How It All Works...

This is a very L O N G explanation. Let's start by briefly describing the situation in China. In order to control their booming population, China implemented a "one child" policy in the late 70's. If a couple were to have another child, they would have to pay a steep fine which most in the rural areas could not afford. Having a son is very important to many Chinese or two reasons: they carry on the family name and they stay home to care for their parents in their later years. Girls will marry and move away to help care for her husband's parents.

These factors have resulted in a phenomenon which they had not anticipated and are not proud of. Sometimes, when a family has a girl, the mother will be pressured to "give up" her daughter so that they can try again for a son. This doesn't mean that they are unwanted or just discarded. Abandoning a child is illegal so the families or mother will leave the girl in a public place like outside a shop, in a park, or some other place where she is certain to be found. They will often leave a note with her ,giving basic information, and stay to see that she is found. We just can't fathom how hard that would be to do.

This phenomenon has resulted in a large population of baby girls in their orphanages. As difficult as it is for China ("saving face" and looking good is important to them), they realized the best course of action to benefit these children was opening up to international adoptions.

There's a large number of babies and a large number of international parents... So here we are!

What did we have to do? Let's make a list of the paperwork we needed:

1. Application Letter
2. Birth certificates
3. Marriage license
4. Physicals
5. Financial report
6. Work verifications
7. INS pre-approval
8. Home study - social worker visit to our house and interview us
9. Passports
10. Pictures of us and our house

After we got everything, it all had to be sent to the Secretary of State to verify the notarizations and then to the Chinese embassy in Chicago to put their stamp of approval on everything. Everything is then sent to the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) office in Beijing.

Once the CCAA logs the paperwork in, your "on the clock." Our log in date (LID) was Nov 17, 2005. The CCAA will match us with a child (called a referral) and then we will travel to China 6 to 8 weeks later to get her. The wait time between LID and referral was down to 6 months at one point but the line has grown long and it may be up to 12 months by the time we get our referral. She will be somewhere between 7 to 11 months old.

All of our paperwork will be finalized at the American embassy in Guangzhou, China so she will be an American citizen the moment the plane touches American soil.

Overall costs: A popular (but possibly offensive for some) question. Let's just say it probably isn't much more than a natural pregnancy after a federal tax credit.