Our Adoption Story

After trying to have a baby through "artificial" means (a few unsuccessful IUIs) for a couple of years, we found our "miracle" baby all by accident. I still remember vividly on May 9, 2006, 8th day into my first IVF treatment, I read a news article on Taiwan Yahoo about a baby boy needing an adoptive family. I thought "ooh.. poor baby, nobody wants him in Taiwan, so let me give him a home in the U.S..." Maybe not so fast... When I contacted the hospital in Tainan County, the hospital said that their phone was ringing off the hook... They had no time to talk, and asked all interested adoptive parents to drive to the hospital to visit and register in person or send a family to do so on their behalf. S and I talked about it and decided to give it try, even though we knew that so many families wanted to adopt him and that he was not a "poor" baby as I had assumed. I asked my dad to drive to the hospital to visit the baby the next day!!

I think it was fate! My parents spent most of their time in China and my dad just happened to be home in Taiwan that week. When he arrived at the hospital, he was surprised by the numbers of families showing up and standing in line in the hospital to visit the baby!!! The response was so overwhelming that the hospital had to separate the applicants into several stacks: "most promising", "promising", "maybe" and "no chance." It was so "competitive" that my dad caught families trying to move their application from the "promising" to "most promising" stack!!! The hospital then presented the final four families from the most promising stack to Shaun's birth family to choose from. Shaun's grandfather "interviewed" us over the phone and was going to decide in a week. He then narrowed it down to final 2 families: we were up against a Taiwanese doctor in Pennsylvania!! At that time, we thought we had no chance... I mean all Taiwanese LOVE doctors!! I didn't want to pressure Shaun's birth family, so I didn't call them again after the phone "interview", but my dad was calling me everyday from China asking whether "he" should call the birth family. One week of waiting turned into 2 weeks, and still no decision, & no news. I told my dad to leave the birth family alone so that they can make the right decision for the baby. However, one morning my dad decided to ignore my “instruction” and called the birth family from China, because he woke up early and had nothing else to worry about. The first sentence from Shaun's grandfather to my dad on the phone was "He is yours."
Ha…. What happened was that the birth family was having such a hard time choosing between us and the doctor from Pennsylvania that they finally decided to leave it up to fate... Shaun's great grandfather decided whoever called first the next day would get the baby!! The doctor from PA had been calling them everyday, but that morning my dad called before they did!! I don't know what it was, if it were not "fate." :)

The paper chase afterwards all seemed like a blur now, but it was a miracle that we were able to pull it off by ourselves. We had no clue at the time how complicated, time consuming and stressful that an international private adoption can be!! However, we were able to quickly put our research skills learned from business and law schools to work and completed the whole process in 5 months.

I have not kept up with most of my relatives since I left Taiwan in 1987, because I was always busy studying, traveling and working. I spent 2 months in Taiwan to be with Shaun and get his paperwork ready and also spent so much time with my family and relatives that we became close again. I feel that not only we have found our son in this adoption journey; I have also "rediscovered" my families in Taiwan. My dad's older sister took such good care of Shaun that Simon and I had to beg her to come to the U.S. with us for three months!

Life has not been the same ever since we became a family of three. We are so lucky to have so much support from our families in Taiwan and the U.S. & we feel blessed that they have embraced our unexpected and unplanned adoption so whole heartily.