You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you
cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make
them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
It was sunny and warm when we parked on the road near the clinic. I noticed that many of the trees and bushes are like the ones I'm used to seeing here in Ontario. I guess it's not surprising, since the cities of Beijing and Toronto are close to being on the same latitude. I was really impressed with the clinic when we walked in. It was modern, clean and the staff all spoke English and were very pleasant. Also, they had a water cooler in the waiting area, which we all relished, since the water was cold and safe to drink. When we took Faith into the office, Dr. Chen, a Chinese Canadian physician trained at McGill in Montreal, asked us to undress her for the examination. She weighed her (15 pounds, 4 ounces), measured her (27 inches) and asked us questions about Faith's milestones and fine/gross motor skills. We could only answer about her fine motor skills based on the fact that she could pick up a Cheerio in her tweezer-like fingers and put it into her mouth. Then, the doctor noticed that Faith had filled her diaper, and took the opportunity to have me change her then and there so that she could look at the contents. (Ironically, after having had problems with constipation up to this point, this is where the tables turned and we had a couple of days of problems with almost-diarrhea.) On Faith's medical report, the doctor wrote that she had "mild malnutrition," and I wasn't surprised, although it broke my heart to think of my poor baby girl being hungry all those months and not eating any solid food, even though she had all those teeth. The Chinese people do the best they can with limited resources and anybody who's been through the adoption experience does, I think, sense that they love these children in their care, and that's a wonderful thing to know. However, when you're a North American and you're used to plump, maybe even overfed babies and children, it really is a shock to confront the reality of much of the world: lots of children go to bed hungry every night.
We ended up having to change Faith's diaper three times at the clinic. Luckily, Desiree (again!) was able to lend us some wipes and when we were down to the last set of clean clothing Faith had in the diaper bag, her bowels settled, and she didn't have anymore "leaks." While we waited for the rest of our group to finish at the clinic, We strolled down the street and turned onto a busier road, where Yulin had told us we could find grocery stores with Western foods. We stocked up on bagels, crackers, bananas, oranges and milk, imported from Australia. Corinne bought some bread as well and although the store did have Huggies diapers, they weren't the right size. I think they were newborn and size 5, which would never have fit my thin daughter. We went back to the clinic in time to join the group for lunch at a nearby cafeteria-like buffet for lunch. I didn't really care for any of this food at all. I ate a little piece of a steamed bun with a sweet paste inside and a few spoonfuls of soup, but it really wasn't food that I liked. I couldn't resist peeling a tangerine and eating it, because I'd been craving fresh fruit and vegetables ever since our arrival in China. I thought that since the tangerine had a peel, it'd be safe, but I noticed that the doctor in our group didn't eat hers. (It was the next day that I started feeling sick all over again, but at the time, eating the fruit seemed like a good idea.) After lunch, we piled back on the bus and were off to shop at the outdoor market.
