Tuesday, February 15
The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it. ~James Bryce Part 1
I've been reading a lot of good books lately, all of which I have walked away with something that has stuck with me. The last 3 I've read in particular have really stuck: Forever Lily, When You Rise Up, and Passionate Housewives Desperate for God.
Since each was about something different I plan on talking about each of them in a shorter post. Here's the first one:
Forever Lily by Beth Nonte Russell
This book just left me feeling even more strongly about adopting from China. The general plot is about a woman who goes with an acquaintance (I really can't refer to her as a friend) as she travels to China to bring her daughter home. Things don't go as planned and the woman who had intended to adopt decides she wants nothing to do with the baby.
The book did come out 4 years ago and the author was writing about her trip from 1999, but I can't imagine too much has changed in the orphanages in the past 12 years. The descriptions she wrote about the care of the baby, of how many little girls are there waiting for a home, and how many won't ever be taken to one, is heart breaking.
Adopting from China has been something I've thought about for as long as I can remember, something that we planned on doing before we ever dealt with infertility. I always see a little girl, in our family from China, our youngest.
To adopt from China you have to be 30: I turn 30 in a little less than a year and a half, Matt, a little closer to two years. God willing we'll be starting the process to adopt from China soon after. This book just confirmed the desire in my heart to adopt a daughter from China.
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2 comments:
I've always wanted to adopt from China as well, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the waiting list there is loooooong and only getting longer every day.
They've also become more strict about who can adopt - BMI limits, high income requirements, health restrictions, etc.
Here's a couple of links you may want to read:
This family was going to adopt from there and was actually already on the waiting list when they decided to pull out: http://flakymn.blogspot.com/2011/02/revisiting-china.html
Follow the link within that post to read about why they decided to do this, too.
And this is the government link to specific requirements:
http://adoption.state.gov/country/china.html
You can use the pull down menu on that site to look at other countries for up-to-date information, but I put together this spreadsheet out of curiosity after realizing we were not eligible to adopt from China. It makes it a bit easier to read and rule out which countries you aren't eligible for and see which ones could work for you:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Amyv5j3hYS09dGcwMW82ckVGdngtNVc2c3p1NVk4M3c&hl=en#gid=0
Carrie,
I know it's a crazy long wait and they've gotten ridiculous about all of it. We figure that if it's meant to be it will happen. Since we plan on keeping an active file with an adoption agency, we'll see how China plays into all of that :-D
Thanks for those links though, particularly the blog one!
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