Our Adoption of Sorcha

"We originally applied for an overseas adoption in March 1998 and although we were not especially concerned with where we would be adopting from we certainly had a preference for adopting a baby girl as we already had two boys in the family. China was the obvious place and virtually guaranteed a girl, it also had a close relationship with the UK adoption services and adoption from China was officially recognized and there would be no need to re-adopt once the baby was brought back from China - this is certainly a considerable advantage for UK parents.

Although the adoption process from the UK is quite arduous and
time-consuming we were fortunate in that everything went relatively smoothly and "on schedule". In July of 1999 we received a note from the Department of Health informing us that we had been "matched" with a little girl "Jin Hua Xiang" (now "Sorcha") from the Yu Jiang Welfare Institute in Jiang Xi province. We immediately confirmed our "acceptance" and made plans for travel to China.

Unlike North America, as we later learned, in the UK families are pretty much left to get on with the whole process themselves and there are none of the organized group adoptions which are common to the USA and Canada (and indeed several European countries). This can be quite daunting although the local social services will put families in touch with other adoptive families in the area. For our area there were literally less than a handful of other couples who had adopted from China so assistance was limited. It was, of course, particularly helpful to find the Jiangxi website and discover a real goldmine of information about adoption from the area. It has to be said that both of us were amazed at how smoothly everything went in
China.

Having read all the advice and heard details of other trips we did not
really know what to expect but we were prepared for quite an arduous trip. However, in reality it was quite the contrary. We arranged our travel through "China Women Travel Agency" and would not hesitate to recommend them as an excellent agency. From the moment we arrived in Beijing everything was extremely well organized. From Beijing we went to Nanchang where we were met by our local guide who was with us for the week we had to stay in Nanchang.

We stayed at the Jin Feng hotel (it is briefly mentioned on the website) and it was quite excellent. It is a large modern hotel with very good facilities and extremely friendly staff who went out of their way to make us feel welcome. The restaurant is very good and has a wide range of dishes, good quality and reasonable prices (although outside the hotel, local restaurants are generally less than a third of the hotel price and the ones we tried were also very good).

We were certainly surprised that within 2 hours of arriving in our hotel we met our new daughter, Sorcha. The Director of her orphanage arrived at the hotel with Sorcha and promptly handed her over to us and that was that. This was our biggest surprise of the  whole visit (albeit it was great to get Sorcha so soon) and would certainly be a daunting prospect for any first time parents and those without the support of a group. Sorcha was very young for an adoptee baby (8 months when we arrived to collect her), all of the babies we met were 12-16mths on average. Because she was that much younger she settled a little quicker than we would have expected.

The rest of the trip went exactly according to the schedule our agency had prepared. The official paperwork side was much lighter than we had imagined and, in fact, we hardly had to do anything except sign a few forms. Although the bureaucracy in China is highly labor intensive (3/4 people in the bank to process some travelers cheques) it at least has the virtue of being surprisingly efficient. In fact the most time consuming part of the whole official process was waiting for Sorcha's exit Visa at the British Embassy (this took about 3 hours) and that was due to British bureaucracy.


It was certainly a good idea to have brought with us all of the baby
essentials, especially a good range of clothes, because these can be
difficult to get over there and the clothes we saw in Nanchang were of dubious quality. You can purchase most anything you need when you are out there, especially in the major centers like Beijing, but it would have been a big hassle to have gone searching for stuff with baby in tow so soon after arriving.

All in all we had a great time in Nanchang, we went to local restaurants, saw the sights and were able to relax and spend time getting to know Sorcha. The Chinese people we met were all amazed at the sight of a western couple with a Chinese baby but there was no animosity, only goodwill and smiles. When we asked our guide about this she said that generally Chinese people would be pragmatic about overseas adoption and realize that it was in the best interests of the child. It was a similar story when we got to Beijing
where once again we had an excellent guide and a top class hotel


It was quite obvious when we were in China that Sorcha liked having Chinese sounds around her and she particularly enjoyed being in restaurants where there was lots of Chinese hustle and bustle. She also liked listening to Chinese pop music and we thought it would be a good idea to bring back some tapes so she had something familiar from her old home. This has proved to be an excellent idea and she really enjoys listening to the tapes and CDs.

Now we have been back for a couple of months and Sorcha is coming on a storm. Her brothers love her to bits and they all get on great - in fact they are the envy of their school for their new "China sister". She is beginning to walk and it won't be long before she starts to make words - she 's already chatting like crazy.

Overseas adoption has been a wonderful experience for us and Sorcha is a wonderful addition to our family. It can be frustrating and daunting when going through the whole long process and all the travel arrangements but the effort is tiny compared to the compensations. There is a tremendous need for adoption from China and the authorities there are making it easier than it has ever been to adopt - we would urge anyone thinking about an overseas adoption to consider China and Good Luck to all of you who venture down this path.

Philip Franklin
Mary Devoy-Franklin
1 November 1999.

Any other families with more information on this orphanage or who would like to post a picture or e-mail address please e-mail me at webmaster@gurrad.com.