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From China to Largo, with love
By ANNE W. ANDERSON
| Article published on Thursday, Nov. 30, 2006 |
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![[Image]](/content_images/113006_lle-02.jpg) |
| Photo courtesy of LUKE AND MICHELLE CURTIS |
| Michelle and Luke Curtis of Largo pose with Abby Jing Curtis for their official first family picture, taken at the Civil Affairs office in Changsa, People’s Republic of China. |
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LARGO – Someday, as 16-month-old Abby Jing (meaning crystal or clear) Curtis grows up, her parents may tell her they would go to the ends of the earth for her. She will know they mean it, because they already have.
Abby’s parents, Michelle and Luke Curtis of Largo, traveled to the People’s Republic of China in September to finalize her adoption process, begun more than a year earlier. They joined a number of families from the United States choosing to adopt from China.
“I’ve always been interested in Chinese history,” said Luke, an information technologies consultant. Other than a cruise to the Bahamas, however, neither had been out of the country before.
The Chinese government requires foreigners to work with an agency approved by their China Center of Adoption Affairs, so the Curtises researched various agencies before selecting Great Wall China Adoption, a non-profit organization based in Texas. Heather Terry, director of the GWCA’s regional offices, said the agency completes the adoption process for about 700 children a year.
“It’s very legitimate and well organized,” Terry said, speaking of the CCAA’s system.
Terry said other countries often spring additional fees on adoptive parents at the last minute, but that is not the case with China. Also, Terry said, the CCAA requires pictures of the adoptive parents in addition to a dossier full of official documents, background checks, and home study reports.
“The CCAA tries to match facial structure, eyes, and temperament of the child to prospective parents,” Terry said.
Most children offered for adoption are girls abandoned because of China’s laws limiting families to one child or to two children, if the first is a girl. The Curtises said they were told their baby was left at a telecommunications office when she was about a month old.
Terry said the birth mother usually watches to make sure the child is picked up. The CCAA places ads with the child’s picture in newspapers for several months before declaring the child abandoned and eligible for adoption.
“Parental rights was a big issue for us,” Luke said. “We didn’t want to get attached to a child, and then have the parents or grandparents come back and try to reclaim her.”
The Curtises said Great Wall China Adoption provided a bilingual guide. After flying with 44 other families to Beijing, the Curtises were met by their guide who stayed with them during a tour of cultural and historic sites, then traveled with them and 12 other families – including two others from the Tampa Bay area – the 700 miles southwest to Hunan province and finally to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, on mainland China just across from Hong Kong. The guide acted as facilitator for the legal transactions, but became invaluable to the American families for another reason.
“We called her the Baby Whisperer,” Luke said.
He explained that, even though most of the children were too young to be talking yet, they had never heard English spoken before. Soothing fussy babies in a foreign language didn’t always work, Michelle said, so the guide would hold the babies and whisper in Chinese to them.
For now, the Curtises are teaching Abby sign language in addition to speaking lots of English around her.
“She can communicate in a way with us now that she might not have been able to for the next six months,” Michelle said.
The Curtises said the adoption process, including travel expenses, cost between $16,000 and $18,000, part of which they raised by selling their home and purchasing a smaller one.
While that sounds like a lot of money, Susan Fremer, GWCA’s regional director for Florida, said a private domestic adoption can cost even more. Fremer, who with her husband has adopted three children from China and one through a private domestic agency, said the waiting time can also be longer for a domestic adoption.
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Article published on Thursday, Nov. 30, 2006
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