Women share experiences of adopting from China
Sunday, May 10, 2009
By SLOAN BREWSTER, Press staff
MIDDLETOWN — Joanne Swift said U.S. adoption agencies refused to even consider her and her husband, Bob Vess, as potential adoptive parents.
That’s why they turned to China.
“I chose China because we had four biological children at the time and there was no one else that would consider [us],” Swift said.
Now Swift has seven children, three of them girls she adopted from China.
Swift, a resident of Cromwell, and her daughter, 11-year old Amelia Vess — the first child she adopted from China — were at the Book Bower in the Main Street Market Friday, where Swift discussed a chapter she wrote in a book about the journeys of families with children adopted from China.
“Our Blessings from China,” is an anthology of nine authors, each giving their account of the challenges and rewards of adopting from China.
Adopting a child from China can run a family between $20,000 and $30,000, Swift said, explaining the amount includes staying in the country and a “donation.”
One other adoptive mother, Carla Jayson, of Middletown, attended the discussion. Her adoptive daughter, 7-year-old Natalie Jayson also from China, wandered around the store, snacking on pretzels, and occasionally stopped by to hug her mother.
When Swift and Jayson were asked how it felt the first moment they took their adoptive babies in their arms, they rambled off answers, their faces exploding with wonderment at the memories.
“Tearful, indescribable joy,” Jayson immediately piped up.
“Kind of surreal,” Swift chimed in.
“I mean, you’ve been waiting so long,” Jayson exclaimed.
“They just hand you this baby and, don’t they realize this is a whole person?” Swift asked rhetorically.
“I had to take a Xanax that morning,” Jayson relayed.
“I almost felt like saying ‘no, no thank you,’ because you feel like you’re taking something that you shouldn’t. I mean, it’s a big loss for someone; for me it’s a gain, but for someone … ” Swift explained.
Amelia quietly leaned on the chair where her mother sat, smiling as she listened to stories of her adoption and upbringing. Occasionally, she responded to tidbits her mother conveyed, such as when Swift explained one of the reasons she returned to get another child from the far away country.
“Amelia pointed out to me when she was very small that nobody in the family looked like her and she wanted a sister that looked like her,” Swift said, recalling the child told her, “I have a sister that looked like me in China.”
Amelia leaned back and looked at her mother, “I did?” she asked.
Swift nodded and assured her the tale was true, adding the sister in Amelia’s birth country was imaginary. It also cemented an idea she was already pondering.
“I was looking for a reason to go out and fill out the paperwork,” Swift said.
The second Chinese baby Swift adopted is Allison, now 8.
“My 8-year-old said to me, she said, ‘You don’t know anything about raising Asian children,’” Swift said, relaying an incident that occurred the night before. “She didn’t clarify, but she was so annoyed with me. I figured she was overtired so I sent her to bed, she stalked all the way up.”
The third Chinese child Swift adopted is 7-year-old Cecilia.
Included in the struggles she and her husband had to deal with when first getting the foreign girls was potential illness, she said.
“All our babies had fevers,” she said.
“I was there in the SARS outbreak, and some of our babies were sick,” Jayson said. “We didn’t know what was going on. Thank God she was alright.”
Since adopting from China, Swift has incorporated Asian foods and customs into her family. Amelia sometimes cooks and makes “the best stir fry on the planet,” her mother said.
“You do Chinese things with the kids,” said Angela Leavitt, a friend of Swift’s who attended the discussion. “I’ve seen Chinese things at your house.”
The three girls also kept their Chinese names, as middle names. Li Ping is Amelia’s middle name.
“What would you like people to take away from your experience?” asked Book Bower owner Linda Bower.
“I think everyone should adopt,” Swift said.
