Help Seeking Adopted Child's Parents

[eamkkm]

Hello all,

This may be off topic but I am hoping someone here might have some ideas to help me. I am Canadian, the mother of a 14 year old son adopted from Chengdu in early 2005.  I am trying to look for his birth parents, not an easy task.  I have had a searcher check all the information we had, with no luck. I am wondering about trying to find  a journalist who might run a story. Any other ideas are welcome.  We have been back twice to visit and have a short trip planned for March pf 2015. I am hoping  that ex-pats living in Chengdu may have the experience to bridge the two cultures- our desire to find his birth family and the Chinese culture, less keen on this.

All the best,

 

Ellen

[Ian]

I could be very difficult.  Do you know if his parents are local?  They could be from one of the suburb towns.  Do you know which hospital he was born in?

[eamkkm]

Hi Ian,

It is not legal to give up children in China so all are simply left somewhere. There is never any information about their parents, birth name etc. On rare occasions there may be a note with a date of birth or first name. There was not in his case. His file says he was found at Huaxi Hospital.  I would assume he was not born there as it would have been too easy to trace his birth parents.  He has a fairly minor limb difference so would be identifiable.  I would like to contact a journalist who might be willing to run a human interest story- local boy returns etc.

Best,

Ellen

 

 

[Al the Dead]

Sadly, you get zero chances. There is simply no reason at all for his real parents to show up.

[Rick in China]

@eamkkm That seems like an impossibly long-shot. If your purpose is to get your son in a news story, I think that’s a little bit…..eh, not sure how to put it – not good. If your purpose is to actually find his birth parents, I don’t know how you’d be able to do that mostly for reasons you’ve already pointed out — kids are often left at places like those “baby-vaults” or whatever, anonymous drop-off places for unwanted children, or if you read the news, toilets or garbages or whatever..I don’t know how you’d possibly be able to connect a couple of likely peasants with an orphaned child – and I’d be extremely cautious about being cheated in the process of the attempt. If you’ve done adoption in China I’m sure you’ve experienced, or at least *heard* of the scams involved in the process, I can only imagine how crazy the scams would be about reuniting people. In my opinion, going through the trials and tribulations of attempting vs. the extreme unlikelihood of any positive results needs significant consideration, either way – wish your son well.

[Kim Duistermaat]

no matter how difficult, it does happen that kids find back their birth parents, also in China. http://www.stichting-eline.org/index_EN.htm
Media coverage may help indeed. A friend of mine who adopted a girl from China has two contacts that provide such searching services, one American one Chinese. If you want, eamkkm, I can ask for their details.

[Charlie]

eamkkm wrote:

Hi Ian, It is not legal to give up children in China so all are simply left somewhere. There is never any information about their parents, birth name etc. On rare occasions there may be a note with a date of birth or first name. There was not in his case.

Never knew this. Having such an enormous volume of children simply left somewhere is pretty mind blowing, even for China.

[Author]

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