At first, I wasn't going to share this information here. But it is so important to us that I feel like I need to document some of it for Kylie later. It's heavy stuff, at least for me, so I might take it in pieces...
When families travel to China to pick up their adopted children, many of the have the privilege of going to the "finding spot". This is the very place their child was found abandoned. Most times the referral paperwork will tell you generally where your child was found and many children are left at the doors of hospitals, orphanages or police stations in the night or wee hours of the morning.
We knew from Kylie's paperwork that she was found near a restaurant in a nearby village (likely the one her birth mom/parents live in). Unfortunately, the village was another 90 minutes away from the orphanage which we visited and that was already a 4 hour drive ONE WAY. So we were just unable to visit the finding place, which was very disappointing for me. I really wanted to see this place, take video, pictures in order to piece together as much of Kylie's first days for her as I could.
After arriving home, a few months passed and I posed the question to the adoptive community I was part of and was told, by several families, of a young woman in China, who used to work for an adoption agency and who now does birth parents searches. The same name came up over and over again.
Now, for those of you are are not China adoptive parents, let me tell you a little background...abandoning your child in China is illegal and carries with it stiff penalties regardless of reason. There is no "safe place" to drop your child for it to be cared for. So finding birth parents rarely happens and it is a HOT TOPIC among adoptive families and even some adoptees. We were very undecided on this point and so we have elected not to do an exhaustive search for Kylie's birth parents. However, the woman will also travel to the finding place and take photos and video for us for a reasonable fee (at least *I* thought it was reasonable...cheaper than traveling back there myself!)
And so, because I felt like it was very important we have this information for Kylie when she gets older, we hired the lady who said she would likely not travel until fall or winter. So we had plenty of time to wait...
More to come...
1 comment:
We are looking for someone to travel to our daughter's finding place to get pictures for us and possibly more info on her birth family if possible, would you mind sharing the woman's name with me? Thanks!
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