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. Carol S. is a realtor from Atlanta, Georgia.

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How many children do you have?

I've got two daughters, S., who's 6, and L., who's 2, who're both from Guangdong province.

What made you decide to adopt from China?

I think it was growing up in the 1970s when the big threat was always overpopulation that put the idea in my head that I wanted to adopt when I grew up.

Like a Soylent Green thing?

Ha! I wouldn't put it exactly like that myself, but something along those lines, sure.

And China? Did you just think of China as overpopulated?

No, it wasn't that at all. After doing a little bit of research, my husband and I kind of settled on China because it was very official. Everything worked with oversight, everything seemed kind of efficient.

Did you know a lot about China before you made your first trip?

No, not really - not besides eating Chinese takeout! Of course, we got very interested as soon as we started the process with S. Really, it was just seeing her picture - they had dressed the children in these kind of traditional embroidered jackets for their referral pictures - and suddenly, I wanted to know everything about her.

It is strange how much meaning you can get out of that one little photograph at first, isn't it?

Oh, yeah. All of a sudden, it was like this real thing we were doing, not just filling in forms or running down a checklist.

How did you find China when you went the first time?

It was amazing, exhausting, too much to handle. But I remember parts of it being really beautiful. And then, when we went to get L., everything had changed so much - it was like a whole new country was being built right around us!

Are there lots of Chinese or Asian kids where you live?

In this city? You can find people from everywhere. There are at least two other Asian girls in S.'s grade in school, and a boy from a big Korean-American family. He has lots of older brothers and sisters. I'm not sure it makes that much of a difference for S. yet - she kind of notices the differences between people, but I'm not sure it matters for her, if you know what I mean. And L. just loves everybody. In a few years, it'll probably be more important or make more of a difference for S. But it's not like she and her sister are the only Chinese girls in town.

Have you thought about adopting again?

How can you not think about it? But we've pretty much decided two is enough for anyone. I think S. has her hands full with just one little sister!

Have you been back to China?

No, but we want to go by the time S. is 8 or 9. It's gotten so expensive to travel!

For us, the plane tickets were the single most expensive part of the adoption.

Ya, I know! And staying in the hotels. But I think they'd get a lot out of it.

Can any of you speak Mandarin?

Um, no. My husband and I have had enough trouble with French and German, and that's where each of our grandparents were from!

Would you recommend adoption to other families?

Ha! You make it sound like a restaurant or something. My answer is it would depend on the family, really. You have to be ready to be unconventional, and for us, getting my parents and my mother-in-law on board with everything was a big deal, or it seemed like a big deal at the time. And for us, I definitely think living in a place with different people around us from everywhere in the world really helped. So it depends, but for us, well, we've got the greatest girls in the world!

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