It was a very hard decision, but, regretfully, we’ve chosen to discontinue this podcast. This is our final episode, and in it, Lisle shares a brief explanation with you and an offer, perhaps, for an adoptee who might consider this to be a project worth taking on. As of this date, our 10 episodes of our new podcast have been downloaded more than 5,400 times by a very niche listening audience of those of you who have a special interest in birth family search in China. This podcast could never have grown in popularity as it has without all our guests who have shared such amazing stories, or witho ..read more

In this episode, Autumn shares her experience locating her birth family and finally meeting them during a trip to China, a visit full of joy, tears and some surprises about her earliest life in China that she would never have expected. This is yet another story where the commonly told tale of abandonment of a child leading to delivery to an orphanage turned out to be nothing like the reality.   Iris Leung reflects on “unofficial adoptions” in China, when families facing an above quota pregnancy, rather than abandon or abort their baby, chose to protect their child from being seized by birth co ..read more

Kaylena Weiderhold received a surprise gift on her birthday that she would never have expected - the news that her birth family had been located in China and they were waiting to talk with her on social media. After several conversations over the Internet, more surprises followed as she found out details about her family that were shocking, life changing as well as personally confirming for her, including how much forced abortion and the One Child Policy had had a personal impact on her life story. In this episode, Kaylena explains how she was able to connect with her birth parents, how she fe ..read more

Sometimes the smallest bit of information might turn out to be the most important clue in a search for birth relatives. In this episode of our podcast, Charlotte Cotter shares her story of how a reporter unexpectedly connected her with her birth family in China, what happened when she finally met them, and her mixed feelings trying to come to terms with that experience. Ricki, Iris and Lisle follow with a discussion about media and public attention overload that can happen when an adoptee undertakes a search in China, especially when a birth family is located. And they also consider how, when ..read more

Local people in China react to a Chinese adoptee who has returned from a foreign country to look for her birth parents, and we react to a challenging comment about race and international adoption. In this episode of our podcast, Molly Reckinger describes her many experiences, insights and surprises while searching in China for her birth parents, a trip she chronicled by video for her senior research project. And one of the most interesting surprises may have been the first question local people asked her, once they understood she was searching for her birth mother and father - WHY? Also, Lisle ..read more

Are adoptees from China lucky? Should they feel thankful to their adoptive parents? In this episode, award-winning author and Financial Times international correspondent Patti Waldmeir relates some of her experiences and personal reactions living for eight years in Shanghai with her two daughters who were adopted from China, much of which she chronicled, sometimes with self-deprecating humor and sometimes with painful honesty, in her book, Chinese Lessons: An American Mother Teachers Her Children How to be Chinese in China. During her time in China, she interviewed locals from a wide variety o ..read more

Chinese people may not, at first, react in the same way to a Chinese adoptee as they might when they meet a white Westerner. Is there anything about an obviously foreign-looking white adoptive parent and a very Chinese-looking adoptee traveling together that might be either helpful or problematic when trying to undertake a birth family search in China?  Olivia Wolf, a writer for AsAmNews (Asian American News), recently traveled to China together with her adoptive father to do some research on her family background there, and we talk with Olivia about the cultural and practical implication ..read more

Cornelia, one of the organizers of a very creative online search project, explains how 73 adoptive families and adoptees have gone about creating and promoting a video on Chinese social media to try to reach birth family members from Guangxi Province. She also shares some of her own personal adoption and search history, including a reunion with the birth mother of her second adopted child from Ethiopia, and she offers advice for others considering a similar search attempt in China. Iris, Ricki and Lisle consider the possibilities for success on a video platform, and they also wonder about poss ..read more

We take an honest look at truth and fiction in adoption records from China, and we consider one perspective of the possible impact of child trafficking on international adoption. Brian Stuy explains how his service business, Research-China, came to be and how it has been able to assist thousands in the China adoption community to uncover difficult to get background data on orphanages, finding ads, finding sites and other valuable information of great interest to adoptees and adoptive families, as well as to provide matching support for hundreds of birth families in China. We discuss how the po ..read more

Ming Foxweldon shares her many and varied experiences trying to locate her birth parents in China, Ricki chimes in with commentary and Iris reads stories of successful family reunions inside China. Although in the end, Ming did not locate her birth family, her story is a long rollercoaster ride of success, failure and determination, full of examples of how she learned what to do and what not to do, and she sums it all up with valuable advice for adoptees. Ricki Mudd compares something of Ming’s experience to her own, and she offers her thoughts about the emotional sensitivity surrounding a sea ..read more