Child from China?

Question

My step daughter was born in China and @ 2 months old was left on the steps of the police department, about ten years ago. Pinned to her blanket was her name and birthdate. She was in an orphage in Bejing when she was adopted. Is there a way to back track the area for her biological parents? I have heard of a DNA testing that can trace her ethnic background and give us areas where she possibily could be from. How would that work?

Answer 1

Wow, bless you for wanting to do this

I am sure the parents would be thrilled to have news of their child.  I feel for poor parents in China who can't afford the license they need to have a child and are forced to either sell or abandon their babies because of the hefty penalties imposed for giving birth without a license

I know the one-child law and requirement for a license, with hefty fines for having a child without a licence will be in force until at least 2010.  Here's hoping that things will change sooner rather than later, for the sake of the children

Many children are also stolen and I know of one PI in China who specializes in tracing families, I'll edit my answer if I remember his name

Thank you so much for doing this, every child deserves to know their origins

Answer 2

At this time it is very unlikely that you can track down biological parents in China. It isn't legal to abandon your child, and though the penalties for doing so are unclear, coming forward as a parent who abandoned their child would probably be scary for a parent. And there would likely be stigma as well. A child found in Beijing was likely born elsewhere and brought there as well, so that further narrows the likelihood of finding anything.

I'm not sure about the general DNA testing. If your daughter is Han Chinese, then that is likely all you would find out. If she is from a so-called "ethnic minority" then you might find out more details of that, and that might be interesting to her. I have also heard that the sample is pretty small in China, so the results aren't very accurate. If you located someone that might be a first parent, then of course you could use DNA to confirm the relationship.

Brian Stuy of Research China has a lot to say about this subject. I don't agree with everything he says, by any means, but he does give a lot of good details here about how and why parents might search for their child's first parents in China.

http://research-china.blogspot.com/2007/...

I would also like to point out that many adult adoptees feel strongly that searching for first/natural/birth parents is >their< choice to pursue or not to pursue, and when to do so -- >not< the choice of their adoptive parents. I have seen adoptive parents, though, argue that things in China are changing so fast that searching needs to be done before the adoptee is old enough to decide. Many/some adult adoptees say that it should still be their choice, and that many choices have been made for them when they were very young and they should be allowed to make this choice themselves. It is a hard issue. I would urge you to listen to adult adoptees on this before you decide.

I would like medical information for my daughter from China as well. They are coming out with more and more tests that will tell useful medical information, but a really useful and systematic set of tests is not yet available. Functional Medicine touches on similar issues to this. See this link for the January 12th show on functional medicine with Dr. Jeffrey Bland:

http://www.jivamedia.com/askdrdawn/askdr...

Best wishes

Answer 3

h**l No

Answer 4

Thats so wired my mom and dad adopted my little sister from an orphage in Bejing in 2000 and she was 9 months old.if you adopted your little girl why in the world would you want to find her birth parents if they left in front of a police department with her name and birthdate. i mean seriously. if you really wanted to find out i guess i would trace the name  and the birthdate to see how many matches you get and then take it from there.

hope this helps.

I recomend when you find her birth parents (if you do) then i would meet them before she meets them because they may not be good enough to be a parent and thats probably why they left her there in the first place. I wouldnt let her meet them first because they might not be right for her thats why i say you should meet them first.