The June issue of Adoptive Families magazine contains news of what is believed to be the first successful birthparent search by a Chinese adoptee. A Dutch couple has located their 10-year-old daughter’s birthparents. Jim and Wilma, who are withholding their last names, explained that their daughter’s persistent interest in her biological parents prompted them to tell their story to the media in Chongqing, the city where baby Elina was found. A couple came forward and DNA tests confirmed their biological parenthood of Elina.
Child abandonment is illegal in China, and the birthparents said they walked from their village to Chongqing to avoid being seen by anyone they knew. They explained that Elina was their third child, that they had been heavily fined for their second child and knew they could not raise a third. They expressed a great amount of guilt, although the adoptive mother says they could not have done anything else.
It has long been believed that there is no way for Chinese adoptees to ever find their birthparents. Adoptee homeland tours have been content to arrange visits to orphanages and sometimes the sites where a child was found. However, there is a five-year statute of limitations on China’s abandonment law, so perhaps other birthparents of children over five will feel free to come forward as Elina’s parents did. Korean adoptees who were “abandoned” in previous years are finding their birthparents even though they were told they would not be able to.
This brings up some issues for adoptive parents of international adoptees. An agency staff member told me many adoptive parents choose the international route specifically to avoid the complications of birthparent involvement. I admit to having some of these feelings myself—that I would like to have my children know about their birthparents and perhaps find them later, but that it would be too awkward to have an open adoption while the kids were growing up. (Now that I know people in open adoptions I might see things differently.)
Adoptive families have to get used to the idea that birthparents, known or unknown, are still often a presence in our children’s lives, if not physically then in their personality traits, emotions and imaginings. But with modern media, DNA testing, awareness of the need for health and genetic information and changing laws, it seems that birthparents in distant lands may be closer than ever before.
Please see these related blogs:
Invisible But Real: Birth Parents in International Adoption