Peer support

When my brother, Cam, and his wife, Karin, went to Fuling, China, to bring home a 10-month-old baby girl, they invited Karin’s sister, Nancy and I, the aunties, along for the trip. The four of us met in Shanghai to begin what turned out to be a momentous experience.

Around the time of his third birthday, my son John started urging me to adopt a baby. He launched a relentless, unequivocal campaign. He has always been a determined individual, and he had made up his mind. He was going to have a sibling.

Tell me about your family.
After 10 years of infertility, my partner and I decided to adopt a child. The race of the child was not an issue for us, we simply wanted to be parents. Looking back on it, I admit that we were naive.

These are the findings of Dr. Elinor Ames' research on the Development of Romanian Children Adopted to Canada. In 1990, Dr. Ames, an adoptive parent and professor of developmental psychology at BC's Simon Fraser University, began her research on the effects of institutionalization on children adopted to BC from Romanian orphanages. That same year, 1013 children were adopted from Romania to Canada, the single largest influx of intercountry adoptions in Canadian history.

The Decision to Adopt
Kathy and Rick Miller already had four birth children between the ages of nine and 16, when they decided to add a sibling group of two to their family. "We enjoy children a lot," said Kathy, who has a degree in Child and Youth Care. "We have lots of parenting experience, and we felt we had a lot to offer as a family." She and Rick, who is a teacher, wanted more children, but felt that it was better "to expand our family by adding children who genuinely needed a home, rather than biologically."