Adoption Story - Part 9

Shortly after we settled back into our room as a family of four, Mr. at Home had to go to a conference room downstairs to sign the paperwork to accept temporary custody of L. The CCAA gives adoptive families a “day of congeniality” where you are supposed to decide whether or not you like your baby. Like we were going to say, “You know, we’d really like to test drive a different child”. As I waited in the room with the girls, K had gone to the bathroom, shutting and locking the sliding door behind her. When she was done, the door wouldn’t open.

K was locked in the bathroom. In a strange hotel. In a strange country.

I sat L on the bed, which caused her to start wailing, and jiggled the door, but the lock was stuck fast. I pushed and pulled, talking the whole time to K to keep her calm and to L to try to convince her to stop crying. I finally gave up, picked up L, and called the hotel desk where I spoke to a clerk who didn’t speak much English. Soon a housekeeper showed up and it took several minutes to get her to understand that there was A CHILD LOCKED IN THE BATHROOM. She jiggled and pushed and pulled and got nowhere.

Soon our agency rep walked by, saw our door opened, and peeked in to see what was going on. She went looking for our guides to help translate while the housekeeper worked at the door.

It was definitely a baptism by fire to parenting two children. After all I had one scared 5-year-old locked alone in a bathroom and one scared 1-year-old who had just been abandoned by her nanny with these strange people and all the commotion was scaring her as she clung to me in fear. They both needed me and I couldn’t *fix* any of it for either of them.

The housekeeper finally stopped and called maintenance. A few minutes later a man arrived with a toolbox just as the housekeeper jiggled the door just right and the lock finally fell open. Thank goodness! K came racing out straight to me and I had two little girls clinging to me. The agency rep arrived with the guide and we all laughed in relief that the crisis was finally over.

A few moments Mr. at Home came back and listened in amazement to our story. It was my turn to leave the girls with him as I went and signed the papers and I gladly handed over the parenting mantle. This 2-child stuff was stressful!