You all know I am cold-hearted, so it shouldn’t surprise you that I never expected to feel much affection for L this early on. I was prepared to do all the work that needed to be done and feel like I was babysitting someone else’s kid. Well, I don’t feel that way. I feel like she is my daughter and no one could be more surprised that I am.
Because I really care for her, the more I think about her adoption, the sadder I get. It just isn’t fair that such a great kid has to get the kick in the face of losing her first family. It isn’t fair that her other parents don’t get to see how freaking cool she is. It sucks she isn’t going to get to grow up in China. It just isn’t fair.
When we were in China, I was shocked by how much it has developed in the last 10 years. New (beautiful) condo buildings are being built everywhere you look. There were 19 cranes visible from our hotel window in the provincial capital alone, and that is a pretty small city by Chinese standards. The provincial capital was also just shockingly beautiful. Again, it is unusual for China, but almost 40% of the city was green space or landscaping. There wasn’t so much as a whiff of communist-style grayness anywhere around the place.
Even out in the countryside, things weren’t what I expected. The small town where L was found had a vibrant market and lots of prosperous-looking little shops. People were dressed well. There were newer-style buildings. People were driving mopeds and motorcycles. There was a medical clinic and a wedding dress shop. Farther out from the town, there were homes of subsistance farmers, but they weren’t any worse than I expected. I have seen many poorer people when I have traveled in other countries.
The care L recieved in the orphanage seems to have been very good for institutional care. Her nannies seemed to really know her and care about her. She appears to have been well-fed. She got enough attention to be very close to her American peers developmentally (I think, we will see the Int’l adoption dr. tomorrow). The orphanage building was modern and clean. Clearly, the government had designated a fair amount of resources to make sure these kids received decent care. Also, the orphange is very new to international adoption and has very few children all of whom are under the age of two. (Are the kids who aren’t going out of the country being adopted by Chinese families if they are all placed before they get much older? We don’t know.)
So, now that China has all these resources and all this newfound wealth, why couldn’t they find a way to make it possible for 1) L to be able to stay with her first family (assuming she was abandoned because of poverty and/or the one child policy–really the same thing in china) or 2) Find her a family in China??
Most estimates of international adoption out of China place the number of kids at less than 15,000 per year. In a country of 1.5 billion people they couldn’t find 15,000 homes? I saw how many Chinese families are now middle class. I rode with them on planes and trains. I saw them shopping in massive shopping centers spending lots of money on fashionable clothes and accessories.
Now that I know L, the responsibility of having to explain how she ended up with us is weighing heavily on me. It would be easier if I thought I were saving her from a bad place, but I loved China (smog and all) and I think it is already a really ok place to grow up and live. If I thought I was rescuing her from substandard care, I might feel better too, but I saw how much those nannies cared about her and her wellbeing. Sure, I think growing up in a family is the most important thing, but it isn’t like she was in a awful hellhole before.
All these years I have been thinking about adoption, now it seems even more overwelming and complicated.
I am sure I could have a more nuanced post about this, but right now, I am just going to toss this out there before the baby wakes up.
I have only been to mainland China once, so it is interesting to read about how you viewed the country from the perspective of being there more than once. I think that most in the China adoption community assume that we will see the most horrible conditions in our children’s orphanages and villages, but obviously this isn’t always the case. At least you can take comfort to know that your daughter was taken care of while there. I think that the foster care system is starting to become popular, so hopefully some of these kids can find permanent homes with Chinese families.
Warning, the first birthday you celebrate with her will be tough on you. These questions and thoughts get magnified 10-fold.
its amazing isn’t it? My husband’s family is from vietnam, s. china and HK. My FIL hadn’t been to Vietnam since 1988 and china since the 70′s. He was shocked to see SaiGon and china a few times in the last few years. Its almost unrecognizable and getting better each year. He just can’t get over how much it is like the chinese parts of toronto and in some cases even better. They were talking about retiring in asia and that it would actually be very do-able.
