anxiety. Kidnapped! In my dreams I saw myself alone in Vietnam, my arms empty. The baby that had brought me halfway around the world was gone. Visions of her being stolen flashed through my mind. I grabbed my Bible and tried to pray, but I was too consumed with anguish. I couldn’t.

The next morning Jenni and I went downstairs to the restaurant inside the Lillie for a late breakfast. Between haunting dreams, jet lag, and defeatism, I was not very good company for anybody. I poured some coffee and tried to wake up.

It was all too painful to think about. Three years of waiting after filling out papers that seemed as voluminous as Florida cockroaches in the summertime, followed by refilling out the same hated documents after they expired; sharing with my friends and family my hopes and dreams; traveling halfway around the world and spending thousands of dollars; telling my daughter I was bringing her home a baby sister; all the planning, anticipation, and trusting that God would hear and answer my prayers.

I also couldn’t help but think about all the people that were so negative about me adopting again. I pictured myself returning home to the humiliation and embarrassment of coming all the way here and falling prey to a kidnapping and scam—every cell in my body wanted to fight back, “No, you can’t do this to me. This is evil!”

“Anne isn’t doing anything to help the situation,” I told Jenni. “She thinks we should go out and do some sightseeing, like that is really going to make me feel better.”

“I think she is blackmailing you,” said Jenni, “or it’s something illegal she’s not telling us, or she’s already given up the baby and she’s making the whole thing up. I don’t like her and I don’t think you should depend on her to find the mother.”

“What do we do?” I asked. I didn’t know whether to listen to Jenni because I wanted to believe Anne would come through for me.

“It just doesn’t add up. I can tell by the translator’s body language that he’s withholding information and not being straight with us, not to mention he was quarreling with that other man. I assume he’s another messenger. I did not like that Anne was difficult to get a hold of, and after your conversation with her, it confirms my suspicions.”

“Yeah, I know,” I lamented.

“Last night I couldn’t sleep and really wanted something to feel connected to home,” Jenni continued, setting down her drink, “and on my dresser was a paper in English that I picked up and looked at. I got to thinking and had a conversation with God. “Why not put an ad in the paper to try and find the mother ourselves?”

“Yeah, let’s do it,” I said. It actually sounded like a good idea and at least we would be something rather than sitting around the hotel doing nothing.

“Maybe we can ask the lady at the desk which would be the best newspaper,” I suggested. We quickly finished breakfast and hurried back to the hotel lobby.

Jenni asked the receptionist, “What newspaper has the largest distribution in Hanoi?”

We explained what we wanted to do and she listened intently, showing excitement as she caught hold of our idea. She had been privy to the previous conversations with Anne’s messenger and understood my desperation to do something.

The young lady showed us three or four different newspapers published in Hanoi but held up one in particular and waved it at us as she explained. She spoke only a little bit of English, but what she lacked in communication skills she made up for in kindness.

“I do what I can,” she said. She handed us the newspaper and showed us where we might be able to advertise for the missing birthmother.

My lackluster opinion of Anne for the time being was put on the backburner now that I had a way to channel my frustration and anger. The bits and pieces I knew of things that happened before I arrived in Vietnam came more into focus with my raw emotions being pushed aside. I now felt angrier with myself than her because I had ignored warning signs I should have heeded, but at least now we were doing something.

By the time we came up with the wording for the notice and chose the newspaper out of the several the clerk had showed us, it was approaching the late afternoon.

“It’s too late to do anything today,” I told Jenni, but let’s go first thing in the morning to the newspaper office.”

“Sounds good,” Jenni replied.

The next morning we took a taxi to the Lao Dong Newspaper with the name of the “mother” of Thi My-Duyen in a carefully worded Vietnamese caption. After the cab dropped us off, we walked around for a while as we had been taken to the wrong location. Jenni had bought a translation book and was trying to speak Vietnamese to get directions from passersby. I was glad she was doing the hard work and letting me be passive.

We eventually found the right office and walked into a dimly lit room where a Vietnamese man sat at an entrance booth. We explained to him our problem and presented him with our little notice written in Vietnamese. After paying him a small amount of money, he told us it would only take a day or two to appear in the newspaper. Having finished the task, we returned to the hotel feeling satisfied.

We had now been in Hanoi for three days without hearing any encouraging news from Anne. All Jenni and I could do was wait patiently to see if our missing person’s notice produced results. That evening following our trip to the Lao Dong Newspaper,, I emailed the adoption agency and called Anne to let them know what we had done. Neither was very happy with me.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Anne said. She was very agitated and upset about it. “I told you we are doing everything we can. You need to let us handle it.”

“Why not?” I asked.

She couldn’t give me a good answer. Every time I asked what she was doing to find the mother, she was very evasive. The adoption agency said in an email it might cause more harm than good. I felt it was worth the risk.

As our time in Vietnam dragged on, I asked God to reveal Himself in a miraculous way. I sent out emails to friends and family asking them to join me in prayer and for God to prevail. While in Hanoi this didn’t come naturally because I didn’t feel like praying or spending time with God, but I did feel a sense of evil lurking behind the walls of silence that Jenni and I couldn’t bridge. I also sensed the evil wanted me to feel isolated, alone, and abandoned. I felt like locking myself in my room and not showing my face to anyone. I was depressed, and humanly speaking, didn’t think praying would do any good.

