In the past few days, I’ve had a number of people at work and at church ask how things are going.

So what’s been happening? Well, primarily work has been keeping me more than busy. There have been a few fire drills, but for the most part things have actually been slow. In the past, I’ve tried to catch my breath during these periods and develop our tool-set. Then in the next crisis, the tools still aren’t finished. This time, instead of taking a breather, I’m continuing to work like mad to get the tools in place for our next crisis. They still won’t be ready, but at least I’ve tried.

There have also been a few minor crises, just to keep things interesting.

We also went to the beach for a week with my family. We had a very nice time, and we enjoyed hanging out with my parents, siblings, and nieces.

I’ve always wanted to write a novel. While we’re waiting for our daughter, I’m finally doing it. This won’t be publishable, but it’s a good learning project, and I’m having fun doing it. I’ve finished the first draft, and right now I’m planning the next novel. Starting in October, I’ll start revising the one just finished.

We went to an open house for a Chinese Academy one Sunday (20 Aug.). It will be every Sunday for ten weeks. Unfortunately, it’s also an hour away; most of the instruction will have to do with culture, not language; and the language instruction will be limited to phrase-book stuff. That would probably be more useful, but it’s not what we’re looking for, and it’s a very long way away.

We have also been going to the Waiting Families potlucks. For July, someone came and talked to us about life books. They’re similar to baby books, but are adoption-oriented.

We’ve been meeting with some of Jackie’s on-line friends. There are a lot of people in this area who have adopted from China or who are in the process, and there are a lot of informal meetings and potlucks. Since we’re usually the lone vegetarians, we have to make sure we bring something that *we* can eat. That’s been fun.

On the plus side, we found another waiting families meeting that’s probably twenty minutes or less from our house.

We’ve also found a tutor not too far from us who will be teaching us Pinyin over the next six Sundays. That should be fun, and it should give us a good basis for learning conversational Mandarin. The woman who will be teaching us primarily teaches business people and children, but I’m still really looking forward to this.

Hmm, what else?

Friday morning our neighbor called and said that water was flowing from our lawn across their driveway. We arranged to have a plumber come replace the water line going from the street into our house. We didn’t want him working on Saturday (our Sabbath), so he’s coming early Monday, and we’re without water this weekend. Exciting and stinky.

Primarily, on the adoption, we’re just trying to wait patiently and to keep ourselves busy in the meantime so that we don’t think about it too much. That’s part of why I haven’t been posting regularly.

But mostly, nothing’s happening, and we’re just trying to be patient.

To get back in the rhythm of posting every day or three, I’m going to report on another chapter of Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son: “The Politics of International and Domestic Adoption in China, 2001.”

Johnson found that the Chinese have a strong tradition of adoption. Interestingly, she found that this applied particularly to girls, partially because they are more available, but also because the blood-line politics are less complex. (If you adopt a boy because you are unable to have a son, and later are able to have one, what happens to the original, adopted son?) Johnson speculated that China should be able to handle its adoptable population domestically (i.e., infants without special needs).

So what’s happened?

In a nutshell, China’s population control policies have made domestic adopt difficult.

First, adoption is viewed suspiciously by the population control officials. People have “adopted” a daughter out temporarily to childless relatives or friends. They are then free to try again to have a son, and reclaim the daughter when they do so successfully. Because of this and other factors, adopted children are given the same status in population control policies, and adopting an over-quota child can carry the same penalties as giving birth to an over-quota child (more on this in another entry).

Furthermore, in 1991, China legislated to control its adoption program. Domestically, this law restricted the population of those who wished to adopt to people over 35 with no other children. This placed a greater strain on the orphanages, or social welfare institutes (SWIs). This also created the international adoption program in China, which helped to decrease the over-crowding found in many SWIs.

A 1999 law relaxed the restrictions on potential adoptive parents, but as of 2001, this was not well publicized, Johnson says.

