Adopting a Baby from China

My husband and I had been married for six years. We had a wonderful two-year-old biological son and I'd just had the miscarriage I swore would be my last. I decided to suggest adoption to my husband, unsure how he'd respond.

Happily, he was enthusiastic about the idea, and immediately suggested we adopt a child from China. He'd recently met two families with children from China who had raved about their positive experiences during the process. We researched domestic and international adoption programs and in the end, decided the China adoption program was the best fit for our family.

We contacted the adoption agency and social worker that one of the families recommended and embarked on the adoption process. This included four interviews with the social worker, a study of our home, and mounds and mounds of paperwork, everything from letters of reference to financial statements to letters from the police stating we had no criminal record.

At last our paperwork was complete and sent to China. Eight months later we received a referral: a photo and medical information about the child who had been matched to us, a beautiful baby girl from the Guangxi province in southern China.

Two months later I was on a flight to Beijing. A representative from the agency met me at the airport and transported me to the hotel. After a sound sleep and quick breakfast, I reported to our group's tour bus and met the other nine adopting families that were part of my group. We took a tour of some of Beijing's sights, stopping in Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, then driving out into the countryside to climb the Great Wall. The places we saw were fascinating, and the knowledge that they were an important part of my baby's culture made them all the more special to me.

We flew to the city of Nanning in Guangxi, where we were to meet our daughters. The city was big and modern, and our guide told us much of it had been built over the previous decade. We were brought to a government building and taken to a handsomely decorated room. Nine women walked into the room, each carrying a baby. Most of the babies were 11 or 12 months old. My heart was racing; the moment I'd been dreaming of for so long had come at last. One by one, our names were called and after more than a year and a half of waiting, my daughter was placed in my arms.

The adoption was finalized the next day in China, and we spent a few more days in the province filling out paperwork, visiting pagodas and temples and bonding with our daughters. My baby cried most of the first day, but by the second she calmed down and on the third day I got a smile out of her. She liked when I sang to her, and when we were in our hotel room we mostly played on the floor.

We flew to Guangzhou to receive our daughter's entry visas to the United States, staying at the posh White Swan Hotel, doing more sightseeing, paperwork, and shopping for incredible bargains in the shops of Shamian Island. At last, after more than two weeks away from home, I brought my baby daughter home to meet her daddy and brother.

Sadly, the wait for a baby from China has stretched to years from the time the paperwork is submitted until the baby comes home. However, many families have discovered that the wait is much shorter when adopting Chinese children with minor or correctable special needs, such as a cleft palate.