Why China?
29/Jun 2007
You may be asking yourself why we decided to adopt a child from China. That’s actually a good question. Jamie’s a better one to explain it, but I’ll do my best. First and foremost, Jamie feels it’s the right thing to do. Actually, she feels like she’s supposed to do it. Since it’s improbable we’ll have a biological child of our own, adoption seems like a great alternative.
Jamie’s been doing research on the ‘net about adoption in general. She also has a co-worker who used CCAI to adopt a child ( from their Children In Waiting program ). She’s already read a book about one couples Chinese adoption story ( The Lost Daughters of China ). All in all, she’s read and heard a lot about the adoption process and what to expect.
After listening to Joshua explain a few more things in detail, we have a greater appreciation for the situation of many children in China. As it was explained to us, the Chinese people are very proud of their heritage, specifically the family name. With the government’s enforcement of the “1 child per couple” policy, it is very important that a son be born. This is only way the family name will continue on. Lineage is one of the things they hold in high regard. Therefore, many families abandon female infants. This way they will be allowed to try again. We find this incredibly sad and incredibly heart breaking. One upside to the culture is that pregnant women are held in very high regard. Supposedly, they get very good prenatal care. Added to that is that it’s a social taboo for women to smoke and drink. This makes for a very good chance that the infant will be in good health ( of course, nothing’s ever certain ). This makes adopting from China favorable over adopting from other foreign countries. Heck, even over adopting from the U.S.
There are many other reasons we chose to adopt from China, but I won’t go into those here. We really do feel excited about the prospect of helping just one tiny girl.
One thing that really surprised me about the adoption process is how expensive it is! Jeez… there just something wrong with that. CCAI is a non-profit organization and they do good things with the money. I can respect that. It’s mainly the private companies and the government that I have a problem with. Adoption is just too expensive. We aren’t really worried about the cost; we’ll find it somewhere. It just bothers me that some people feel entitled to my money when we’re trying to do a good thing.