So what are the politics of the domestic and international adoption programs? First, IA (international adoption) has brought in a lot of money. It’s easy to over-state this, however, and the media almost always does. It does not bring in enough money to contribute to the economy as a whole. And while there have been a few cases of corruption tied to IA, the money seems to go where it’s supposed to: the SWIs, where it has made a great difference, by all accounts.

In many ways, the IA program and the foster care program—preferred by many APs (adoptive parents) and population control officials because it provides care without officially creating larger families—undermine the domestic adoption program. This happens because of the IA program in institutionally entrenched. The program is handled by the Chinese government at the federal level, not by the provincial governments, and also because an “industry” of agencies and charities have grown up that cater to IA, but completely ignore domestic adoption. This probably isn’t driven by intentional greed, but by ease and the easy money it provides for a good cause. In a sense, IA has worked too well, allowing everyone to become complacent and not to stretch for the harder, but better, solution of domestic adoption.

This puts the Chinese adoption program in violation of the Hague Convention, which says that IA should only be a last resort and that domestic adoption is always preferable.

And for a future AP like me, this also raises some interesting questions: Particularly, to what extent are we contributing to a suboptimal program? On the other hand, this is the system that exists today. We can criticize it all day long, and we should certainly speak up, but that doesn’t help the children in the SWIs right now. Practically, one thing we can do is make a difference in one child’s life.

(Of course, she’s also going to make a difference in ours. We aren’t doing this to “save” a child. I hope and pray and believe there’s a mutual benefit, but I’m trying hard to keep a colonial attitude out of this.)

I also need to ask myself what I can do to contribute to the better solution, especially since I now have a stake in this. The article mentions that our giving should be driven by the SWIs’ needs, not by IA, and by supporting domestic adoption and helping orphanages care for those least likely to be adopted. How well are we doing this currently? I have no idea. But this is certainly something to think more about.

But in spite of these difficulties to domestic adoption, China has also always had a thriving informal adoption “program.” Without this, its SWIs would be seriously over-strained. But the problems face by those adopting informally are tremendous. I’ve finishing reading a chapter from *Wanting a Daughter* on this, so you’ll hear more about it soon.

In writing this blog, I’ve come to realize that this isn’t strictly for our future daughter. For one, the audience I have in mind as I’m writing this is definitely an adult. I’m really dealing with concepts that are far too abstract and advanced for anyone younger. So maybe I’m writing this for her in her late teens or early twenties.

Maybe not, though. Sometimes, my mental audience is clearly the people who are reading this today, June 25, 2006.

The plan I’m toying with now is to continue working on this blog in a more traditional manuscript form over the course of several years. I can flesh parts out, change my emphasis, and write and rewrite history to my heart’s content. Someday, maybe I’ll give her that manuscript. Or part of it. Or maybe not any of it.

Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.

Unfortunately, we had to go back to pick them up, so I went in the next Monday to get them.

But they weren’t right. We’d been told that the people who certify the notaries are very picky about the wording used in the notarization, and they hadn’t used the seal imprint. Getting it redone wasn’t a problem, but the notary wasn’t in right then, so I had to go back again.

Naturally, I had to go out of town for a few days, so Jackie ended up stopping by the Sheriff’s Office.

Oh, and we did not have a criminal record.

I am a little curious about who has found this and who is reading it. Are you reading it regularly, or have you only come here once?

So to everyone who’s reading this, “Hi.” And feel free to leave a message.

Today, Debra talked to us about packing. This is a subject near and dear to Jackie’s heart. Debra recommended packing everything in one carry-on and a personal bag. Whenever I travel for business, I do this, and a few years ago, when Jackie and I spent some time in Oxford (a month for her, six weeks for me), we took a carry-on bag and a personal bag each. If you plan right, it works out very well, and being able to breeze past baggage claim is great. You just want to laugh at everyone standing around waiting for their luggage.

After the presentation, we sat around and talked. Besides ourselves, there were three other waiting families. There were also six other families, who had all previously adopted. It was another very nice evening, and we had a lot of fun.