I feel the same way about my son and his first family – and they live here in the U.S. The magnitude of the way we failed them – with all the wealth we have in this country – in order for them to have relinquished him is impossible to swallow. I struggle every day with how we will eventually explain to him that his first family wanted him, but no one supported them enough to keep him.
I could have written this post…I’ve thought all of these thoughts…from the “will I feel like she’s babysitting” to: “China was amazing, and how can she not grow up there?’….it’s so hard….it’s even harder thinking about explaining it to Ryleigh…
An interesting article concering the effects of the one-child mandate: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/mar/04030908.html
I don’t dismiss any of your concerns, but please remember that no matter how nice an orphanage is and no matter how loving the nannies are, that’s still no substitute for a real family with a home and a mom and a dad and fabulous sister M.
Thank you for posting this. I am grappling with the same issues. Our first daughter had a wonderful foster family that we keep in contact with through email. I know they were devastated when she left (as were all the foster families for the kids in our travel group) and she was just as upset and grieved for a long time after we came home. Why was she unable to stay with them? Clearly, that should have been the priority (assuming she could not be with her birth family) Are the economics of IA are too much of an incentive to do otherwise? Perhaps her SWI needs the $ that IA provides to care for the children that will not be adopted due to age or severe SN. Perhaps the incentive is not so noble. I just don’t know.
All of this thinking played into the decision of whether to adopt again. Knowing what we know now, we chose to go the SN route. Our referral is for a child in a SWI that by most recent reports is struggling to give adequate care despite being no stranger to IA and being located in one of the wealthiest of provinces. More unanswered questions.
Thank you again. I am glad(?) I am not the only one struggling with this.
This reads so familiar. I’ve been to China something like 10 times in the last four years. It’s an amazing place. Not a perfect one, but neither is the US (or Germany, for that matter). Each is different, each is great in its way, and each has its issues.
I have no idea how I will explain to my girls why they didn’t stay with a family in China. All I can tell them is that I love them, that I am the happiest person on earth for having them as my children, and that this might be one of those things we simply will never understand.
Stupid one child policy is all I can say.
The thing is L’s family chose to have her instead of abortion, so they wanted her to have a life, kwim? Even though they knew they couldn’t keep her. They knew how cool she would be.
I know how you feel about China, but still don’t you think it’s better to be in a family and not in an orphanage, even if it’s a nice orphanage.
I hear you. My son who is home now, and my other son (who will be home this summer) both are from situations where we have failed them. In a way, I mean we the west. The poverty and disease in their home country is related to the wealth in the west, really, when we think globally. What’s happening with their respective first families would never happen in the US–there would be social assistance, medicaid, etc. Their families would not have faced the decisions they did. And it totally sucks.
My son is the best thing in my whole life, but that doesn’t mean I can’t also grieve what he’s lost. It’s a terrible tragedy he has suffered.
I try to channel my energy (after working, parenting, etc) into helping folks in their birth country, by working through our government to encourage aid, by educating friends and colleagues, by doing some work from afar for an orphanage there, and by educating myself on these issues so I can raise my sons to be aware. It’s not much, but it’s something.
I don’t think you can every underestimate the importance of blood ties to many people. In the US lots of people cannot understand taking in a stranger and calling them family. In a country like China where keeping track of ancestors and family ties are all important it would be even harder to claim a child with no blood ties. You adopted because you wanted a child. With A’s background, one with Chinese ancestry was appropriate. You didn’t do this for the child, you did it for yourselves. Enjoy. I don’t think you need to justify your adoption for any other reason. You wanted a child and luckily got L. Coming from this point of view saves your child from having to feel grateful. Just like bio kids, she had no choice – good or bad. Just like a bio kid she will be able to get mad at you and blame you for all her ills. Just like a bio child, she will love you and A because you are great parents.
First, I just want to say how wonderful it is to read about your bond with L.
Secondly, oh, those are such big issues.
