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put my nose up to her mouth. Erika watched me, puzzled.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” she asked.
    I smiled up at her. “Making sure she’s still breathing. She’s so quiet.”
    Erika rolled her eyes. I hoisted myself back up. “She was really easy in the car ride on the way back, wasn’t she? Hardly made a peep.”
    â€œYup.”
    As if trying to reassure myself that everything was under control now that we were together, I continued. “I think the hard part is behind us now that we’ve got her. I’ll be a mighty happy dad if she keeps snoozing away like this.”
    â€œDon’t bet on it,” Erika said. “Babies are a lot of work.” The elevator door opened and we maneuvered the stroller with our precious charge into the car.
    I shrugged off Erika’s warning. “Now you’re the worrywart.”
    Once we’d stepped into our room and let the door shut, we sighed with relief; we were finally alone together. Joanna opened her eyes and straightened up in her stroller. I crouched down to eye level with her.
    â€œHi there. Have a good nap?”
    She glowered at me and writhed around in the stroller. Thankfully, Erika’s motherly instincts kicked in. She unbuckled Joanna, lifted her out of the stroller, and set her down on one of the twin beds we’d pushed together, but she toppled over.
    We propped her up with pillows and emptied our cache of toys onto the beds, hoping she’d occupy herself with her new playthings—plastic blocks, books made of cloth, a sterling silver rattle, stuffed animals, a rubber ball—but she started to cry. Looking at Erika, I froze. “Oh God. Baby crying. What do we do?” I’d fantasized for months about being the perfect dad, but now I felt completely useless.
    Erika picked her up from the bed and whispered to her while gently bouncing her up and down. The bouncing seemed to distract her and she stopped crying.
    There wasn’t a lot of space to walk around our room, but after a week in Poland we were used to everything being cramped. Because there was only a tiny closet and dresser, our suitcases were spread all over the floor. Joanna’s hotel crib was crammed between our beds and the wall, leaving a little pathway to the bathroom.
    I was relieved that at least one of us had some natural parenting instincts. It certainly wasn’t me. “How did you know what to do?”
    â€œI took care of my brother Richard when he was a baby and I was ten. I loved it until he threw up all over me.”
    Erika grew weary from the bouncing. Joanna coughed up phlegm from her cold. She looked miserable and I didn’t dare touch her. Maybe we needed a doctor, but how would we find one late at night in Warsaw? Erika put Joanna back down.
    â€œLet me check her diaper.” I felt like an idiot, like when my car wouldn’t start and all I could think of was to check the oil, as if that would help.
    Erika put a fresh diaper on her, replacing the old-fashioned pinned cloth diaper with something convenient and disposable—a Pamper. Joanna quieted down for a minute but then started back up again. I watched helplessly, feeling my headache coming back from her squealing. I prayed that the people in the room next door couldn’t hear us through the thick cinder-block walls. Standing in the pathway carved out in front of our beds, I felt powerless. “What do we do now?”
    Erika remained calm. “She’s probably hungry.”
    â€œRight. Good idea.” I felt like we were in a Three Stooges movie where they suddenly found themselves in charge of a baby.
    The orphanage staff had given us several old-fashioned glass bottles full of soup, formula, and other liquefied food. Joanna was fed from a bottle even though a fourteen-month-old should have been eating solid foods from a spoon. Erika lifted her from our beds, shushing her while grabbing the bottle of lukewarm carrot soup,