Why China?

I've been planning for sometime to answer the question, Why China?

Ask 100 Adoptive Parents-to-be waiting on a child from China and you might hear some resounding themes:

Because that's where my daughter is.
I had a calling.
Some statement about needing to 'save a child'.

Well, I'll be honest with you, though I hear those sentiments quite a bit, not everyone feels that way, and in this case, we're part of that 'not everyone'. Our journey to China began many years ago, before we were married.

Though we had a very fast whirlwind romance before we married, we covered a lot of ground in that time. We dated long distance and spent hours each night on the phone in those early months, then when we moved in and married, those in-depth, conversations continued. We talked religion, politics, money, parenting styles (our parents and how we'd like to do it different in some cases, similar in others), dreams, hopes, raising a family, travel interests, values, etc. we even talked about what we felt we could handle in terms of how many children, when and what special needs we felt were right for us. We covered it all, including adoption.

While I know that many couples never talk about the "what if's" of life, we certainly did and I am a strong believer in the value of doing that, well in advance of when you hit the "what if's". Too many couples never talk about them, find themselves in a what if, and are stunned to find out there's a divide in the marriage.

When we moved into our new home, we spent many an evening having our version of the old "fireside chat", a throw back from the Roosevelt days, but ours took place in the comfort of our oversized tub with bubble bath! Those are wonderful memories for me, we were able to talk about so many things, openly. To really figure out how to get through the "what if's" of life ahead of us.

We started trying to conceive right away, we all know that 5 years later we made the decision not to try anymore, at least biologically. I don't say trying to have 'our own', that's so incredibly offensive and I go through the roof with the world of insensitivity posed by that ludicrous statement. Can't say we stopped trying "naturally" either, because, well, as our friend Al said, "natural" is something that teenagers do in the back seat of a Chevy and there's nothing natural about the surgeries, the shots, the dozens upon dozens of appointments, exams, procedures.

So every few months our fireside chats were about "what if" we can't conceive and give birth, we always thought of adoption but adoption in the US was terrifying, even before we lost children, we agreed we could not do an open adoption (highly prevalent in the US) and we could never risk "returning" a child. International adoption provided so many benefits but we knew nothing about it.

As each holiday season came to an end, we would reflect on the years gone by and the years to come, we'd dive heavily into the topic of our childless home. The end of the year our house always felt the emptiest, holidays could be dark because of it and the house would feel vacant, perhaps that's why I was always disappointed that our families never came for holidays. This time of year was especially poignant after the loss of Sophia, it was marked by weeks of in-depth talks to see what could be.

I'd like to say it was a lifelong dream, or that I always knew or that I had a 'calling'. But I didn't, neither one of us did.

Instead, the engineering blood in me kicked into high gear. I researched EVERY adoption agency in the country that specialized in international adoption and which was licensed in both Russia and China, just in case... I compiled lists of contacts, agency size, office locations (US and internationally), fees, rules (religion based or not), program information (size of program, timelines, years in business), I researched the BBB, online groups for trash talk, I researched the subject to death, our mailbox overflowed with information.

I interviewed agency after agency during that time. Ruling some out within the first 5 minutes of talking with them. Some were arrogant, some never had 'the time', some seemed 'confused', some required we profess, in a written statement our love of the Lord...

I looked at the differences between countries too, in fact, considering we were leaning towards Russia early on, with the idea of a second child from China, it's surprising how much time I spent looking at other countries. And every night we'd have a fireside chat about wht I learned that day. By the end of December 2005, we made our choice, to adopt, this is an important point for me, we CHOSE to adopt. And then we decided on Russia but we had fears about the program. I wrote them off as fears tied really to all we'd been through and not to what lay ahead. Concerns over the timelines (2 trips required), the shifting 'rules', etc we balanced that against the desire to have a child that looked like us, a child able to fit more 'easily' into the lives of other people around us. This seems shallow, however, I am nothing but honest, we allowed our fear over other peoples reactions to bias us. Never again.

We loved BOTH countries, their culture, their history, their beauty, we wanted to be forever tied to a country we were fascinated by, this was a huge part of narrowing down the list of countries. Another benefit of Russia and China is that they represent the largest IA programs for the US, far outweighing the number of children from other countries. It was vital to me to have the opportunity to have families in our lives who looked and had backgrounds just like us. That circle of unity and oneness mattered. I don't want our daughter to be surrounded by only whiteness and catholocism all her life. NOTHING against those qualities but there's a lot more to the US and the world.

We talked often about discrimination, both within our circle of family/friends and outside. That fear is what kept us from pursuing what felt right all along, China. Even though both of us strongly voiced our opinion that anyone who discriminated, outwardly or behind our back, would be vacant from our life... it still weighed on us, far too heavily I might add.

As we sat in the Agency office, at our in person interview, we asked them to talk to us about Russia and China, mainly focusing on the health of the program (government stability/rules) and the health of the children. We listened carefully in that talk and realized without a doubt, that China was all along the place we should have focused on. It was an instantaneous reaction, a clarity, like a fog lifting. All our concerns about the way Russian adoptions operated, the rules, the health concerns, that all disappeared and in front of us was China.

That moment of clarity is how and when we decided we should adopt from China. The feelings of being torn between 2 countries vanished. What is ironic is that the agency was HUGE for Russia but incredibly small for China, doing about 1-2 dozen adoptions per year in China. However, that intimacy from our agency has been a blessing. We have had our hand held and guided throughout this journey, they have been wonderful to be with. They treat us like one of the 'family' and not a number.

I was talking to our agency rep a few days ago about that decision. And she remembered that talk vividly, she felt all along we should adopt from China based on what was important to us, health, stability, incredible sense of history, being part of a community of parents just like us.

In the end, after all the statistics, research and fireside chats, China just felt like coming home. It was the beautiful sunrise and sunset all at once, at the end of a very tough journey that some day we will be able to put in our past. China for us marks the beginning of something wonderful and we feel secure in our decision.

It sure is taking a hell of a lot longer than we want, but all along it still feels good. We've enjoyed learning about the culture, the holidays, the country. We've planned where in Beijing we'll go, what we'll see, we've even started talking about our return trip, when she's somewhere between 8-12... China has become as much about our future as any other aspect of our life.

It's now just 'a given'.