Personal Adoption Story
Jim and Mary Anne's adoption story
Our Family Adoption Story
By Mary Anne
We always thought we wanted to have a biological child of our own and than adopt. When the initial order of having our family did not become reality, we moved forward with adoption. I grieved for about 1 month or so knowing I would never look into the eyes of a child born of my husband and I and then I focused on the bright side like– no labor and no debates about breast feeding.
Once we decided to adopt, the decision to choose China was relatively easy. I’m half Chinese. My father is Chinese and my sisters and I grew up in the Seattle Chinese Community. My husband Jim (who is of Irish decent and from the east coast originally) was actually the one who suggested China first. He thought it made the most sense for all of us and to be truthful, we were a little nervous about an open adoption.
Finding American’s Adopting Orphans (AAO) was actually fairly easy for us. I had a client who had recently adopted a wonderful little girl from China so we had lunch and I peppered her with tons of questions. I had visited a few adoption agency websites and was completely out of the know in terms of what to look for. My client and friend told me about all the research she had done before deciding on AAO. She’s an Engineer by trade and a very successful and thorough business women; so after talking to her and hearing about her real adoption experience with her first child, Jim and I signed up with AAO the next week. My friend also raved about Dave and Cindy and how attentive and informative they were. Her endorsement was all we needed. We opted to have all the leg work done by AAO as both Jim and I were working full time and than some. We’ve since recommended AAO to a number of people considering adoption.
During one of the first classes we took at AAO put on by Dave, I asked him, “if there is one book out there I should read about adopting from China, what is it?” He said,
“The Lost Daughters of China.” After reading this book, a sense of calm came over me. I knew we were doing all the right things in the right order to get the necessary paper work, appointments, tests, etc. done correctly (Edd was on top of it at AAO), so the rest was left up to the universe. Our path was going to lead us to our daughter at some point in time and we had faith that all the parts and pieces would fall into place when they needed to. We were informed, yet we did not feel the need to rush things or even delve into the what if’s and where is all this paper work now scenarios. We figured it would take about 2 years and any sooner or any later could mean we’d miss the child that was meant for us. During this time, we worked, we remodeled our house, and we played. Than about a year into the process I began wondering if our daughter had been born yet or if today was the day her biological mother was grieving her loss as she was found in some public place. I still can’t get over the fact that everyday, even today, some little girl or boy is being left to be found somewhere in China.
Ignorance really is Bliss… in our letter to China we requested siblings, if possible, from the same province in China as my family – the Guangdong province, just as long as the referral process did not take longer than usual. We were counseled by AAO that adoption of twins was rare in China and to probably not count on it, but to state our wishes. We hoped that if our daughter was from the same province as my fathers, we could share our family history with her so she could make it part of her own if she chose to. It was on Wednesday, June 9th when Edd called me at my office. I really had no idea why he was calling. I figured there was some other piece of paperwork we needed to fill out. When he told me he had our referral I believe I asked him several times, “you mean we can come now and get it?”
When I called Jim at work he could tell I was too excited to drive, so he told me he’d come and get me and we’d drive up to AAO’s office together. We were very anxious and nervous to say the least on our ride up town. We told each other it was not twins and I was so concerned about how I would feel the moment I saw the picture. Would I connect? I was so afraid of the thoughts and emotions I might have when I say the pictures of our daughter for the first time. Jim was calm and kept saying don’t worry. He had a meeting that afternoon which he figured he could still make after our stop at AAO. For starters, we were handed our referral for “Piao.” We must have stared at her picture for 2 minutes in a trance. I immediately zoned in on the small round scar on the bridge of her nose thinking she may have had chicken pox already. Than we were handed some additional paperwork and were told we would need this as well. It was another referral package with another picture of what looked like the same child but she had on different colored sox. In puzzlement, we looked up and we were told we had gotten our twins. My calm collect husband went silent and than white. He literally could not speak for several minutes and the first thing out of his mouth when he finally could speak was, “is there a third?” Be careful what you wish for as it just might come true! Jim did not make his afternoon meeting as planned.
They advise you not to get too attached to the photo or the child you are referred, as sometimes things happen and you are granted a different child. Concerned family members had even asked if we could find an American doctor in China to check the baby out before we accepted it. I told them that no matter what, we were going to take the child given to us and if there ended up being some sort of medical problem, what better place than with us here in America where we could provide the best care for our child. Needless to say, the moment we saw the photos of Piao (Ally) and Rou (Erin), they were ours. Even my parents had no doubt that those 2 little girls were going to be their grand kids from the minute we shocked them with the news by handing each a photo of our 2 daughters.
Getting permission to travel from China was taking a little longer than usual it seemed in our case. When we did finally get it, we got to meet another couple in our travel group – Phil and Jen. We ended up on the same flights to and from China with our new friends. I vividly remember being in the Los Angeles airport late at night waiting for our connecting flight to China. The 4 of us sitting there with our over stuffed suit cases and back packs, thinking this is like rushing to the hospital in the middle of the night in labor awaiting the birth of our children.
On Gotcha day all five families in our travel group had breakfast together. We were all well on our way to becoming good friends with a very special bond – our children. Everything was going so unbelievably well so far. The flights were fine, the hotel great, Richard and Alexa were extremely accommodating and a wealth of information. We were totally equipped having brought everything on Dave’s travel list times 2! Now all we needed was our daughters. Our appointment with the Adoption Registry Center was not until 2pm that day. What a wait. We did not know what to do with ourselves. All the paperwork handed out to us was a welcomed distraction. It sounds silly, but I re-styled my hair twice, decided to wear it long and changed my clothes 3 times. My nervousness rubbed off on Jim and he decided to change his clothes too. In the end we chose to wear Chinese good luck colors – red, gold, and yellow.
