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Rather than continually boring you with stories of my superior family and our superior children, I thought it might be interesting to try interviewing other people who’ve adopted (or been adopted) from China to get a few different perspectives. James K. lives in Medina, Ohio, and can be read on the web here and seen here.
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How many children do you have?
Two stepchildren, ages 15 (F) and 10 (M), and my daughter, Laurana, who’ll be 3 in November.
What made you decide to adopt from China?
We wanted to have a child together, and found out the hard way that I have fertility issues. Adopting was a joint idea; we ended up choosing China a) because domestic adoption was out of our league, financially and/or chronologically (as in wait time), as we were looking for a young-as-possible child, b) because their adoption process seemed the most efficient and least covered in red tape, and c) it felt like the right way to go. And as, deep down, I was looking for a daughter, China was a pretty sure bet in that regard. Turns out we were right, that it was, in fact the right way to go – ask me about 11:11 (anecdote imminent).
OK, you gotta tell me the 11:11 story!
I’ll give you the short version. My wife and I have, since we’ve known each other, this thing where whenever one of us sees the clock showing 11:11, we kiss and make a wish. Cheesy, I know, but it’s a thing. For a good long while, my wish was for a perfect dark-haired little girl for a daughter. I thought my wish was impossible to fill when we found out about my lack of mad baby making skills, though we certainly didn’t cease our 11:11 wish-making. (edit: my wife read over what I wrote and told me that she did, in fact, stop making wishes for a time. Sigh.)
Cut to our adoption process, and The Day We Get The Phone Call, telling us the initial basic information on our prospective adoptee. We get a name, a gender (which was almost a given, being China of course), a location, a birth date, a… wait a minute. Her birth date. It just so happened that our to-be-adopted daughter’s ‘birthday’ was, of all things, 11/11. We were both completely floored, and at the same time knew that the whole Meant To Be thing was real. And we have the crazy/wonderful daughter to prove it. I’d chalk it up to the Magic Matching process of CCAA, but there’s no way they could have known about our wishing thing, unless they were spying on us. Hey, wait a minute… nah.
Did you know a lot about China before you made your first trip?
Not a lot, but some, more about ancient history than modern. My wife, Heather, and I were both raised on PBS as kids, and are generally interested in other cultures, so we knew about as much about China as we did other countries. Once we made the decision to adopt, we naturally ramped up our reading.
How did you find China when you went the first time?
Amazing, wonderful and astounding. We spent the first two days in Hong Kong, the first of which at Po Lin monastery, then a week in Nanchang and a week in (of course) Guangzhou. We were eager to learn what we could and try everything we could manage. Every day felt like being a little child, constantly learning and absorbing, which proved exhausting (in a good way). It was serious culture shock, being such an obvious anomaly. It almost felt like being a celebrity, which makes me not want to be a celebrity. Too much pressure.
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Tune in for part 2 of the interview tomorrow!
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