Cradle of Hope Family Stories

Family Stories

Our decision to adopt our daughter from China was an incredibly fast and easy one. We have a biological son and wanted another child. A friend with an adopted Chinese daughter (adopted domestically believe it or not) had borrowed some literature from another friend who had adopted two Russian children through Cradle of Hope. I borrowed the material just overnight and asked my husband to read it (he read it right away which surprised me.) I asked, "Sooo...want to adopt a little girl from China?" He immediately said "yes". The answer was so fast I thought he might have misunderstood the question and heard "So...do you want to go fishing?" But the answer was really yes.

The paperwork in itself is not difficult, but it is tedious and very time consuming. I periodically received a call from Cradle of Hope asking if I needed any help or had questions. Another agency did our home study, so I made a paperwork chart outlining how many copies of what I needed for each agency and checked them off as I went.

I was elated the day our paperwork was mailed to China. Referrals had been coming very quickly and I was expecting a phone call really soon. What I didn't know was that China was reorganizing their adoption procedure and there would be many delays along the way. I was too busy to worry the first three or four months, but when Christmas was in sight with no referral, I began to get discouraged. In early December I joined an e-mail support group of parents waiting for their children from China. The support and exchange of information was wonderful and helped me prepare for the many changes to come including the trip, health concerns, answering the dumb questions people ask about our daughter, raising an Asian child, raising an adopted child, etc.

Finally, in mid-March I got that call. We had a two year old daughter named Jiang Xiting in Shenzhen City. We traveled about seven weeks later to get her. Cradle of Hope's coordinator in China made all our in-China travel arrangements and was with us each step of the way processing our papers, translating, paying taxi fares, and making sure everything went as planned.

Jiang Xiting, whom we call Joanna, was traumatized when we received her and was miserable with a cold and fever. She would only go to her father and refused to let me hold her the entire time we were in China. For nine days she ate every bite sitting in her father's lap. Then, the day we got home she allowed me to take care of her. The adjustment from that point on has been on fast forward and she is a wonderful, happy little girl who thinks everyday is a party.

I have never doubted, not during the long wait nor after we returned from China, that we made the right decision to adopt Joanna. I hold her every night and tell her how happy I am to be her Mommy; that we waited a long time for her to come live with us and we went to get her as soon as we knew where she was; that she will always be my little girl and that I will love her forever and ever and ever.