The Wait
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Photograph Provided by Molly's Orphanage, the Maoming Maogang Social Welfare Institute
We Rush to the Other Side of the World
Well 'rush' may be an overstatement since we be waited for almost two years. But we finally have Molly in Guangzhou
About Us
- Ken Mulligan
- Molly Marie, Teresa, and Ken
Molly Marie Mulligan
Photograph Provided by Molly's Orphanage, the Maoming Maogang Social Welfare Institute
Links
- More Photographs
- Our Adoption Travel Group
- White Swan Hotel (Where We're Staying)
- Interactive Map of Shamian Island (Where We're Staying)
- Chinese Government's Adoption Unit (CCAA)
- CCAI (Our Adoption Agency)
- Adoption Unit, U.S. Consolate, Guangzhou, China
- China Adoption Referral (i.e., Wait Time) Statistics
- Figuring Out The Wait Time
- China Research - A Good Source of Information
- A List of China Adoption Blogs
- Ken's Website
- The WBL (Gratuitous Cycling Link)
- Tour of California
11 comments:
We started the process more than two years ago. It took us about a year to assemble the required tall stack of paperwork, which is typical. The stack was translated from English to Chinese and received by the Chinese government in mid-September, 2005. One week ago today we got the call from our adoption agency telling us that China had 'matched' us with an orphan. That was the day that we received our first photograph of Molly. Now we can't wait to go get her.
Like most prospective adoptive couples, we began by looking for a child to adopt here in the U.S. We were suprised to find, as are most, that the adoption industry in the U.S. is very much a 'seller's market' -- The birth-mother decides who will get her baby, and there are many more qualified prospective adoptive couples than there are babies put up for adoption.
And I am not just talking about white infants--babies period. It is no secret that today more unmarried pregnant women choose to exercise their right to choose, or choose to keep their baby, than to put it up for adoption. And yet the number of prospective adoptive couples in the U.S. has never been greater. The best estimate I have heard is that there are 50 qualified couples for every child put up for adoption in the U.S. One encounters people who think there are orphanages all over the place with 'unwanted' children. Reality could not be more different. The adoption market is (almost) as competitive as the academic job market.
Domestic adoptions are, on average, about as expensive as international adoptions, and much more tenuous. In addition to being a seller's market, it is also a free market. It is illegal to sell a child. But most states allow prospective adoptive parents to pay for the birth-mother's expenses--things like health care, food, and sometimes living expenses including a car, gas, rent, etc. Given the market, 'can' means 'must.' Obviously, it usually runs into the thousands of dollars. Most prospective adoptive parents are glad to provide these things. However, fifty percent of the time the birth-mother changes her mind after the child has been born. Of course, this is heartbreaking for the prospective adoptive parents, who do not get their baby. To make matters worse, many cannot just 'try again' on the market, unless they are independently wealthy, because they do not get their money back, and usually have no recourse to do so.
Let me emphasize that this is not intended as a critique of the domestic adoption process, but only to explain the rationale for many prospective adoptive couples who choose to go 'international.' Many of us cannot afford to pony up, say, $15,000 without some reasonable assurance that we will bring home a child in the end. With international adoption--and China in particular--one has that assurance. Especially in China, one knows that the sacrifice will result in a daughter rather than heartbreak and loss.
According to the State Department, Americans adopted 6,493 Chinese orphans in 2006. This is a decrease of nearly 20 percent from 2005. Even so, the U.S. still imports more orphans from China than anywhere else. The vast majority were abandoned at birth. Nearly all—upwards of 99 percent—are girls. To control population growth, China has officially had a one child policy for about thirty years. Families in the countryside are allowed two children.
Why the bias for boys in China? Although the experts disagree, the answer seems to be a confluence of economics and culture. The result, reported by the AP yesterday, is a growing gender imbalance. In a little over a decade, China will have 15 million more men of marrying age than women. China worries that this could lead to social instability.
According to the AP, the gender imbalance is driven largely by sex-selective abortion. Although it is illegal, women often have a sonogram to determine whether they are carrying a girl or a boy. If it is a girl, they choose to abort.
The article does not mention foreign adoption, but let me suggest that the adoption of Chinese girls to foreigners is all but inconsequential to the sex distribution of the Chinese population. In a country of 1.3 billion people, the export of even tens of thousands of girls yearly would hardly be enough effect the proportions of females and males in China.
Thanks to Alcee Baides for directing my attention to this front page article in yesterday’s NYT. The associated video on the Time’s website is worth watching. They deal with a new program of the Frontier Horizon Foundation, which brings older orphans from the Ukraine and Nicaragua for two-week visits with prospective adoptive parents in the U.S. Many of these children would not be adopted were it not for the 'trial run.'
The video especially shows the sacrifices and emotional toll of adoption. The family profiled took out a second mortgage on their home for their first daughter. They were looking to take out a third to bring home twin nine-year olds from the Ukraine. The Frontier Horizon program costs the host family a minimum of $2,650 for a two-week visit, and as the Times emphasizes, there are no guarantees. Some families who want to adopt the child who stayed with them will not be able to do so. This is often a function of the regulations and rule of law of the host country. The uncertainties are much greater in adopting from, say, the Ukraine than from China.
