Surgery Gives Orphan From China a Second Chance

Aug. 7, 2008 — -- Lisa Paolitto hadn't found her "Mr. Right," but that didn't stop her from fulfilling her dream of having a child.

"I just wanted to be a mom," Paolitto said. "I wasn't going to wait for anyone else to come around and make it happen."

That's how the schoolteacher from Shady Side, Md., found herself on a plane bound for Beijing in January 2006 to meet her new 6-year-old daughter. She remembers it being "love at first sight" when she laid eyes on Samantha at the orphanage in China's Anhue province.

"She's had so many caretakers," Paolitto said about Samantha. "I let her know I'm her mommy forever. I'm her forever mom."

Thirteen months after filing for adoption through the agency Adoptions Together, Paolitto brought Samantha across the world to her new home on the Chesapeake Bay.

But there was a medical hurdle Paolitto said she wasn't quite expecting when she took her daughter to Johns Hopkins Hospital for a full physical examination. Eventually, the new mother found herself not only helping Samantha adjust to life in America, but also helping to prepare her for major heart surgery.

For Americans looking to adopt internationally, China is one of the most popular choices for several reasons. All foreign adoptions are centralized under the Chinese government and the China Center of Adoption Affairs works with selected adoption agencies in the United States to match children to families based on the adoptive parents' dossier.

Because of the cultural imperative of having males in a family and the laws that limit family size, thousands of baby girls are abandoned every year in China, at places like supermarkets and train stations.

"I know about their one-child policy and I knew that I wanted a girl," Paolitto said. "And it would be easier to adopt a girl from China."

Adopting From China

Since 1994, the adoption agency Chinese Children Adoption International (CCAI) has placed more than 8,000 children with families in the United States. Run by husband and wife Joshua and Lily Zhong, CCAI is one of the largest China-only adoption agencies in the country.

Although most adoptions are done through the "traditional" program where families are notified when there is a match, in recent years, CCAI has started participating in a "waiting child program," where families can request to adopt a specific child with special needs, like the Zhongs' daughter.

Anna Jie Zhong was 4 months old when police found her abandoned at Beijing Aviation Hospital. Born in 1995 with a congenital heart defect called tetralogy of Fallot, she was placed in an orphanage and later received heart surgery.

When Joshua Zhong saw Anna's information and picture, which had arrived at CCAI, he remembers not being able to go to sleep that night -- "the little girl's face had stuck in my mind."

The Zhongs adopted Anna in 2004, after she had spent more than nine years in foster care and orphanages.

"She may need more operations," Joshua Zhong said. "But she can live a long life like any normal person." He says his family feels truly blessed to have Anna.

Every month, the Chinese government sends agencies like CCAI information on children waiting for a home.

"We have about 1,000 children with special needs," Joshua Zhong said. "Cleft lip, heart condition, albinism, extra digits, bowlegs ... and usually they are older."

"Most families want a younger child," Paolitto said. "I wanted an older child and the reason that Samantha wasn't adopted sooner was because her medical condition. But I didn't mind having a child with a medical condition."

'Incredible' Recovery

From the start, Adoptions Together informed Paolitto about Samantha's medical records, disclosing that she had complex congenital heart disease and had underwent three heart surgeries in China to correct the problems in her heart.

It was believed Samantha's heart would function normally afterward, but Paolitto noticed that when Samantha was running or exercising with the other kids at school, she would turn blue. In the spring of 2007, Johns Hopkins pediatric cardiac surgeon Luca Vricella operated on Samantha to repair the holes in her heart.

The complex surgery took several hours but was successful, and Samantha was watched closely during her recovery. Today she has returned to being a very active child and spends much of her time swimming in the Chesapeake. Her mother marvels at her progress.

"It's incredible how well she's doing," Paolitto said. "She's very resilient."

With all the joy she says Samantha has brought her, Paolitto knows that an adoption like hers isn't possible today.

"Restrictions went into place about a year ago so now they do not even allow single parents to adopt anymore," she said.

'Unconditional Love'

In May, China tightened the eligibility rules restricting applicants based on their marital status, sexual orientation, age, income and medical status.

Zhong said the official reason is that demand for adoptions has increased, while adoption programs in other countries like Guatemala and Vietnam have been unstable.

But he also brought up the practice of "saving face" and its importance in his birth country, and said China may feel it is more "politically correct" to give preferential treatment to married couples.

The wait to be matched with a child has also increased in recent years and Zhong said he doesn't see it getting better anytime soon.

"When we first started, it could take four to six months to adopt. Now the wait can be up to 2½ years," he said.

The wait is usually shorter for children with special needs -- it took Paolitto a little more than a year.

Zhong said he has noticed that some couples who have been waiting a long time start requesting the "waiting child program," but he said special needs adoption "is not for everybody."

"It is really about unconditional love," he said. "Sometimes we have people who say 'I want to save a life,' which is nice, but the child might have behavioral issues ... they have to be prepared. We do special education classes, we want to make sure they make a wise choice."

But, he said, in the end most people are very happy with their adoption.

He recalls a particular case many years ago of a 4-year-old Chinese girl who was disfigured and how his organization helped recruit a family to adopt her.

"Now she will be competing in the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing," he said.

Paolitto said she plans to travel with Samantha to China in a few years to visit the caretakers who watched over her in her early years. But right now, she is simply excited to teach her daughter, now 8 years old, about the Olympics taking place in the country that helped bring them together.