How To Adopt A Chinese Child

did you know, since 1999, over 66,000 chinesechildren have been adopted by us families? this is malia. malia is one of these children. she was born in china, where she was leftat this homeless shelter in guilin. this is sue and freeman chung. they both teach here at waipahu high school.

How To Adopt A Chinese Child, the chungs had taken the steps in adoptingmalia in august 2011. yeah, we decided to adopt from china because,you know, we couldn't have children on our own. we thought it was just gonna be year process.because both of us were born in hong kong,

theysaid, okay, we're gonna put you on an expedited list. so, we went through the process, and therewas a lot of paperwork involved. and we made theapplications, and it was a long drawn process. the adoption process took longer than expected. but after waiting a year, and year and a half,still no news. after two years, no news. three years, no news. and then finally, we thoughtthat, hey, maybe we should just stop the process, because it was just taking too long, and theycouldn't tell us how long more. but all of a sudden, they got that specialcall.

china didn't get the memo about our terminatingthe process. and somehow, they still assigned a child to us, and i was just completely shocked. so, we said, really? i mean, our jaws justdropped, it was just a surprise. in august 2011, mr. and mrs. chung traveledto china to meet their baby, malia, and brought her back officially to their home in september. it was very nerve wracking. both of us wasreally-i mean, we have seen her video before, wekinda know she looks like. but being able to meet with her and touch her, and hold herfor the first time is really exciting.

malia is considered to be one of the luckyones. in china, there's tens of thousands of orphanedchildren, and especially girls. because of the one child per family policyin china, they have been executed for the last coupleof years. if the first baby happens to be a female, a lot of them, although they lovetheir baby, but you know, they have to give it up. youknow, a girl cannot inherit the family name, andthat's the reason why a lot of girls are being abandoned. today, malia lives happily with the chungsand her new sister, pikake, who is also adopted.

if you wanted to adopt internationally, thereward is just tremendous. when you do get a childassigned to you, it's just a life-changing kind of thing. this is karen cayme reporting from waipahuhigh school, for hiki nåœ.