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| Our Adoption Story (so far...) |
| 19 Nov 00 - Our adoption story began in November 1999. We had been trying to start a family for nearly a year. We completed numerous medical treatments and were told IVF was about our only option left. After hearing this news and doing some soul searching, I began to research other options. I had always been moved by the idea of international adoption. I think it started when I became aware of the many children in orphanages in Romania during that country�s political struggle in the 1990�s. Because there were so many problems in the Balkans at the time, I started researching adoption from eastern European countries�but discovered many of the children in orphanages have medical problems that I did not think we were prepared to deal with. Right around Thanksgiving of 1999, I started to look at the Chinese adoption program. Everything I read about Chinese adoption programs and the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) appealed to me. The centralized adoption program, run by the Chinese government was inherently fair and predictable. Working with a local agency, adoptive parents are required to compile a comprehensive dossier. The dossier details everything about you as a family, your hopes and desires for your child, your ability to care for a child, family pictures, etc. The completed dossier is mailed to CCAA through an international adoption agency. After approximately 12 months, families receive a child referral (picture, health report) from CCAA. After accepting the referral, families travel to China to pick up their child. �It�s just that simple,� I thought. The more I researched, the more I found out about why the CCAA program was so well run�it had to be. The backlash of child abandonment caused by China�s one-child policy and favoritism toward male heirs left millions of girls in Chinese orphanages. The problem was epidemic and the success of the CCAA adoption program seemed only a small solution to a much larger socio-economic problem. By the beginning of December 1999, I had decided China adoption was for me. But there were two of us in this marriage. I still needed to talk to my husband about it. I was afraid. I was afraid he would be disappointed that I did not want to actively pursue infertility treatments any longer. It took me until after the holidays to get up the courage to talk with him about it. As usual, I discovered that my fears were unfounded. He was understanding. He wanted me to be happy and was very interested in what I found out about adoption. I told him all I knew and we started to contact international agencies. In about a month, we had it narrowed down to a few agencies. One minor bump in the road�we moved in January 2000 and did not get settled into our new house until the middle of February 2000. I vowed to work hard on getting things going with the adoption once we were settled in. In retrospect, I�m glad we had that time to mull over our decision and review all the agencies pamphlets. It made our decision to go with Chinese Children Adoption International (CCAI) that much easier. We chose a large agency that specialized in Chinese adoption for several reasons. We wanted an agency that had been successful during the occasionally difficult relations between the U.S. and China. CCAI had been in business since the beginning of Chinese international adoption and their record was impeccable. CCAI had done thousands of adoptions over the years and proved itself in the international adoption agency arena. Also, we felt comfortable communicating with them via email, fax and phone (they have a great website as well). We chose Adoption Links Worldwide (ALWW) as our local home study agency because they were more responsive, from the beginning, than any other local agency. Our ALWW social worker did a marvelous job on our home study. We attended their Adoption Workshop in March 2000. It took us exactly six months to compile our dossier (April-October). The most time consuming part was the home study and Immigration and Naturalization Service paperwork. It�s frustrating while you�re going through the paperwork maze and interviews with social workers. About month four and home study meeting five, you feel like screaming, �Hey we�re good honest people, really!� But now that it�s over, we realize people are just doing their job. They�re doing the best they can to assess your ability to parent a child. Finally, after I had a near meltdown on the phone with a woman at the Illinois Department of Records, we had all our paperwork notarized, certified and authenticated. Our dossier was ready to go to CCAI for translation. (It�s funny. When we were reviewing the dossier for the last time, we corrected every minor grammar problem and tried to choose the best possible words. Knowing full well that the difficult translation to Chinese would foil any effort we made at perfect English. We know our basic thoughts made it through the translation.) So, our dossier arrived in China on 30 Oct 2000. That�s the date we live by. 12 months to wait for a referral, 30 October 2001, to the day. I cannot imagine what it will be like to have accepted the referral then wait six weeks to travel. Only holding that tiny little picture and short medical report in your hand to keep you company. Knowing that our baby is waiting for us thousands of miles away, in her soul wondering what took us so long. I cannot imagine now, but it will happen eventually. Back to Homepage |