Why China?

Six years ago next month, my husband and I started the long, arduous process of adopting a baby girl from China.  What followed were five months of extreme busyness as we gathered the necessary paperwork :fingerprints, FBI checks, lsocial worker questionarires, home studies, and 11 months of extreme patience and weariness as we waited and hoped for a child a half a globe away.

So why China?  There are many reason people adopt internationally, there are many sources, including blogs I have read, that will outline the pros and cons of why  one should adopt internationally.  This is not one of those blogs…I am not an expert at adoption. I believe adoption is a very personal decision.  I can only tell you the reason why my husband and I decided to adopt from China,and the answer is a simple one.  The Holy Spirit called me to do so.  In fact, that small, quiet voice. woke me up in the middle of the night. 

Since 1980, the Chinese government has enforced a “one child policy”. Due to the age-old cultural preference towards sons, most of the children are girls. Frankly, the babies that make it to the orphanages are a small friction of the children who are abandoned or aborted yearly due to their gender.  Ironically now, China is facing a “bride shortage” as young men vastly outnumber young women. 

For my daughter, the adoption  has  given her a chance for a new life, but it is vastly different from the land of her birth.  We have virtually no information regarding her background. We do not know who her birth parents are. She will grow up asking hard questions, that frankly I do not have the answers for, I can only tell her how much I longed for her those 16 months, and how I cried when the “ayi” placed her in my arms.

I can tell her how her adoption, forced me, control freak that I am, to rely on the awesome power of God, and to listen to the Holy Spirit. Through the long process of her adoption and the wonderful years that have followed, I have conquered insecurities I had over adoption, money, and motherhood.  The experience allowed me open my heart up to the domestic adoption of her sister, Bumblebee.