My China Adoption Story

In early 1999, I made the decision to adopt my daughter from China. I sent off for my birth certificate, renewed my passport, selected an agency and glued myself to the Internet, reading adoption stories and joining e-mail lists.

At first, I worried that I was being selfish, to take a child away from home and country, but I decided that children require and crave love and human contact, and I could give her a mother and a large extended family to supply all the love and attention she could need. Also, I felt that her educational opportunities were far better with me than in an orphanage, and that would lead to a far greater quality of life as an adult.

I attended an introductory meeting at Children's Hope International. They were in a building I'd never noticed before, within walking distance of my house. They answered all of my questions, and I felt confident that they had worked with China successfully for many years and that they could handle any problems that might arise. I spoke with families that had used the agency, they were happy with CHI. I didn't really look into other agencies, I was satisfied with this one.

Then I waited anxiously for July first to arrive, the day I would be debt free (except for the mortgage); the day I could turn in my application to CHI. Foreign adoption is expensive. I borrowed the money for the adoption. In retrospect, it would have been nice to have saved the money for the adoption first. But I'm glad I didn't. If I had, I would not have this particular child, that I love so dearly.

I told my family over the fourth of July. My sister immediately volunteered to go to China with me, even though I'd thought I'd go by myself. Everyone was happy for me and excited to welcome a new child into the family.

I made an appointment with my doctor for a checkup. I mailed her a packet of information, so she'd be ready for my visit. The packet included the medical form, including lab tests, immunization recommendations for travel to China, and a note explaining that this physical was for adoption.

I sent the INS application off right away. My fingerprint appointment was about 2 or 3 weeks later. My FBI approval was in before my lab tests were back, so my I171H arrived as soon as my home study was sent in. My home study had been complete except for the medical section.

Everyone I dealt with was helpful and pleasant. If I'd planned a bit better, I could have gotten the paperchase finished more quickly. Two big holdups were getting my birth certificate from the health department and getting an appointment at the doctor's office. Luckily, I started on the birth certificate first, so that didn't hold me up. Also, I ordered two birth certificates, so I'm already ahead for #2. It took 2 months to get a doctor's appointment. I knew I needed that appointment at the beginning of spring. I shouldn't have waited to call for an appointment in July. I would have sent my INS application in right away. You can supply your agency name at a later date, but I waited until I was accepted at CHI. If you print the form off from the web, make sure you print it on salmon colored paper. I could have taken a vacation day and driven to Jeff City to get my notarizations verified at the state department. I could have taken a few days off and visited Chicago to get my state department verification approved at the Chinese Consulate. But all of this is for next time, and I'm still not out of debt from this time.

The day I turned my documents in at CHI, they mailed them to their office in Beijing for translation. My dossier was logged in at the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) in Nov 1999. I was officially a November 1999 DTC (dossier to China). All of the dossiers logged in for a month get referrals around the same time. Sometimes there is a delay for some families, when information has to be verified or additional information collected. Part of the process is the CCAA checking all of the information in the dossier. When that is completed, then the family's dossier gets in line to be matched up to a child's dossier for a referral.

The paperchase seemed daunting when I started it - a mountain of paperwork. There were only a few minor glitches, though and I only spent a few lunch hours and the odd half day running errands, some evenings filling out paperwork, and many anxious days waiting. On Nov 5, 1999, I turned in my dossier. Then began the long wait.

I joined the Nov99DTC e-mail list and we all talked about getting ready for our children and taking advantage of our last few carefree months before we would become parents. Everyone was so industrious, cleaning their houses, decorating baby's room, trying to cram their home offices into other rooms, already fully occupied by their own furnishings. I moved my home office to the basement, but saved preparing my daughter's room till after her referral arrived.

I wrote a letter to the head of my department at work and met with her and my supervisor to present the letter and answer questions. They needed to know that, at some unknown time in the next year, I would be taking family leave. I told my friends, but not my coworkers about the adoption. I thought it would be too distracting to talk about it at work.

On August 3, 2000, my referral arrived. My daughter was not even born when my paperwork was logged in to the CCAA. I was getting a baby, not a toddler. I loved her the instant I set eyes on that funny little picture. She looked beautiful and alert and perfect.