The one thing I had in abundance in Hanoi was time. What else could I do but pray? God was waiting on me to surrender the little girl I had come to adopt and the three long years of waiting. God knew I was a sheep in need of a Great Shepherd. I had to believe that His love for me was higher than the highest mountain, which I had seen, and deeper than the deepest ocean, which I had almost seen.

Could I believe He knew my hurt, my pain, and my anger—an adoption fiasco filled with lying, deception, and greed? I had heard about it on the Internet and television—children being stolen and sold to desperate would-be parents. I never thought it would happen to me. Jesus Himself was betrayed by one of His closest friends. Could Jesus bring redemption to this horrible injustice?

The next morning when I walked down to the lobby, I sat down and looked out the large window overlooking Hue Street. One of the adoptive mothers caught sight of me and walked over with her baby. I had intentionally avoided the other adoptive mothers because I didn’t want to talk about my misfortune or tell them what had happened. It was too painful.

“Did you hear about the woman from the States who is here in Hanoi, and the ‘mother’ went into hiding and wants money?” She exclaimed. “Isn’t that awful? It’s all over the web that her baby was kidnapped! That poor lady came all the way to Vietnam for nothing—isn’t it terrible? I wonder who she is.”

I stared at her in disbelief. I never went to those web sites, but it angered me that so many people knew and were talking about it. How could they know more than me? After that I couldn’t bear to see the other mothers with their new daughters.

As Peter denied Jesus three times and ran away in deep distress, I needed go to God and pour out my raw emotions. Did I believe that God understood my sorrow and pain? Did I believe He wouldn’t leave me in this dark dungeon of doubt and depression? I was inconsolable and unfit to be around.

I left the hotel disillusioned and scurried down Hue Street to the Hoan Kiem Lake. Alone and hurting, I trudged around the lake with tears falling uncontrollably. I sobbed in anguish fearing that my dreams were gone. Passersby stared at me and a couple of women asked if they could help. I shook my head and scurried off.

As Jesus spoke to His followers in parables, I need to tell my own personal parable.

Chapter Twenty-Four

…Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble…

Job 2:10

Back many years ago, my ex husband and I lived in Augusta, Georgia. He was in medical school at the Medical College of Augusta and I worked as a court reporter putting him through medical school. One morning on my way into work, there was a long line of cars backed up on Greene Street. Brown Court Reporting, Inc., the company I worked for, was at least several blocks down the road. People had turned off their engines and were meandering around on the road waiting.

I got out of my car and walked up the street to where some people were hanging out and asked, “What’s going on?”

The man said nonchalantly, “Apparently a dog got hit by a car.”

Being a dog lover, my heart welled up as I wondered how badly the dog was hurt, who he belonged to, and if he would be okay, but the man didn’t know anything more.

I waited a few more minutes, not sure what to do. When it didn’t look as though things would clear out any time in the immediate future, I turned around and went a different way to the office.

But throughout the morning, I kept thinking about the little dog that had been hit by a car. I wanted to know more. I walked downstairs and started checking around with some of the people in other offices on the street to find out if anybody knew what had happened. Someone told me they thought he had been transported to a local veterinarian. I scoured around and found the vet to which the poor little dog had been taken. I called to inquire.

“No,” said the person on the other end. “The owner hasn’t been located.” They didn’t know who she belonged to, but she needed immediate medical attention or she would die. Her leg had been badly injured and needed to be amputated.

“How much would that cost?” I asked.

“About $200,” the woman replied.

That was a lot of money back in those days, but now that I had involved myself this much, how could I hang up the phone and not help.”

“Okay,” I told her. “I will pay the $200 for the surgery if she will live.”

“Are you sure?” She asked me. “It’s not your dog.”

I was sure. My only worry was how I would explain it to my husband and what would I do with Fifi after the surgery. I knew he wouldn’t want another dog.

We already had a little dog, Shelley. She was a stray who showed up on our back porch in Atlanta one day a few months after we were married. Not that much different from my childhood dog, Gypsy, who had walked into the house one evening with my dad when he returned home from buying milk. I wasn’t sure if the two would get along. Shelley had never had to share us.”

“When can I come by and meet her?” I asked.

“Why don’t you wait till later this afternoon after the surgery?”

I spent the rest of the day imagining what the little dog looked like and how I would explain to my husband that I had rescued a dog from certain death, that the dog was an amputee, and I had paid $200 for surgery on a dog I had never even met.

Finally the veterinarian’s office called and said the surgery had been successful. Fifi’s leg had been amputated without complications. I could come see her but they wanted her to remain overnight for a couple of days until she was well enough for me to take her home.

“Have you heard from anybody claiming to be her owner?” I asked hopefully?

“No,” she said. “We don’t know who she belongs to.”

Late that afternoon, I dropped by the animal hospital on the way home from work. I told them who I was, and they were glad to meet me. I gave them the check for $200 and thanked them for taking care of Fifi.

“Do you want to see her?” The tech asked me. “She is in recovery.”

“Sure,” I said.”

They took me to an adjoining room and I poked my head in the door. Before me was a scroungy looking tan and white terrier, with large floppy ears and strands of hair covering her closed eyelids. Fifi aptly described her, a hurt, orphaned dog in need of love and a home. She lay curled up in a little ball with one huge bandage where her back right leg used to be.