THE STORY OF A CHINA DOLL
part 1 of 2

It was like almost any other family’s photo Christmas card. Until we had a grandson whose image we wished to scatter far and wide, we never did family photos in greeting cards. Well, maybe once or twice. I promise, this is the only time I’ll send him out to carry our holiday joy.

He looks so gleeful, so welcoming, framed in the doorway of his northern Virginia home that I couldn’t refrain from sharing him with distant friends and relatives. Just this once.

Brent and Renae Weber had no such modesty about using their family picture for Christmas. There are the boys, blond Skyler, and Brody, nearly 8 and 6, with Kalee apparently hanging on tight to one of the boys. Cute as can be, she is, with black, almond-shaped eyes in a solemn round face, and just a hint of black bangs over her left eye. What is she thinking? She looks back at you, reaf&Mac222;rming the generalization many of us apply to the people from the far East: inscrutability.

Waitaminute

Renae and Brent don’t have a little girl, certainly not one without a drop of Scandinavian or German blood in her physiological heritage. This picture was “doctored” to make Kalee a part of the Weber family. Kalee (pronounced kay-lee) is already a part of the Weber family. She just hasn't arrived yet. It takes far more than the Cut and Paste feature of photo computer software to adopt and bring home to the United States a child from an orphanage or foster home in China.

Most of us have heard about the one-child policy imposed by Chairman Mao Tse-tung, and thought it cruel, Renae said at a shower in Kalee’s honor last week. But it was not intended to be so.

Mao (and you see his picture everywhere), was for women’s rights, and was trying to change things and give people a realistic life style in the 1950s and the 60s, Renae said.

But there was a famine, and if you have just enough food to feed the mother or the child, you know what your choice would be. The mothers fed the children, and the women died.

Now Mao had all these babies to care for, and they built orphanages, and put the one-child policy in place, and, Renae added, they were just about to do away with the law when Chairman Mao died. In China, bureaucracy moves with glacial slowness, and then they have what appears to be a passion for paperwork, which is done, done again, lost, set aside, and required again and again, ad in&Mac222;nitum.

Today a Chinese mother must register with her province that she has become pregnant. You may choose to keep one, if it’s a girl, registered in the province. Have a boy, and you might be able to keep the baby. But have a second, or unauthorized, girl? You’d better either keep out of sight or the pregnancy may be aborted, Renae told her mesmerized audience.

The Webers were sure they would get their call last week. Their bags are packed, but it didn’t happen. “Any day now” has become their mantra. The plan, as they’ve been instructed, is for the prospective new parents to &Mac223;y to Hong Kong, then travel to Hunan province, spend a week &Mac222;nalizing documents, be checked from head to toe, pay more fees, get acquainted with Chinese culture.

The second week they will have their baby and get acquainted with her. If all goes well, &Mac222;nal documents are signed and they are on their way home.

Both grandmothers will be mothers of the boys while we’re gone, Renae continued with a laugh since most of the people in the room know Skyler and Brody are, well, energetic.

I know Ginnie is so excited, but we have no travel date and we all have to be ready at any moment, she said. Renae could not have scripted a more appropriate mother-in-law. Ginnie Weber is a neonatal care nurse at Atlanta Medical Center. Renae described the orphanage as it has been described to her: four or &Mac222;ve babies in a crib with little personal interaction with an adult, since there are simply too many babies for the staff to do anything more than feed and change.

Veterans of foreign adoptions say there have been great advances in socializing children, Renae said, although there are also reports of ligature marks on babies’ wrists. They have been tied to the crib. Rather than being horri&Mac222;ed by such “barbarism,” she was reassured that this was a safety measure, to keep the tots safe.

In that orphanage there were so many kids, so few attendants, they couldn’t keep up with the children, trying to keep them safe, Renae explained.

Hence, [at about 15 months] they have little upper body strength. Kalee couldn’t roll over, couldn’t sit up, couldn’t stand up or walk. In two weeks, while waiting, she was able to do all this for the &Mac222;rst time.

Next week: Renae’s good news