In the ten years I’ve lived here, so many things have changed in China. But sometimes you can be too close to see them. The mainland Chinese have had an inferiority complex about ‘we’re too poor/just a developing country/have too large a population’ for so long that they’re having a hard time noticing their growing wealth and international influence. All those middle-class families are still clamouring to send their kids abroad to study – and a lot of them wouldn’t mind if those kids went on to emigrate permanently. Though most of those who’ve studied abroad do return home, a lot of people here still have a hard time believing that China is the place to be. Also, it could be argued that China is a good place to be if you want to make money, but if you want independent thought or political freedom…maybe not so much.
To improve the situation I believe it’ll take:
1) An end to the one-child policy. (As Rhiannon noted above.) There was speculation it would end a decade ago when the populace started to realise how profoundly it is changing Chinese society. There was speculation it would end five years ago when the government published official figures showing how radically the male-female ratio has shifted. Thus far there are very few signs of it ending. It certainly wasn’t discussed at the current NPC/CPPCC in Beijing.
2) A legal change that allows single parents to officially register their children. Right now any unmarried mother is faced with the stark choice between trying to bring up an illegal child (no education, no healthcare) or giving her baby up for adoption.
3) An increase in ‘modern’ ideas about adoption (a government propoganda campaign would help here). As I think A knows from her mother-in-law ‘traditional’ Chinese ideas about adoption aren’t very positive.
Other things:
- I get the impression that fostering is on the increase in China. The orphanage I used to visit in Jiujiang (Jiangxi) started using it about seven years ago and were very pleased with the results.
- The money that international adoptions bring in is a factor. Referring again to the orphanage in Jiujiang, it was IA money that paid for the grounds to be re-landscaped. It was IA money that paid for new buildings, new toys, and better care all-round – not just for the babies, but also for the vulnerable elderly and adults with disabilities who lived in the nearby social welfare centre.
PS I think that the vast majority of those new condos are horribly ugly and very shoddily built. But the Chinese have different attitudes to buildings from my European one, so I try to bite my tongue!
It’s amazing how these feelings bubble to the surface as your falling in love with your child. I know the complexity of it really hit me once we got home. I thought I had pondered many of the issues of IA before we left, but after we got home I had more questions and definitely the same sadness you wrote about.
I’ve been an adoptive mom for over 4 years now and I am still grappling with these issues. Some days more stoically, some days with more practicality some days I see it through spiritual eyes and heart. Some days I am mad. Some days I just hope their birth family isn’t in constant pain. But they are here and we will do our best, yes? I have to believe that by questioning and talking about it it might make us better parents for them.
Also, how wonderful that bonding is happening and L truly feels likes she belongs in your family. Amazing gift.
My daughter is 4 now and is starting to ask some hard questions like, “What was (my birthmother’s) name?” and “Maybe we could go to China and find her name?” This is heartbreaking for me and I feel so unprepared to give her the details about “how” she came to be adopted – no matter how much I read on the subject of talking about adoption, I stell feel grossly unprepared.
I find myself going back and forth between aching for her and her birthmother and the “It is what it is” mindset. If only I get get her birthmother a message letting her know our daughter is doing so well and thriving – despite that rocky first year at her SWI. It saddens me that her birthmother had to lose so much in order for me to gain something so amazing. How do I settle that within myself?
Thanks for this post. It helps me to know that others feel as I do – b/c I’m darn sure not getting the support I need from well-meaning family and friends!
sigh. welcome to my world. in our case, we are very very sure that one of our kids would have been adopted by a SWI worker if they would have been allowed more kids. we met the whole family and saw the tears in their eyes [everyone's eyes from mother to father to children] when we left that night and they had to say good bye to child in question. and mind you, this is years past the adoption. it was so heartbreaking.
i love my kids so much but the whole thing is so unfair to them. its not that they don’t have a wonderful [well, except for the 3d grade bully] life here but the fact is at least one of them could have had an equally wonderful life without being ripped away from all that they knew. and had anyone made an effort, i’m betting there is a good home in china for the other one too.
its the sort of thing that makes your heart ache for your kids and makes you realize that you really are a parent.
