Why are these kids available to adopt?

This is a question I hear often and felt like I needed to cover before I get back to our story. It's amazing how little we in the US knew about what was happening in China. As I am old enough to remember Kennedy being assassinated, I am also old enough to remember Nixon's visit to China. But not until 1989, while waiting in the ICU waiting room to visit my mom who had TIAs at McCuiston Hospital in Paris, Texas and saw the Tiananmen Square protests unfold, was my attention even drawn back to China.

But those are the only two historic elements I remember of China.

That is until my little sister, Jana, decided to adopt from China. When she married her husband Chip, it was one of those stories you only read about. They had dated a little and corresponded, since he was in the Navy and stationed ready for the Gulf War. Some of the details of those years are sketchy, but in between he joined the Marines. He came home on leave, proposed, and they eloped, the day after her birthday and the day before Thanksgiving. That could cause a lot of problems for some, but they made it even more difficult, as Chip was scheduled to leave for Okinawa for one year, the next Monday. So the first year of their marriage, they spent apart. The second year was in Yuma, Arizona. OK, it is a dry heat, but when you get up to 120 degrees, it is HOT! They began to try to have a baby. Soon they began fertility treatments. They moved back to Texas and had decided to do in vitro. They were going to save their money and plan for it later. But the next month they were pregnant. Nine months later, Gillian Rose was born. If you don't know Gillian, she is hard to describe. She is so much like her mother, planning, crafting, big ideas, kind, patient, ever the teacher.

But Jana wanted a sister for Gillian and instead of trying the fertility route instead, began exploring adoption.

She did all the research that most do, domestic, Russian, and who knows what other countries. She decided on China. I'm not sure how or why she chose China, I just know we all tried to talk her out of it. But she had made her decision. I wish I had paid more attention to the process, but after a while we had a new member of the family, Darcey.

Only then did I begin to learn about China and why these girls, now some boys, are available to adopt.

Back in the 60's we began to hear about a population explosion. In China it was a serious situation with the amount of land to bear the number of people being terribly disproportionate.

A law was passed in China that families could only have one child. In China, there is no social security or Medicare, no free health care, no pensions, etc. So when you are older and/or can no longer work, you are dependent on your children to care for you. If you are a woman, you will go with your husband's family. If you are a man, you will assume responsibility for your parents.

So in China, the boy babies are treasured, as parents assume their future is secure. If you have a girl, and are limited to one, then you find means to disregard that birth to hope and plan for a boy. There is probably some research that can tell who originally decided there were alternatives and ways to ensure their baby girls had a life. But somewhere in the 90's, babies, particularly girls, began being left in conspicuous places, outside police stations, railway stations, outside orphanages, temples, etc. When they were found, they were taken to the local Social Welfare Institute, which is the orphanage. From there, adoptions began.

People from the US expressed an interest and the number of international adoptions greatly increased with China having the most. In more recent years, the number of boys "abandoned" has increased, but generally are children with disabilities or illnesses.

The Chinese government has made the requirements for adoption much stricter in the last few years and more children are being adopted within China.

So that is my version of why these children are available for adoption. There are plenty of books that chronicle life in China during these turbulent years and one particularly difficult to read is, "The Lost Daughters of China".