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Our trip to China began Oct. 20 with a flight to Chicago, where we met the rest of the adopting parents in our group. Nearly all were from the Philadelphia area. Five of the nine children in our group were being adopted by single mothers - China's adoption law doesn't discriminate between married and single parents. Those who didn't have spouses brought along a close friend or relative to provide help and support. We spent 24 hours in planes and airports - there were stops in Los Angeles and Chicago - before stepping onto Chinese soil in Hong Kong, where we were met by a guide who took us to a hotel. The long trip had turned our minds and bodies into mush. Most of us looked ready to sack out on the airport floor. The next day, we boarded a bus for the city of Guangzhou, about 100 miles west of Hong Kong. Guangzhou acts as a funnel for all Americans adopting Chinese babies. Only one U.S. consulate office handles adoptions, and it's there. . The trip offered us our first glimpse of a country with a population estimated at 1.4 billion. We whizzed past miles and miles of high-rise apartment buildings, 15 and 20 stories tall. There were no sprawling suburbs, no shopping centers with acres of parking. Ideas about personal space were much different than in the United States, we soon learned. In Guangzhou, we entered what I thought was the worst traffic jam in earth's history. Cars, buses, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians all seemed hopelessly jammed into one two-lane road. The vehicles were so close, I began to feel claustrophobic. At one point I looked out the window and was surprised to see a middle-age Chinese man staring back at me. He was so close I could see the pores on his face. We couldn't have been more than 2 feet apart, yet we were in different buses trying to squeeze into the same lane. Despite the jam, we saw no sign of road rage. What appeared to be chaos was, in reality, more orderly and less stressful than a rush-hour commute on a Western Pennsylvania parkway. In Guangzhou, we were met by the husband-and-wife team who had the task of ushering18 Americans, many who had never traveled or changed a diaper, into parenthood in an unfamiliar culture. Throughout the trip into and out of their homeland, our guides (who asked that their names not be used to protect their relationships with Chinese officials) remained calm when everyone else was on the verge of panicking. They kept an eye on us and the health of the babies. One guide especially was concerned that all the babies have regular bowel movements - it earned him the nickname "Dr. Poop."
We awoke the next day - Friday, Oct. 23 - knowing our lives would be forever changed by the time the sun set. Our group made a short flight from Guangzhou to Zhanjiang, about 220 miles southeast, along the South China Sea. There, we checked into a hotel and waited. The bus that would take us to Maoming to get our daughters wasn't due to arrive for a few hours. Brenda used that time to methodically unpack our luggage, to check and double-check our baby supplies, to eat some lunch. I stared at a recent picture of Chloe - it had been given to us the day before - and paced the hotel room. Then I paced the hallway. "Steve, relax," Brenda told me. Relax? I was ready to run all the way to Maoming. Where was that bus, anyway? It arrived shortly after 1 p.m. with a driver determined to substitute our anxiety over becoming parents with anxiety over dying on a Chinese highway. Sometimes we drove on the left side of the road; sometimes on the right. Oncoming vehicles did the same. I felt like a passenger in a two-hour Hollywood chase scene. It was one long game of chicken. At one point, after a narrow miss that caused a collective gasp among the passengers, our interpreter turned and said to us, "We forgot to tell you, when riding on a bus in China, you must close your eyes and not look ahead." We survived. In Maoming, at the government office where our daughters were waiting, we were kept in a hallway and asked by our guides to check our paperwork for misspellings. Behind a glass door painted with Chinese characters, I could see the babies. I felt like a kid waking up on Christmas morning only to be told he had to shovel snow off the driveway before he could open his presents. Concentrating on paperwork now, with our daughters barely 10 feet away, seemed an impossible task, bordering on torture, but it was necessary. Any mistakes could cause problems later. The moment finally came. Brenda and I were called into the room - families were called in one at a time - and a thin woman in her 30s with short hair, a black-and-white dress and a pearl necklace crossed the room, rested Chloe in my arms, then quickly turned and left. It happened so quickly. Too quickly. One second my arms were free; the next minute they were holding a girl I'd seen only in pictures and dreams. Chloe was silent. She looked frightened. Brenda caressed her cheek and said hello, told her everything would be all right. I was nervous, uncertain what to do. I'd held maybe three babies in my life, none for more than 30 seconds. Now I'd gone past one minute, then two. Then Chloe relaxed and rested her chin on my shoulder. I could have held her for another 2,000 years, but it was time to check her out, to change her diaper and her clothes, so Brenda reached out her arms, and I handed a daughter to her mother. There are so many things I wish we'd done that day. We should have tried to speak with the woman who handed Chloe to us. Was she the caretaker? Did she know where Chloe was from, what town? Had Chloe been loved? Truth is, we were overwhelmed. Weeks later, thinking of the day's events - recalling the afternoon light filtering through the drapes in the government office, the weight of Chloe's head on my shoulder, her soft and resigned cry as we changed her diaper - still brings chills, and it becomes difficult to concentrate on other tasks. Brenda, Chloe and I will have to live with some questions that will have no answers.
