The day we met our daughter

A tattered Armenian flag danced in the breeze above our heads. This was it, this was our daughter’s home, an orphanage. 

This is where she had lived since she was a few weeks old. We passed through a set of old metal gates and walked across a dusty path to an old stone building. Still we felt a little numb and a little in shock that we were here in Armenia and footsteps away from meeting our girl. With our lawyer leading the way we met the orphanage director and entered the nursery where our daughter has lived as an orphan almost all of her short life.

Ten numbered cribs were neatly lined up on one side of the room and on the other side babies played in a large playpen while others were being fed in a row of high chairs. We walked in, surveying the room for the baby girl we have waited forever to meet, feeling completely speechless. 

Years of imagining this day, and what our child would look like, there she was our very own miniature Betty boop, gobbling down her breakfast. Her loving nannies had dressed her in a fluffy white dress for this fateful day, the day she would no longer be an orphan.

Our sweet daughter who had only ever known these nannies, these walls, these “orphanage siblings” had no idea how her life which had been contained to the walls of this building was about to grow and change.

We stood there watching, babies crawling around our feet, but we were fixated on her.  Her big dark eyes met ours. This tiny girl who had only left the orphanage a handful of times for doctors appointments had a group of outsiders observing her every move. Worry and anxiety washed over her face, her perfect rosebud lips began to tremble, and tears poured down her chubby cheeks.

Placed on the prized rocking horse in an attempt to pacify her, we sat down beside her. Hysterical cries filled the room, our efforts to comfort and soothe her fell flat, feeling helpless, all we could do was wait. 

Overwhelmed by the three strangers she had just met, she wanted her nannies and when they held her close and calmly reassured her, she slowly stopped crying. It makes our hearts ache to know their love is the only affection she has known since the moment she was abandoned, their love is real and genuine but also like a revolving door, constantly turning and moving, disappearing at the end of each nanny’s shift. 

More than two years of training and research taught us this was normal, but even Benjamin, who is normally unfazed in stressful situations, looked shaken. I had to remind myself that this is completely normal for any child and a really good sign for a child living in an orphanage. It showed her attachment to her nannies and how loving and compassionate they are. 

Slowly she let us in and allowed me to pick her up. Examining every feature on my face, she sat in my arms, motionless and silent, she did not babble or cry, she did not speak. She just watched me with her wise eyes. 

As the day moved on she gave herself permission to soften a little, we took her into the garden and she seemed pleased to escape the stuffiness of the un-air conditioned building. 

Well loved swings, bikes, scooters and prams filled the garden where it was much cooler from the shade of the leafy branches of the huge apricot trees. Our day had been emotional, filled with a mix of emotions, and we really cannot praise our five year old enough for his compassion, composure and perseverance. He continuously attempted to engage with his sister, and didn’t take it personally when she wasn’t ready, he didn’t give up on her, instead he waited patiently for her to make the first move. He spoke gently, offered her toys and sang her songs through her floods of tears. And then his brilliant five year mind had a wonderful idea, he climbed into a pram and again he patiently waited for her. Filled with excitement her pudgy arms reached out to sit next to her brother. It was something so simple, yet monumentous.  

We walked back and forth down the path and they sat side by side, watching each other, they laughed and touched hands and slowly tiny moments of connection grew into bigger ones and even bigger ones until it felt like she’d always been ours. 

And just like that we felt everything shift, we felt the click, we knew our missing piece had been found and returned to its rightful place.