The Earthquake in Sichuan

On the afternoon of Monday, May 12, 2008, a massive earthquake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter Scale, rocked China. The epicenter was Wenchuan County, Sichuan, northwest of Chengdu.

Chengdu - The city's Qingyan Sports Center has become a relief camp. The young mom (red coat) received special assistance from the army to reach the camp with her 16 day-old baby. The baby was born in Yingxiu and lost her father in the earthquake when she was only 11 days old. There are many children living in the Qingyan camp who've not yet been reunited with their parents. Most are teenagers. Children in the primary schools and kindergartens more often did not survive as they were napping when the earthquake struck.



SHIFANG, SICHUAN
As many as 40,000 children are in need of shelter and care. Their schools and homes destroyed, high school-age survivors are trying desperately to study for their all-important school exams, which take place across China in early June. The government and national and international aid organizations are providing tents and basic necessities as much as possible.





CHENGDU CHILDREN'S WELFARE INSTITUTION
The surviving children are all well. They all sleep on the first floor of the children's building and, for their safety, are kept outside during their waking hours. Due to recent severe aftershocks, the Children's Welfare Institute is now preparing to move children to tents.




HANZHONG COUNTY SOCIAL WELFARE INSTITUTION, SHAANXI
Cracked walls and a crumbling foundation forced the children and caregivers of this small orphanage close to the Sichuan border to take shelter in tents. All are reported to be fine.



Today marks three-days of national mourning for the tens of thousands of people killed - may China begin to heal and rebuild.

How It All Works

I've been repeatedly asked to explain how the adoption process works so here's my attempt to break it down:

The Paperchase
To adopt a child from China a family must gather certain paperwork, called a dossier and submit it through their agency to the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) in China. The paperwork consists of birth certificates, a home study report, as well as fingerprinting, medical approvals and background checks, financial paperwork and immigration approval. All the paperwork is then authenticated at the local, state and federal level and then as a last step must also pass through the Chinese embassy for approval. Once all of this is completed, a family’s American agency will review the paperwork and send it off to China (also know as DTC or dossier to China). When the CCAA receives the dossier a log-in date (LID) will be assigned. The “paper chasing” portion of the process takes anywhere from 5-12 months to complete. At this point the family will wait for a match with a child. Right now we are waiting and waiting and waiting.

The Match
The CCAA will review the dossier and will match us to a child. We then will be sent a photo of her with as much information as they have. We are specifically requesting a healthy infant girl between 0-12 months: as young as possible or sibling twin girls. She may be anywhere from 6 months to 15 months old, since the Chinese believe a 15 month old is still an infant. Once a baby is abandoned it takes 6 months to declare the baby legally abandoned in China. The Chinese newspapers post a “found list” with the baby’s picture and information such as where the little girl was abandoned. The Chinese government attempts to find the parents or other biological relatives before placing the child up for adoption. Most of the babies are around 10-12 months at the time of referral. The referral will hopefully include some general information about her personality and interests. It will also include her age and where in China she is located, if she is in an orphanage or living with a foster family. Upon acceptance of our daughter, we will be given travel approval from China and expected to travel within 6 to 8 weeks post referral. The wait time from dossier completion to child referral is somewhat unpredictable, right now the wait is at 30 months and we are just hoping it doesn’t continue to extend. It will be an exciting day when we get our first pictures of our daughter sent from the CCAA.


The Travel
Our travel will take approximately 10-14 days. We will fly first to Beijing or Hong Kong to tour and learn about the country. Then we will meet up with our travel group and travel to the province in China where our daughter lives. We expect to be united with our daughter the 1st day or 2nd day after we arrive in her province. We will spend 4-5 days in the province processing much of the Chinese adoption paperwork. After finishing our paperwork within the province, we will travel to Guangzhou, China where the US Consulate is located. Here we will process our daughters’ US VISA and passport and she will have a medical exam which typically consists of a lot of crying children during a hearing exam.

As you can imagine we are filled with excitement and anticipation as we travel this journey to our daughter. We encourage you to follow along with us and share in this exciting time.