Why China?

I had always dreamed of having a biological child, but fate had other ideas. It was the Tsunami in December of 2004 that first put the idea of international adoption into my head.

Indonesia was one of the countries that were heavily devastated by the Tsunami. The news reports talked about the many children orphaned by the Tsunami. I had never considered adoption before, but I thought, “I long for a child, and they need a parent. Plus, my Indonesian heritage might be a benefit to raising an Indonesian child”.

One of the adoption agencies on the news reports was Holt International. They are large and very well respected. Their headquarters are in Eugene, Oregon.

The news reports said NOT to contact Holt right away, because they were being overwhelmed with phone calls. They wouldn’t know for months if the orphans in Indonesia would even be available for adoption. Most likely, they would be placed with relatives.

I waited until the frenzy died down, and on February 28, 2005, I contacted Holt International. Holt told me that Indonesia doesn’t do international adoptions, but here are SOME of the countries that do adoptions to SINGLE WOMEN (some on a CASE-BY-CASE basis): China, Guatemala, India, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Haiti, Mongolia, Philippines, and Thailand. (Around October 2005, Vietnam re-opened to International Adoption.)

The lady at Holt told me the Pro’s and Con’s of adopting from some of the countries. For some of the countries, the children available were older and with a lot of medical issues. Their medical reports didn’t always disclose all of their issues and the paperwork and the adoption process was not always smooth.

CHINA seemed to have the adoption process down pat and the children available were more likely to be healthy and younger. So, I decided to go through the CHINA PROGRAM.

On a side note, I briefly investigated Domestic adoption. I heard that the process could take up to 7 years, and many of the children had issues resulting from being in abusive homes. As a first time parent (and single), I felt that I didn’t have the tools to parent a child that had MAJOR medical or psychological issues. I also heard the Domestic process can be heartbreaking. If I were to foster a child for many years, and then tried to adopt them, there could be a long, drawn out process. The parent(s) could be in and out of drug treatment programs, for years, before finally proving they are unfit parents and severing their rights. Or, they could successfully prove they are fit parents and the child, that you had raised for years, would go back to their biological parents. Of course, that is the hope for the child, to go back to their biological parents, but I couldn’t handle the loss.