YAHOO! In More Ways Than One

January 27, 2003
By GREGORY J. RUMMO

THE MESSAGE BOARDS on YAHOO! for America-World Adoption Group 108 suddenly sprang to life shortly after the new year began. Group 105 had received their referrals in December and groups 106 and 107 were right behind them a month later on January 21.

The rumor was that China had processed all of the dossiers it had received 22 months earlier in November 2001, the speculation being that they wanted to clear out all of the remaining paperwork before celebrating their own New Year which begins February 1.

“I feel like the players in the Super Bowl closing their eyes and holding hands waiting for the last-second kick! WE'RE NEXT!” wrote an excited Sean Mclaurin of Virginia. Edie Moore McGee, a D.C. attorney from Chesapeake Beach, MD posted this advice: “It's important at this point to stay very, very calm. As my brother, the airline pilot, says, ‘Panic kills’.”

For those of you who may be wondering where all of this breathless excitement is coming from, some background information will help you understand.

A foreign adoption is a long, expensive and tedious process. It is often fraught with unseen complications, delays and sometimes unanticipated expenses. Yet, despite the hassles, the number of Americans willing to open up their homes to orphans in foreign countries has risen every year, tripling since 1992. According to INS statistics, the total number of IR3 and IR4 immigrant visas issued to orphans during 2001 was 18,669. China was at the top of this list with 4,690. Russia was a close second with 4,279.

The adoption process begins with the preparation of what is called a dossier; a comprehensive tome of paperwork including medical histories, financial disclosures, birth and marriage certificates, letters of reference and other pertinent information about the adoptive couple. Each of these documents must be notarized and certified at the local, county and state levels and then finally authenticated by the Chinese Consulate.

A home study agency gets involved and a social worker interviews each family member to ensure the adopted child will have a suitable home. An application must be made to the INS. Background checks are performed by local law enforcement agencies. Adoptive couples are fingerprinted several times.  

When all of the paperwork is finally in order, it is sent to the adoption agency. It takes some couples as long as nine months to complete their dossier and hence is affectionately dubbed a “paperwork pregnancy.”

Dossiers arriving at the agency around the same time are collated into a group comprising about a dozen families. These are then sent off to the adoption center in the respective foreign country for translation and processing.

At this point, it may seem as though the hard part is over but it is really just beginning. Once the dossier has been accepted, there is nothing to do but wait—for 14 months in the case of Chinese adoptions.

With the ever increasing growth of the Internet coupled with the availability of less expensive computers, access to e-mail has become as commonplace as a roadside mailbox.

Adoption groups like AWAA’s Group 108 find this a convenient way to stay in touch with one another.

Group 108 is unique in that it is unusually large. Fifty-seven families (it had started out with sixty-four families) piled in at the last minute in order to beat the deadline announced by the Chinese government in 2001 limiting the number of orphans it would make available for adoptions in subsequent years.  

And now after waiting 14 long months it was their turn.

It was Thursday, January 23. The chatter mostly centered around a pool to see who would come closest to guessing the date group 108 would receive their referrals. There were 29 different posts that morning before the message boards grew eerily quiet for several hours. Someone even posted a message that read simply, “Awfully quiet out there!”

And then it happened.

“We can post our news!” One excited mom wrote. “We’ve got a baby!” Wrote another.

“Here she is!”

“Miracle girl!”

“Rejoicing in Minnesota.”

The message boards were flooded with the joyous news of orphans who were orphans no more.

Finally it was our turn. The phone rang at my desk in the office shortly before two o’clock.

“You have a healthy baby girl,” our family adoption coordinator announced proudly over the telephone. My pulse quickened and I could feel my face flush as the blood rose in my head. “Wh, Wha, What’s her name?” I stammered incoherently.

“Her name is Wu Min Jian.”

The sound of her name was lyrical. As I softly repeated it over and over again, the realization came over me: After 22 months, the waiting was finally over.

Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before we travel as a family to Guangxi Province to bring our little daughter home. n

Gregory J. Rummo is a syndicated columnist. Read all of his columns on his homepage, www.GregRummo.com. E-Mail Rummo at  [email protected]