Heather near Beijing in 1993
Chris in St. Petersburg in 1990 “Oh who would have guessed, who could have seen, who could have possibly known, All the roads we have traveled, the places we've been, would have finally taken us home…” John McCutean, Happy Adoption Day
Why China?
We are often asked why we chose to adopt from China. The short answer – that is where our daughter is! Also, I studied Mandarin Chinese throughout college, and spent three months studying in Beijing. I loved being in Beijing (despite the occasional “bad China days”) and fell in love with the language, culture, and people. I always hoped to go back. After deciding to adopt internationally we researched a variety of countries. At that time, the China adoption program was the most stable and predictable and it generally lacked corruption (or corruption was dealt with quickly). Plus, everyone is in line strictly by the date their dossier arrives, there is a low incidence of fetal alcohol syndrome, the wait was short, the program was affordable, and we were told that there were few incidences of significant attachment or post institutionalized issues among the children (don’t worry I’ve done plenty of real research over the past two years). Many of the reasons we chose China still exist, despite the slow down.
We are often asked why we chose to adopt from China. The short answer – that is where our daughter is! Also, I studied Mandarin Chinese throughout college, and spent three months studying in Beijing. I loved being in Beijing (despite the occasional “bad China days”) and fell in love with the language, culture, and people. I always hoped to go back. After deciding to adopt internationally we researched a variety of countries. At that time, the China adoption program was the most stable and predictable and it generally lacked corruption (or corruption was dealt with quickly). Plus, everyone is in line strictly by the date their dossier arrives, there is a low incidence of fetal alcohol syndrome, the wait was short, the program was affordable, and we were told that there were few incidences of significant attachment or post institutionalized issues among the children (don’t worry I’ve done plenty of real research over the past two years). Many of the reasons we chose China still exist, despite the slow down.
Why Kazakhstan?
The short answer, of course, is – that is where our son is! Like China, we have an affinity to the culture and language of the region as Chris studied Russian in high school and college, and focused on the former Soviet Union for his undergraduate and graduate degrees. The Kazakhstan adoption program appealed to us more than Russia and the other former Soviet republics. The care that babies get in the orphanages, or “baby houses,” is supposed to be among the best as far as institutionalized care goes. The adoption program has a long history and is relatively stable. We like the idea of bonding with our child on their turf for two weeks before we take them away from everything they know; hopefully this will help ease the transition. We are likely to adopt an ethnically Kazakh (Asian) child, and therefore our children will have similar experiences growing up. Finally, the wait is short enough for us to complete this adoption and still have at least a year before we go to China.
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