This is a really tough one. I don’t think I really “got it” until I started reading adult adoptee blogs.
I think things are changing, and as new generations grow up, I think adoption will become more acceptable within China. In the meantime, as adoptive parents we have to do the best we can. And we can never know what would have happened to our children – good or bad – had things been different for their birth families.
I’m not surprised by your love for L.
you’ve loved her much before you met her.
she’s your daughter ever since the moment
she first came to your family in spirit when
you started all the paperwork.
I’m so happy for your family, really am.
and all those points you mention are so valid
and so worthy of thought…
has your MIL shown up yet?
I think about this all the time. It is a constant push pull. There’s the day to day-ness of parenting my daughter, and then her meta existence. And I think that if it’s complicated for me now, I can only imagine how complicated it may be for LSP in the future as she starts to grasp who she is and where she came from.
It starts much earlier — this is a verbatim conversation with my 2 and a half year old (adopted from China at 10 mos)
J: What her name?
Me: Who?
J: Birthmommy.
Me: I don’t know. I wish I did. I bet it’s a beautiful name.
J: What?
Me: You want me to guess?
J: Yup
Me: Mei Li
J: Nope
Me: That’s not it?
J: No. Go China
Me. You want to go to China?
J: Later.
Me: You want to go to China later?
J: Yup
Me: What will we do there?
J: Check name.
Me: Check your birthmommy’s name?
J: Yup.
Me: What else will we do when we go to China and check your birthmommy’s name?
J: Just check.
I am very very happy that we are talking together ALL the time and that she expresses all of her curiosity and hope it will continue, but I have as yet no answer for why couldn’t I live with my birthmommy and don’t think I ever will . . .
DS-L
Oh, and another thought. I remember going to Ireland after I hadn’t been in 5 years. It was like being in a different country. Familiar but not. And certainly not the same country I had spent so much time in as a kid. The evidence of recent affluence was everywhere. It was jarring. I imagine this trip to China might have been like that for you.
It’s so hard to think about. During the long wait, I started an adoption through the foster care system, and it shook me so much everytime the sw said that the bio parents rights wouldn’t be terminated until the court date in April, but, not to worry, they weren’t following their case plan. I felt like I should be out there coaching them on the case plan, not falling in love with their kids. Of course, it doesn’t work that way-but it still made me acutely conscious of how unfair it all is.
As it stands, my international agency instituted a new policy against concurrent adoptions (not a bad idea for sure), so now I just worry about those kids that I can’t adopt. We are definitely getting our foster care license when this adoption is complete.~lmc
Fabulous post. I feel exactly the same. Thanks for saying it so well.
I hear you. After living in China, I am convinced that this country is very capable of raising its own children. The reasons why they are not are complex: the one child policy, a Confucian bias towards “bio” children – particularly sons, and an IA program that brings in lots of money and discourages local adoptions. I do believe that people here are adopting more and more, but mostly in an informal way so the true numbers do not necessarily show up in the data.
IA program money aside, there are some deep rooted biases that make domestic adoption difficult. I told one of my coworkers that we are adopting, and she said “Chinese people think that if you adopt it means that you must be sick.” I believe she meant sick as in infertile (which we are not) but the obvious negative connotations of her statement resounded nonetheless.
Adoption is a bit of a selfish thing, though. For the money we have spent on the adoption process alone so far, we could have funded an AIDS orphan compound serving up to ten children for life in Africa. Selfishly, I would like to raise a child (or children). For lots of reasons, we are chosing not to go the bio route, for now. We are adopting from China because we live here and it is the right time. The truth of the matter is that there are children in China needing homes, and ours is a warm one. But it doesn’t stop me from wishing that adoption was not necessary, that the world was bigger than abandonment and suffering.
You’ve probably read it, but if not, Sara Dorow’s book (called Transnational Adoption, but all about China) has some added insights about the stuff you’re raising here.
No answers though, of course!