When you meet your adoptive child for the first time you wonder what it’s going to be like. You hope they will smile at you, but you just don’t know. When we got to the Adoption Registry Center, we could hear babies crying but we could not see them. We were lead to a waiting room and issued more paper work to fill out. I jokingly said, “Someone’s baby sure has big lungs.” There is a lot of waiting involved through out this entire process in China and it’s best to stay as calm as possible and do as you are asked. Richard and Alexa were good at keeping us informed and on task. They are really the best when it comes to making sure AAO’s families, while in China, are taken care of and, they are well versed in the adoption process. We felt very secure in their presence. While filling out yet another form, the first baby was carried into our waiting room. Before we knew it, a woman immerged in the door way holding two babies. For all the waiting, we were caught off guard and now we knew - it was our babies that had the big lungs! I grabbed the baby on the right and Jim the left. They were so upset all we could do was hold them and try and calm them down. After a 7 hour drive, they were tired and cranky. They also had respiratory infections. Piao (Ally) had a large glob of chinese herbal medicine slathered on the side of her head. I knew this stuff, it’s what Ning Ning -my chinese grandmother used to use instead of Bactine on cuts. Our Mommy and Daddy instincts, which we weren’t sure we had yet, suddenly kicked in and we peppered the nannies with questions and with help from Alexa we learned Ally had taken a fall during the ride in. Our first stop was to a western medical clinic recommended by Richard to have Ally checked over in case of a concussion. The doctor on staff that day, a western medicine trained Chinese physician, actually thanked us for adopting our little girls.
Back at the White Swan Hotel, we carefully un-wrapped our two little girls and bathed them for the first time. I found the little pierced marks on the back of their tiny ears, one on the left and one on the right, used as identifiers I guessed. We tried to feed them formula we had but Ally wouldn’t take it and Rou (Erin) only just a little. I spoke to them in Cantonese, the few words I knew; like “I love you and you’re a very pretty girl”. We continued to use the Cantonese names they were given by the orphanage – Pew Pew and Yau Yau; translated in Mandarin as Piao and Rou. It was a sleepless night. In the morning we called the emergency number given to us by our pediatrician at UW adoptive Medicine. With Ally, we could not give her any medicine for her respiratory infection until 48 hours had passed to make sure she did not have a concussion; but for Erin, we could. Besides the long list of goodies Dave recommended for the trip, we had also brought along the list of medicines that UW adoptive medicine suggested. What a relief to have just what we needed at our fingertips. Ally was still not eating and she seemed lethargic, so they instructed us to buy the same type of bottles and chinese formula she was used to and to slowly wean her off the chinese formula and onto the american formula we had brought with us. By noon, we were back at the Adoption Registry Center buying chinese formula. A nanny who was present the day before cut the end of the nipple off and shoved it into Ally’s mouth, loudly telling her in chinese to drink drink and she did – what a relief.
Meanwhile, Erin had already figured out this was a good thing having a family and she reached for me and said, “Mama Mama.” I would not have believed this was actually happening if it wasn’t for my best friend (who happens to be Chinese) who was holding Erin at the time. She said to me, “She wants you – here, take her.” What a day two.
Thoroughly bonding with both our daughters was our number one priority. In fact, it still is; one of us is always here to put them to bed at night, if not both of us. In China, Jim and I chose to carry our girls all the time. We opted not to use strollers and we got very good at using chop sticks with either hand while eating over their heads in restaurants. During the day, our bed at the White Swan became a big play pen. Kevin, the floor monitor at the hotel was stationed just outside our door. He knew whenever we were in and gave us everything we needed through out our 2-week stay there. It was like having our very own butler.
The rest of our stay in China went fine. We really enjoyed ourselves. Richard and Alexa kept us busy with site seeing while we finalized the China adoptions and got the US visa’s for the girls to travel home. A couple of the families in our travel group even made it back to the orphanage. We however opted to stay put at the White Swan. We were new parents learning to parent twin infants in short order. Staying put meant we were within shouting distance of Kevin, our floor monitor, and a taxi cab ride away from the western medical clinic, just in case Ally needed additional medical attention.
A day before Ally and Erin’s 1st birthday we made it back home. The whole time we were in China I was never emotional. It was not until the airplane touched down in LA that I began to cry. I realized that at that precise moment both our girls were now American citizens and they could now do and become anything they dreamed. Jim and I were going to do everything within our power to give them a life they deserved – no different than if they were of our own blood.
Today at 4-1/2 years of age, Life is good. After we got home from China, we immersed Ally and Erin with a lot of love, good food, and a lot of special care. They received cranial massages for their severe flat spots, physical and speech therapy, and were enrolled in a special education class until they turned 2 years old. At 2 years old they tested out as average 2 year olds coming back from a 5 or so month developmental delay. We continue to see Dr. Bledsoe at UW Medicine. Both she and Dr. Davies are fantastic with the girls and they know so much about these children coming from China. Phil and Jen are now “Uncle Phil” and “Auntie Jen” and Natalie their daughter is Ally and Erin’s best friend. We see our travel group at least once a year and stay in touch through out the year. We are happy and whole as a family. We even forget that Ally and Erin are adopted. It feels so natural and normal the way we are.