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I knew absolutely nothing about China or international adoption from China when we started the adoption process in December 2003. I had our first child at age 41. We looked into adoption because of fertility problems I encountered while trying to conceive our second child when I was 43. We had neighbors who had adopted from China so when we started to explore our choices, they were the first people we contacted. We quickly made the decision to adopt, as we wanted our two children to be close in age. The lies I encountered during the adoption process started almost from the beginning. At first they were so small and subtle that I didn't even acknowledge them as lies. As years went by and I investigated my daughter's background in China, the lies became bigger and more disturbing. The first big lie I encountered occurred shortly after our adoption. I was able to contact our daughter's Chinese foster mother. I had sent a package of photos and gifts to the SWI during the weeks prior to travel. On adoption day, while my daughter was screaming and crying in my arms, someone gave me a large manila envelope. The next morning while my daughter was sleeping, I happened to look at the manila envelope and realized it was my own handwriting and it was the package I had sent. The SWI was returning some of the items: the stuffed animal, the disposable camera and my photo album. I found a small note folded up in the last sleeve of the album - three lines of Chinese and three lines of broken English. It included an address in my daughter's hometown. I showed the note to my guide, who explained that the writer was probably the foster mother and that she wanted me to write to her at the address she provided. I mailed the foster mother a copy of the abandonment statement, the official document all adoptive parents receive that tells the story of where and how their child was found. I asked her if she thought the statement was true. Her reply was that she did not believe the details of the abandonment statement, but when I asked her what she believed was true about my daughter's "abandonment," she answered that she did not know. One day in 2008 I was discussing international adoption with a Chinese friend who didn't know much about it. I mentioned the term "finding ad." These announcements are published in local Chinese newspapers, and sometimes include photos of "found" babies and are ostensibly a way of giving birth parents an opportunity to come forward and reclaim children who will be placed for adoption. Other people feel finding ads are merely a formality to transfer custody of a child to the SWI, in preparation for the child to be internationally adopted. I showed my friend my daughter's ad, which also included nine other children. I had received a copy of the newspaper finding ad from the guide who helped us and the other adoptive families when we adopted three years earlier in 2005, but only my daughter's ad was translated into English. I never knew what the other nine ads said and I never thought to get them translated. There was only one sentence written about each child. I remember my friend standing in my kitchen, reading the ten little ads over and over and over again as I thought to myself, "Why is she taking so long to read ten little ads?" Finally she asked me if I knew what these other nine ads said.
Oral history with Robin Bell regarding the adoption of her daughter from the Zhenyuan Social Welfare Institute in Guizhou Province, China regarding her doubts about the truthfulness of the stories given to adoptive parents about how their children were abandoned.
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