A woman’s story of adoption touches on all the cultural points that make the issue so salient:

“It is still a bit of a mystery to me how I wound up the mother of a child born half a world away to someone I will never know. What I do know is that I cannot imagine my life without my daughter, Madeline Jing-Mei. In October 2005, my husband, Jim, and I made the trip to China to pick up our nine-month-old baby and bring her home. Our ‘referral’ (the official document issued by the China Center of Adoption Affairs) stated she ‘was found abandoned at the gate’ of the Social Welfare Institute of Fen Yi County on the morning of February 9 and taken in by Li Min, a worker at the orphanage. Her umbilical cord was still attached. According to the note that had been left with her, she had been born one day earlier. The workers named her Gong Jing Mei. The report went on to describe her as ‘a lovely and healthy baby with chubby face, fair skin and smart eyes.’ We know nothing of her birth parents or why they gave her up. Chances are we never will.”