The nine families in our group would spend the weekend in Zhanjiang getting to know our daughters, learning how to care for them. Chloe came to us with a mild case of diarrhea and a temperature. The diarrhea quickly subsided - when Chloe passed her first solid stool, Brenda and I danced a jig around the prune-sized turd that, to us, was as precious as a diamond - but the fever persisted. In addition, Chloe was listless, and she spent most of her time sleeping. She showed no interest in toys or play and would not interact. On Sunday, she vomited her first meal of the day. Brenda and I became concerned. Then things got worse. Brenda had eaten lunch at the hotel restaurant - Chinese pancakes, we recall - and quickly became ill. One minute, she was fine; the next, she was on the bathroom floor, doubled over in pain. I rubbed Brenda's shoulders. She was soaked with sweat. In the next room, Chloe began crying. A diaper change failed to settle her down. What was I supposed to do? I felt incapable of caring for Brenda or Chloe, let alone both at once. Could I call a friend or relative for advice? Let's see, it's 3 a.m. in the United States., so that's out. I was able to calm Chloe by carrying her around the hotel room and describing the objects we saw. "This is a doorknob," I said to her. "This is a light switch. Here's a picture frame. A lamp. Telephone." After 20 minutes of this activity, I began to wonder what we'd gotten into. There wasn't anything about food-poisoned wives in the fatherhood books I'd read. Brenda was incapacitated. Her digestive system had violently emptied itself, and her only relief from pain and chills came when she assumed what she called her "turtle position," curled up in a ball and wrapped in a blanket. Chloe was still feverish and listless. Perhaps I should get them both to a hospital. But where? I walked to down the hall to see our guides, who summoned the doctor who had been looking in on the babies. She diagnosed Chloe as having indigestion and malnutrition, then gave her two injections containing vitamins. Then she gave Brenda some medication - we're not sure what it was, but it didn't matter because Brenda couldn't keep it down.
No matter. Like a bad storm, Brenda's illness subsided almost as quickly as it came. After six hours, she began feeling better. By nightfall, she was walking around, anxious to care for Chloe, who was also improving. Hours after the injections, Chloe sat on the bed and picked up one of the toys we'd brought - a colorful, plastic chain. She examined it closely, then shook it. Brenda and I let out a whoop and a cheer. It was like watching her come alive for the first time. Suddenly, she was interested in everything - paper she could crumble, buttons she could push, even her own image in a mirror. Later, Brenda tickled Chloe and, for the first time in our lives, we heard our daughter's laughter. We left Zhanjiang for Guangzhou, where we stayed for two days to secure Chloe's immigrant visa. Then we traveled to Hong Kong to board a plane to take Chloe to her new home. She would travel through several time zones and stop in two cities before disembarking in Pittsburgh. Chloe now lives with us in a century-old house on a hillside in Emsworth, near a city that has long been a destination for immigrants. A few nights after we arrived at home, Brenda and I wrapped her in a blanket and walked outside into the cool November air. We heard tugs chugging up and down the Ohio River, the clang and bang of Neville Island's iron works, the hum of traffic on Ohio River Boulevard. A distant train rumbled. We waited for the wail of its whistle. We listened to the creaks and groans of an American city. Brenda held our daughter close and said to her, "You are home, Chloe."
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