Even so, these uncertainties are surely no greater than those of domestic adoption, which, from the perspective of the adoptive couple, despite greater regulation and respect for the rule of law, is truly the wild west of the adoption industry. Given the (typically) informal way in which adoptive parents and birth mother come together, and the frequency with which birth mothers change their minds after the child has been born, with domestic adoption there is at least as much potential for prospective adoptive parents to walk away childless as, say, Ukraine.
When we travel to China, we will likely arrive in Hong Kong, and stay there for a couple of days, recovering from jet lag. There is a 13-hour time difference between Carbondale, Illinois, and Hong Kong. From there we will travel to Molly’s provincial capital, Guangzhou (formerly ‘Canton’), which is just two hours by train from Hong Kong. Molly will be brought by the orphanage to Guangzhou. During the 1980s, China began to move away from Communism by allowing free market reforms in the south, including in Guangzhou. Although this will do little to hasten the imminent revolution, it has been good for Guangzhou, which has thrived economically.
In recent years, peasants have flocked from the countryside to cities such as Guangzhou looking for work. This is illegal in China. One must stay near the place of one’s birth, unless one gets special permission to leave. The massive influx of these illegal migrants to Guangzhou has led to social stratification (and a curious dearth of motorcycles), as discussed in a front page article in yesterday’s NYT.
The process of international adoption is almost invariably long, arduous, and complicated. We have been very satisfied with our adoption agency, CCAI (not to be confused with the CCAA) in delineating the steps for us. I will not bore you with the details. But let me mention that if one form or step in the process is held up, for whatever reason, in can put the whole thing on hold.
This is where we are now, and it may delay our travel to China. Two things have happened to cause this to occur. One, we moved from Georgia to Illinois. Adoption law, like most family law, is state law. To comply with the laws of our new state, with respect to paperwork, we had essentially to start over. New forms to fill out. New home study (where a social worker comes to one’s house to determine whether or not one would make a fit parent). New state background check (fingerprints), etc. The background check must be in hand before the home study can be submitted. We had our state fingerprints taken soon after we moved, but the state inexplicably sat on them for two months. This held up our home study until recently.
Two, since we started this process, the waiting times from ‘log in date’ (the date one’s dossier is received by the CCAA in China) and the match date have increased steadily. When we started about two years ago the wait was 6-8 months. Our match took 16 months. And the waiting times continue to increase. I will have more to say about why this has happened at a later date. It is consequential to my point here in that our federal paperwork expired after a year. As a result, we need a new federal (FBI) background check, a new I-600A application, a new I-171H, etc.
However, in order to get the federal background check the the U.S. Immigration Service (USCIS) must have the home study in hand. Since Illinois held up our state background check, this held up our federal paperwork.
As far as we know, the USCIS now has everything it needs to allow us to
get our FBI background check (again) and otherwise finish the final steps. These final steps can take a month or more. Soon we expect to get our ‘travel to China’ notice from the CCAA. We will likely be given permission to travel soon after the Chinese New Year, which is the week of February 18. That is five weeks away.
The problem we face now is that USCIS will not (or at least has not yet) told us when, or whether, we will be able to do these final steps. Our emails receive boilerplate (and unhelpful) responses. The USCIS does not accept telephone calls.
Looking at the big picture, the good news is this will not affect our ability eventually to bring home Molly, only the timing. At worst, it could delay our going to get her for weeks or months. And after years now of trying to adopt, that will be par for the course. So we wait. But I may still have a trick or two up my sleeve to get it done in a timely fashion. More on that later.
Having been matched two weeks ago today, we are—or at least should be—at the last stage of the adoption process. We should be doing the fun stuff—planning our trip, preparing the baby’s room, and otherwise getting ready to become parents, and soon.
And yet we spent the whole day—again—yesterday dealing with yet another new roadblock erected by the USCIS in Chicago. We’re working on knocking it down. Details to follow.
We visited the Department of Homeland Security last week to have our fingerprints taken. This is our fourth set of prints for this adoption. We have our prints to the state of Georgia, the state of Illinois, and twice to the federal government. DHS needed another set because the first ones were from more than 15 months ago and had expired. Apprently they were concerned that our fingerprints may have changed recently.
Thanks to U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin for helping us with our problem with the USCIS in Chicago. He and Sen. Obama are helping us to get our I-171H in time to leave for China. Having gotten our DHS fingerprints taken last week we would normally expect to have to wait 30 to 60 days to receive the I-171H. But Sen. Durbin’s office says we will get the I-171H this week. Receiving that document is the last real hurdle before we can travel.
Previously I had posted a link on this website to Molly’s orphanage, the Maoming Social Welfare Institute.
However, it turns out that she is from a different orphanage in the same city, the Maoming MAOGANG Social Welfare Institute. There are now three orphanages in Maoming City. The Maoming-Maogang SWI is new, having been opened in 2000.
Molly was found at this gate in front of the orphanage on February 21, 2006. Doctors estimated that she had been born the day before. Thanks to Brian Stuy of Research-China.org for the link to the photograph of the Maogang SWI.
We finally received our I-171H from the USCIS. Now we have all the paperwork we need to travel to China.
Made our reservations a couple of days ago. We leave in just over a week.
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