We suspected. Now, we know for sure.

[kyburg]

It was in 2005 that we started planning our family - while by having our own or by adoption. We went to DCFS first, though - and spent two years in their playpen futzing around. It was only after doing that, that we went to a private agency to see what our options were.

Almost immediately after we began our work towards accepting a referral from China, the waits exploded from a nine month to where we are today - twenty-four, change and likely twenty-four more.

One day in the spring of 2004, he presented himself at Yang Shuiying's doorstep and commanded: "Bring out the baby."

Yang wept and argued, but, alone with her 4-month-old daughter, she was in no position to resist the man every parent in Tianxi feared.

"I'm going to sell the baby for foreign adoption. I can get a lot of money for her," he told the sobbing mother as he drove her with the baby to an orphanage in Zhenyuan, a nearby city in the southern province of Guizhou. In return, he promised that the family wouldn't have to pay fines for violating China's one-child policy.

Then he warned her: "Don't tell anyone about it."

It's a really good story about what happens in just about every international program - corrpution seeps in, and in some really awful ways. Guatemala shut down like this. Vietnam shut down like this. India shut down like this. Just about everywhere shuts down like this.

You have to be vigilant, and oh so careful. And a PIA. (Which I can do.)

I'm really glad I was never part of this one. And for the record - check the dates. They (the Chinese officials in charge of this process) stomped on it - HARD. The long waits? Directly due to what they found - and stopped - cold. The biggest changes came down in May of 2007 - no single, fat, depressed, pre-existing conditions, etc. (And if you're male and American, your own goverment will insist you be more than 25 or more years older than the child you're adopting. You're single and a guy, you're a perv. Just thought I'd let you know. >_<)

They still believe international adoption is good - better - than birth parents, in the case of 'greedy parents' who have 'too many children.' So, the program continues.

You have to decide if you're going to be a part of it, knowing what you know.

I have no trouble waiting for a child who truly needs parents. As I said in making the decision to go this route - I don't want to create a child when one did not just appear in our lives any other way. I don't want assisted, I don't want a surrogate - let me have the kid who just needs parents, period.

Oh, and the $3,000 agency fee? It's now $5,000.

And I'll be looking at any referral offered to us from China carefully. Oh, very very carefully indeed.

Comments

[poetpaladin.livejournal.com]

There is something about the Chinese - and I don't mean in Taiwan, but how things are so messed up in China - and how human beings are treated like literal cattle. I think when human rights and human dignity is not respected, and executions and harsh crimes are handed out arbitrarily, those in power lose respect for the humanity of those who are not in power. It's why they have prison factories making leather jackets to sell at your local mall, where workers who work barefeet in tanning solutions breathing harsh chemicals are beat and tortured for failing to meet production quotas. It's why they execute political/religious prisoners whose organs are candidates for donations.

That said, Donna, you ready for a 2nd child?!? I still remember your first posts after getting Xander... :)

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Definitely more ready than I was before we went to go get Xander - emotionally, anyway.

Financially - that's a different story. However, nobody is ever going to find a really *good* time when you look at it that way.