We basically took a number and waited with everyone trying to work their way through various immigration paperwork. That means we were there with a good number of Hispanics, a few Asians, and a few blacks (maybe islanders, maybe Africans). Then, there were about four families of Caucasians. Guess what we were all there for? Yep, all of us were adopting from China. One or two of the other families were using our agency, too.

Boy, has fingerprint technology changed since my last fingerprinting! Just kidding: I’ve never been fingerprinted before. Jackie has. There was no ink or messy fingers, though. They rubbed something on your fingers to get the oil off, and they’re very picky that you not have any cuts or other “defects” on the pads of your fingers; otherwise, you have to make another appointment. Then they scan your fingers with some kind of optical scanner. They check the image on the screen to make sure the prints are readable, and you’re done. Very painless.

The fingerprints are good for fifteen months, which is usually sufficient to get you to China and back. Wait times have been increasing dramatically, though, so we’ll probably need to get ours redone. There is a move to get Congress to extend the expiration period for these, however, so we have our fingers crossed. I’ll probably write more about the move to petition Congress later.

Afterward

One of the families we met was the family who later hosted our first waiting families potluck. When I knocked on the door, I was startled to think, “Wait! I know this person.” She was thinking the same thing. It’s a small world.

Georgia requires four home study visits. The orientation counted as the first.

For the second, the came to our home. We gave her our biographies and some other documentation she needed to write our home studies. Next, she talked to Jackie and I together. We discussed why we’re adopting and how we think we’ll handle some situations, such as if someone comes up and makes unthinking and rude comments. I showed her around our home. The highlight of the tour, however, was on the back porch.

In cleaning up for Kathy’s visit, we had rinsed out our garbage can and left it propped up on the back porch to dry. The next morning, the day Kathy was coming, I went out to pick up the garbage can, raised it upright, and was surprised by the possum in the bottom. It was playing dead pretty well. I left the trash can tilted so it could crawl out and let it be.

Later that day, Kathy came out on the back porch, and I explained why the trash can was back there. She didn’t want to look in, though. Go figure.

For the third meeting, I went to her office. She talked with me about my family, and she had a few questions concerning my autobiography.

Finally, for the fourth meeting, she came back to our home again. She first talked with Jackie by herself. Later, she talked with us both together again.  Primarily, this was so she could answer any remaining questions we had, but I don't remember our having any.

She then had to write up a report. It was sent to USCIS as part of the paper work needed for the I-171H, which says that US Immigration will allow us to adopt internationally. A shortened version of her report is sent with our dossier to China.

BTW, the possum cleared out the next night, but we had to clean the garbage can again: the possum had used it as both a bedroom and a bathroom.

This stage of the process is called the “paper chase,” in the adoption community. This involves having a social worker do a home study, in which she writes up a description of our lives; having a physical; having criminal background checks; ordering recent copies of our birth certificates and marriage certificate; taking pictures; and getting permission to adopt internationally from the US government. Most of these documents then have to be notarized; then, the county’s superior court clerk must certify that the notary is authorized to notarize documents, and the state secretary must certify that the superior court clerk is the superior court clerk; and finally the Chinese consulate must authenticate that the state secretary is the state secretary.

Before we were accepted by our agency, Jackie went ahead and ordered our birth certificates. She was born in Maryland, and I was born in North Carolina. So by the time we were officially in the adoption process, we’d already started the paper chase.

Now, to get the ball rolling, we started on the home study. Hall County, Georgia, where we live, requires us to have our septic tank pumped and inspected. I went to pay for the inspector to come out, and he walked around the backyard, made sure we don’t have raw sewage percolating up to the surface, and OK’ed us, contingent upon our getting the septic tank pumped. I was able to get someone out to that pretty quickly. Unfortunately, he had to tear up part of our rose garden to get to the lid of the septic tank. Plus, once he started pumping, the smell was absolutely lovely, as I’m sure you can imagine. I think that it may have run our neighbors off for the afternoon.

But we were on our way.