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Page 1 of 3 Adoption in China
by Susan Winston
Twenty-four of us sat nervously on unforgiving wooden benches, the cacophonous sounds of the marketplace rising up from below on the pungent Guangzhou summer air. Time stood still as we waited, our final wait. A platter dressed with fresh lychees appeared oddly out of place as the "grandmas" looked anxiously at us from the railing of the adjacent old-age home. It was a day of mixed emotions.
We all knew that behind our own personal happiness was a deeply disturbing practice here in China, a quiet genocide that yearly claims the lives of thousands of female babies and children. This was the day my husband, Jim, and I were to adopt our daughter, Nikki Kate Winston.
Up to this moment, I would never have considered myself a courageous person, forging new paths, pushing discovery to new limits, challenging tradition, defying odds. That wasn't me. I was a television producer who first made her mark as the youngest female executive producer of a major network news show. Six years of being in a studio at three o'clock in the morning was more exhausting than brave. My proudest work, the coverage of the 1984 Olympics and the 1996 Oscars for ABC weren't particularly daring. Actor Christopher Reeve was courageous in making his appearance at the Academy Awards -- Susan Winston, his producer, was simply a facilitator. It's what I do for a job and I'm proud to do it well, but it hardly makes me a brave woman.
Television comes and goes -- it's a video surf, a zap of a remote control. It's where I try to have an impact. And yet, when I think of the thousands of hours of programming I've produced, only one episode stands out beyond anything else. Following an on-air medical report on new warning signs for a very specific form of cancer, I received a letter from a viewer telling me that, had she not seen the program that morning and gone directly to her doctor, she most likely would have died. I initiated something that saved someone's life. That made me feel wonderful but still not daring.
Journey of the Heart
With this trip to China, I had dared to follow my heart to a place it had never been before. To a little baby girl halfway around the world. It would prove to be my life's most rewarding journey.
China, for some, is the final answer to their desire to be parents. Children are available, and couples, singles, single-sex couples, all are welcome to apply, provided they are at least thirty-five years old. For many, China is the last stop after the frustration of infertility drugs or failed in vitro fertilization. With the difficulty and uncertainty of domestic adoptions, China has become an alternative unfettered by obstacles. Single women chasing their biological clocks have found China's adoption policies to be a haven; single men have, too, though in lesser numbers.
So where do I fit in? I'm married and have been for twenty-two years. I have two fabulous biological children: a boy, nine, and a girl, six. If I chose to have more biological children, I could. I work full time and have a definite limit to my financial resources. Like many working parents, I struggle to fit everything into the day. My life is very full. So what am I doing, sitting here on this bench in the clamor of Guangzhou? I am feeding my soul.
I got to this moment on an acrid summer day not by chasing a biological clock but by chasing a story, something I do constantly as a television producer. The story had taken me to Mimi Williams -- the Reverend Mimi Williams -- whose road to becoming an Episcopal priest was the stuff of which movies-of-the-week are made. When I met Mimi, she was waiting for China to reopen its doors so she could enter and adopt a child. What a great tag for a movie: Controversial woman dumps husband, changes religion, becomes a priest, gets a kid -- a little Chinese kid at that!
I was hooked. I dug through Mimi's history and found a great movie. What fascinated me even more, however, was her quest for a child. Why China? I got a blistering education in the answer to that question as I did extensive research, pouring through books, attending "get togethers" of a group sponsored by several adopting agencies, meeting with more agencies that specialize in adoptions from China, and speaking with those who had actually adopted from China. What I learned affected me deeply and began to stir awake in me the audacity to do something I could have never guessed I would do.
As part of China's desperate attempt to curb its staggering population growth, the government has instituted a one-child-only policy throughout most of the country. By the hundreds of thousands every year, baby girls are aborted or, more tragically, abandoned. While Beijing officials deny that only girls are abandoned, the only males found in the orphanages are those with severe birth defects or disabilities. The primary reason the Chinese want a male baby is that children are the Chinese social security system: It is the child's responsibility to care for his parents in their old age. Girls become part of their husband's household in marriage, often living with the husband's family, so it is his parents who will receive her care.
Left Out To Die
Where are the little girls and what happens to them? Many are left to die at birth by women who have hidden their pregnancy, knowing that if they give birth to a girl, they will need to dispose of it. And that's against the law. No one knows how many babies are left to die. Thousands are found abandoned by the roadside, in stores, on hospital or police station doorsteps. Their fate is uncertain. Makeshift orphanages can hardly absorb the numbers. Children sleep three and four to a small crib. Infections spread rapidly; one baby's slight cold can become the death rattle of a cribmate. Very ill children are isolated, often left to die. Many orphanages even have a dying room.
The healthy children quite literally live in their cribs. They don't go for walks or even see the outdoors. No one gives them toys or visual stimuli. No one cuddles or soothes them. They have a crib and a schedule. Bottles are placed in the crib and the child's head turned towards it to latch on. It is the baby's success rate with this simple act that determines her life: hold the bottle, do it yourself, take sustenance, you live.
Continued on the next page:
And A Child Shall Lead Them;
Have You Lost Your Mind?;
Love Will Find the Way
 This article was excerpted from:
"Women of Courage: Inspiring Stories from the Women Who Lived Them"
by Katherine Martin
Info/Order this book-?
About The Author
Susan and Nikki and the Winston family have been an inspiration to others who have chosen to adopt even though they already have children. "It proves that love truly does transcend for all who dare," says Susan. Nikki is now a thriving four-year-old and, according to her mom, "She has an infectious laugh and a worldly-wise face that hints a bit at where she's been and just how far she'll go." This article has been excerpted from "Women of Courage" by Katherine Martin, and reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA 94949. http://www.nwlib.com
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