Expat Mom Shares the Story of Adopting Her Son in China

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“This was the best day I ever had!” said little David to his mom and dad on Christmas Day four years ago. It was their first Christmas together as a family and they couldn’t have been happier.

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Even though it should come as no surprise to see a kid enjoying Christmastime, with all its presents and festivities, it was different for David and his parents, Nicole and Justin Kennedy.

You see, David was adopted from Shanxi Province, where he spent the first five years of his life in a foster home. And although his foster parents took great care of him, having a “forever” home and a real, family Christmas has changed David and his parents’ lives for the better.

In February of 2012, Nikki and Justin moved with their three young kids (ages 5, 3, and 1 at the time) from New York state to Beijing for work.

However, Nikki grew up in the Philippines and remembers her parents talking about adopting a little boy who had lost both of his parents. They didn’t proceed with the adoption because his relatives took him in and he got to stay with his family, but that’s when Nikki learned about orphans and, in her words, “the seed was planted in my heart.” Nikki explained: “I believe we have a human responsibility to care for orphans no matter what our religious beliefs are. My husband and I are Christians, and our hearts have always been open to adoption. We count it a privilege that we can raise a child who couldn’t be raised by his biological family.”

So what made her add another member to their already big family of five?

Nikki says that she knew during her third pregnancy that it was her last one, and that if they were meant to have a fourth child they could adopt since that had always been her desire. The number of orphaned children in China has drastically decreased in recent years.

According to Statista, in 2015 there were 502,105 children living in welfare facilities, with that number shrinking to 193,281 in 2020.  Since China started allowing foreigners to adopt Chinese children in 1992, it has become one of the most common destination countries for those looking to adopt through international adoption. Reasons for this are pretty simple: it’s one of the most stable adoption programs out there, with predictable and affordable costs, making it far less expensive than other international programs.

But what has our fellow Beijing mom’s experience been like?

“There are many advocacy groups in the U.S. and I was surrounded by friends and organizations that help support orphans in China in various ways. I also have many friends who’ve adopted Chinese children. We were not closed to adopting a child in our home country, but after living in China for many years and volunteering at an orphanage, we knew we wanted to proceed with a China adoption.”

In fact, Nikki did a ton of research prior to submitting the application. She read a lot of books on the subject, joined several China adoption Facebook groups and learned from adoptive families who had adopted multiple times from China. “A friend of mine gave me a spreadsheet of various agencies in the U.S. that deal with international adoptions. We knew we had to go through a Hague Accredited agency as there is a strict process to follow.”

The family sent their application in August 2017, and from there it took a little less than a year to legally adopt David.

Although pretty straightforward, the adoption process has had a few challenges, the greatest one being the wait. It required a lot of patience as, according to Nikki, “it felt like an endless cycle of filling out paperwork and paying fees.” Thorough local, federal and international background checks with a couple rounds of fingerprints were just a few steps in the adoption process. The process itself consists of different stages and phases, and each part required a form of some sort to be filled out, notarized and sent to a specific agency in the U.S.

So here’s the breakdown of the adoption process with estimated time frames:

• Application (1 week)

• Dossier Process (2-6 months)

• Home Study (2-4 months, concurrent with dossier process)

• United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS & Dept. of Homeland Security) (12-14 weeks)

• Child Match (time varies)

• Child Assignment (2-4 months)

• USCIS Immigration Approval part 2 (2-4 weeks)

• National Visa Center (NVC) process (2-3 weeks)

• US Consulate Process (2 weeks)

• Invitation to Travel and Planning (2-3 weeks)

• Travel and Completion of Adoption (2 weeks)

• Validation of a Foreign Adoption (varies by state)

Another big challenge was the cost. In the end, the Kennedys paid close to USD 40,000. Thankfully, they were able to cover the costs with some help. As Nikki explains: “We had very generous friends and strangers who believed in what we were doing and donated to our adoption agency to cover some of the fees. We also had a couple of fundraisers.”

When they brought David home in June 2018 he didn’t speak any English, but Nikki and Justin are competent Chinese speakers so it wasn’t a big issue. Within a few months, David transitioned to English and lost a lot of his Chinese, but his parents have been adamant about him not losing it altogether. “We want him to appreciate and hold on to his heritage,” they say. It got a little complicated when they returned to Beijing in September 2018 since, as a U.S. citizen per adoption policy and law, David could not enroll in an international school until his local ID had been canceled. Today, all of Justin and Nikki’s children (Olivia, 15, Jacob, 14, Owen, 12, and David, 9) attend AISB-Hope International, where they’re finishing the ninth, eighth, sixth, and third grades, respectively. Nikki herself works at the same school, and will be stepping into a new role for the 2022-2023 school year as the head of elementary.

The Kennedys are currently four years post-adoption, and for this stage of their journey, Nikki says that it comes with its own set of challenges: “When we adopted, we knew some facts about our child’s past, which was very helpful. We also knew some things to expect through the many books we read as well as the required adoption courses we took prior to adopting. Yet when faced with reality, no book or advice prepared us fully for what we faced.”

Even though it’s had its highs and lows and has been full of waiting and hoping and expecting, Nikki says that their journey has been amazing and well worth the wait. As she explains: “Adopted children have the same needs as a typical child – they need to feel safe, accepted, and loved. I will continue to focus on loving my son who obviously looks nothing like me, but now feels very much like he belongs in our family.”

Images: Courtesy of Nicole Kennedy

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