I dashed out of work the instant CHI said I could pick up my paperwork. I went straight from CHI to a friend's house who had a scanner. She scanned the pictures while I read my daughter's information: healthy and developmentally on target. Her name meant Welcome happy. A perfect name, I thought, for such a welcome child. I e-mailed my joyful news to all my friends and family. I spent the rest of the day on the phone, talking to everyone.

The next day, on my lunch hour, I turned in my acceptance at CHI. I met one of my travel companions while I was there. She was turning in their acceptance form. We compared baby pictures and spoke for a few minutes while we waited.

They told me it would be 2 to 3 months before we would travel. It was 6 weeks. We left for China in September 2000, flying out of LA My sister had driven to St. Louis so we could fly to LA together. We went a day early and spent the afternoon at Santa Monica. The next morning we wandered around near the hotel before heading to the airport. We met our fellow travelers in the airport waiting area and finally boarded the plane for China. I dreaded being in an airplane for so long, but ended up enjoying the trip. I was too excited to read, so I was happy to spend my time wandering the aisles and talking with all the people setting out for tours of China, returning home for a visit, or traveling on business. We had a refueling stop at Anchorage, a bit of a delay in Shanghai, and arrived in Beijing late. The drive to the hotel seemed long. It was dark, so there wasn't much to see out of the windows of the bus.

The next day we dashed through the Forbidden City and then went to the Great Wall of China. The air must have been a little thinner at the Great Wall, my heart raced and I couldn't catch my breath when I tried to climb the stairs. I wish we'd had more time at the Great Wall, it was a magnificent sight.

We stopped at the friendship store. There was a restaurant in the back. We all sat around a big round table whose entire center was a huge lazy susan. They placed dish after dish on the lazy susan while we all tried a little bit of everything.

The next morning, bright and early, we left for the airport, and the trip to Changsha, In Hunan Province. It was around 11AM when we finally checked into our rooms at the Grand Sun Hotel. They told us to stay in our rooms, they'd call us when the babies arrived. Our rooms were all in the same area, so we opened our doors so we'd hear the phones, and pooled our snacks for a picnic lunch in the hallway. No one really ate much, though.

Someone said that we could see the orphanage from the hallway windows. I took a picture, but I could never figure out which buildings were the welfare institute. Then there they were. Our China coordinator, Mark, with the nannies and their tiny charges.

They handed me my daughter and I took her into our room. She wasn't crying, but her eyes were brimmed with tears. We looked at each other. Life was perfect. What do I do now, I thought.

She had thick hair in a buzz cut. When I held her head against my cheek it wasn't soft, baby hair, but the kind of hair an older child might have. Whenever I hold her, now, and feel her hair against my cheek, it brings me back to this moment when we met, exciting and tentative and joyful.

Changsha is sort of a blur. We visited the orphanage, went to a pearl factory, and embroidery factory, a university , the zoo. I think that was all in Changsha, and not in Guangzhou. My sister gave me some baby care training, and my daughter and I became acquainted and began to bond.

Guangzhou was a time of walks in the morning while the whole town was out exercising, shopping, and waiting for our children's visas. The White Swan Hotel and the streets were full of new families, proudly strolling along, each knowing that their child was the most extraordinary child in the world. We took our red couch pictures and tried all the restaurants in the hotel and took our babies into the pools. On our last night in China, we reserved a private dining room at the White Swan Hotel and had a sort of going away party.

If the plane ride to Beijing was almost completely Asians, then the plane ride to LA was almost completely families with babies. It was packed and the lights were low, so the babies could sleep. I couldn't do anything but sit there, holding a sleeping baby and growing steadily more uncomfortable. I'd had a fever earlier in the week, and now it was back. I didn't have any aspirin out, so I was pretty much miserable on the flight and waiting in line at immigration. When I checked into the hotel in L.A.,I fell instantly asleep. My sister woke me up around midnight. She was too tired to stay up any longer and the baby wouldn't go to sleep. The hotel hadn't given us a crib. I held my daughter for a couple minutes, then lay down with her. She fell asleep right away, and we both slept the rest of the night .

The next day we flew home. CHI and our friends and families met us at the airport. Then we all went our own ways. We keep in touch. The three of us families in town get together from time to time. There is some sadness due to a death in one of the families, and some happiness, three of the families are adopting again. I'll have to wait a while for #2, while my finances recover.

I am content, for now. My daughter is a joy in my life. Each new day with her is better than the last.

The WeatherPixie Changsha, Hunan Province, PRC

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