You Love Me Too, Mamma?: An Adoption Story

A writer and documentary filmmaker living in New York City and her husband adopt two young children who were born in Vietnam.

“Tell me,” they’d say. “It was love at first sight, right?”

When my son was placed in my arms in Hanoi as a baby, I fell head over heels. This time, everything was different.

The first time I saw my daughter was on the Internet. Peering out from the Waiting Children website were an infant with webbed toes, a toddler with cleft palate, and older kids tainted simply because blood from HIV-positive mothers ran through their veins. Given the chance, any of them could probably grow up to lead happy, healthy lives.  

She was standing in her metal crib. Three years old, brown eyes staring from the computer. “You want me?” she seemed to dare. “Take me, I’m yours.”

I spent boundless amounts of energy trying to persuade my husband that this was the right thing to do. “Can we handle an older child?” he’d fret. It wouldn’t be easy, I knew, but I couldn’t get her out of my mind. “How can we not?” I’d reply. I called the adoption agency to say we’d take her.

In the months it took to complete our paperwork, we studied photos of her for clues of her burgeoning personality. Affectionate and curious. Sometimes a vacant stare.

I couldn’t wait to bring her home and love her. We studied Vietnamese and made a photo album to send her. Our 6-year-old son began imagining life with a sister, rearranging his room, picking out toys, choosing her dresses. “Mom?” he’d ask. “When she’s here, will there be enough love left for me?” “More,” I’d say. I was flying blind. Virtual family. Made on a Mac.

When the agency called, we had less than a week to get to Vietnam. Thirty hours, 10,000 miles, a quick shower, and a bowl of chicken pho later, we were headed for the orphanage, on the outskirts of Saigon. We pulled into the courtyard and there she was.

Tiny but tough, she stood barefoot among a dozen kids dotted with odd purple stains, like strange mythical creatures. “Chicken pox,” they told us. I took her in my arms and introduced her to her brother and father.

Poised and charming, she kissed my cheek, dutifully pronouncing “Me”—“Mother.” Taking our hands, she led us around the playground and the room where she slept. Bravely welcoming us into her world. Beaming, my son whispered, “I think she likes us.”

By the next day, her demeanor had changed. Clutching the photo album, she hung back, sad and fearful. Realizing she was about to leave the only world she’d ever known, she became hysterical, putting up such a fight I had to remind myself that this was an adoption, not a kidnapping. The kids reached for her, convulsing in tears. “Chào em!” “Little sister, bye-bye!” She vomited all the way to the hotel.

Two hours later, she was splashing in the pool, eating French fries, and throwing pillows at her brother, laughter filling the air. But at the end of the day she wanted to go home to the orphanage. She ran naked to the door to put on her shoes. She trusted only her Vietnamese-born brother to comfort her, feed her, sing her to sleep. We awoke the first night to find her sitting upright in her cot, looking around in a panic. We were still strangers. I didn’t go to her, afraid it would upset her. Helplessly, I watched until finally she lay down, thumb in mouth, and fell asleep.

Back in New York, picnics, walks on the beach, and playdates were derailed by visits to doctors, labs, and more doctors. Her belly was distended, muscle tone low, ribs bowed by rickets, and teeth badly decayed. She needed general anesthesia, root canal, and five stainless steel crowns.