The new nursery is filled with stuffed bears, diapers and piles of tiny dresses. The co-workers have hosted the baby shower, and the grandparents have planned their visits. But the baby girl David Schiff and Cathy Wollman have dreamed of is still in China, waiting for them to pick her up.
As an epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome rages–and an Anne Arundel County, Md., woman is quarantined after traveling to China for an adoption–the Rockville, Md., couple say they have no plans to cancel their trip in May to adopt the year-old girl.
“If my child was in a burning building, I’d burst through anything to get to her,” said Schiff, 44. “This is no different.”
Right now, prospective parents are practically the only people willing to visit China despite advisories from the World Health Organization and the State Department. Adoption agencies say few, if any, parents are canceling their trips, and most agencies are loath to stop them.
“I don’t want to get that call in the middle of the night that someone has become ill,” said Mary Chamberlain, director of the China adoptions program for World Child International in Silver Spring, Md. “But on the other hand, the longer the child sits in that orphanage. … We could have a child die of SARS while they’re waiting for their adoptive parents. We’re in a difficult position. This is something we haven’t faced before.”
Her agency and others are developing contingency plans for problems that could arise: a parent falling sick and being quarantined in China or the shutdown of transportation systems and government agencies needed for the adoption process.
More than 5,000 Chinese children were adopted by American families last year, making China the largest source of international adoptions in the United States.
But the spread of SARS, which has killed about 270 people worldwide, has added peril to the process.
Often, parents must go to orphanages in the Chinese countryside–where the health care system is least developed–to pick up their children.
Then, all parents must spend a few days in the city of Guangzhou in Guangdong province, where the SARS virus is believed to have first emerged in November. The U.S. consular office in Guangzhou is the only one in China that processes visas for adopted children.
Finally, there is the danger of falling ill in China. The State Department is warning travelers that if they become quarantined by the Chinese government, U.S. officials or doctors may not be able to help them.
Stuart Patt, a department spokesman, said that officials can’t forbid prospective parents to travel, but if the U.S. government decides to evacuate all staff members, there would be no one to process the visas.
U.S. officials have relaxed their usual rules so only one parent has to travel to Guangzhou for the visa and the child does not need to be there. Many parents are wondering whether the rules could be changed further so that the paperwork could be processed in the United States, but Patt said there are no plans for that.
“These things can change,” Patt said. “But for now, we’re proceeding normally.”
The Chinese government’s response to the rapid spread of SARS may force some delays. It has shut down schools in Beijing, and thousands of people are fleeing the city.
On Thursday, officials at Bethany Christian Services, a nationwide nonprofit agency that handles more than 200 Chinese adoptions a year, found out that the travel services firm it uses there has closed temporarily, forcing the suspension of travel for two weeks. The delay will affect about 20 families, Dawn Dean, an agency spokeswoman, said.
Dean said that despite the uncertainty, no clients have decided to withdraw from the adoption program or to request that their paperwork be processed for a baby in another country. “It’s a very long process,” she said of international adoptions. “All this means is another wait. … We’re very hopeful that all things will be cleared, maybe happily before Mother’s Day.”
Schiff and Wollman, the Rockville couple, are planning to take face masks and a few boxes of alcohol swabs. But for the most part, their worries are those that plague first-time parents everywhere: whether their daughter can be weaned from her 1 a.m. feedings, whether they’ve done enough to childproof the townhouse to accommodate her newly acquired walking skills and whether the orphanage’s reports of her “mischievous” smile will mean she’ll be a handful.
“Once we get this child in our arms,” Wollman said laughing, “it’s going to be wild.”
