"I Can't Like China"

Language is finally coming for Mia and with her new skills comes new insight into her life in an Chinese orphanage.


Just last night we heard this from her.

"I can't like China. China "boo-how" (not good). I cold in China. I cry China...(pretends to cry... waa-waa)... no come get me. I scary"

"I mommy's baby, no go back."

When you adopt and then fall in love with your new child there is no hard start...the love does  not begin with the day you take custody.  It transcends time.  It extends all at once to dreams for the future and losses of the past. You love the child in front of you, who she will become and you love the infant she was (but never knew). 

Hearing Mia finally communicate with us about her life before adoption reminds me that my baby suffered immeasurable losses...pain I could not protect her from. 

There is a convoluted sense of maternal failure in that.

I understand the circumstance she and I were faced with.  On a purely concrete level I understand  there was nothing I could have done to change things...to protect her from the cold and scary nights...

I just wish I could have.