By Rick Winterson

     Young Chloe Keswani arrived here from China this spring, to the delight of her parents, Claude and Nancy Keswani of F Street.  It took two years, but Chloe, who is a real charmer, was well worth the wait.

     That headline is a rewording of an Ian Fleming book title, but it also happens to be the truth.  And unlike a novel, this story will have its ending right up front. 

     Chloe is 15 months old.  Her first teeth are all in – easy to spot, because she has such a bright smile.  She’s an accomplished toddler, who doesn’t need the parental walking finger any longer.  She’s a snuggler (see the above photo).  And she’s immensely curious about everything new.

     Chloe is a new American citizen as well.  She is able to wrap herself around a large slice of pizza, and she laps up anything that has ice cream in it.  Her birthday is April 14, 2006, so she’ll vote for the first time in the 2028 Presidential election.

     The strands of this happy ending go back many years, in both America and China.  Nancy was prenatally exposed to the hormone DES (di-ethyl stilbestrol), which affected her ability to bear children.  A few years ago, when they married, she and Claude started looking at their options.

     In the meantime, social conditions in China led to a large number of children available for adoption.  Retirement is mandatory at age 55 in China, but networks and benefits for the elderly are lacking.  This means that male children of retirees are responsible for their care and well-being.  China has a very strong tradition of respect for the elderly.

     In addition, China has a rigid system of population control.  One child per family is the rule, except for farming families, which are allowed two.  Unfortunately, all of these factors create a bias in favor of male children.  This results in a large number of female babies available for adoption, especially the second daughters from rural farm families.

     The Peoples Republic of China began a formal adoption program in 1990; 300 babies were adopted that year.  The program has now grown to 12,000 adoptions a year – a large number, but only a small fraction of a nation of 1.3 billion people. 

     Nancy’s mother took a trip to China ten years ago, and told Nancy what she had heard about the adoption program.  In the spring of 2005, Claude and Nancy came to the decision to adopt a Chinese baby.

     Six months of paperwork followed, aided by a local agency that specializes in these matters and other adoptive parents, like Jack and Peggy Flemming on Dorchester Street.  Birth certificates, marriage certificates, fingerprints, letters of application, letters of reference, medical examination records, translations from and into Chinese, and so on and so forth.

     An eighteen-month wait then ensued.  A long wait is usual, because the government of China then takes charge of the process.  Chinese officials carefully perform the actual match between the Chinese baby and the prospective parents from America.  The wait was so long that Claude and Nancy had to resubmit their fingerprints.  Ah, bureaucracy.

     This spring, the Keswanis finally received notice that their baby had been picked, an infant girl named Nan Min Qi (“Jade”) ad nicknamed “Chi-chi”.  They had to accept the government’s selection within 72 hours, and then wait for two months until a group of prospective parents could be gotten together to make the trip to China.  They flew out to Beijing on May 3.

     Their paperwork was perfect.  “It went like clockwork from there”, according to Nancy.  They ended up in the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou (Canton) with many other families, where Chloe and the other children were made U.S. citizens by the American Consul, a truly memorable moment for Claude and Nancy.

     They also remember having Chloe blessed by a Buddhist monk.  As they bowed down during the blessing, they noticed that the monk’s socks were decorated with a Nike “swoosh”.  Hey, it’s a global village out there.

     Both Claude and Nancy praised the adoption process.  It was lot of time and trouble, but they feel that the Chinese officials are honestly trying to find good homes for China’s unwanted children, while avoiding the adoption abuses that have plagued other nations.  In fact, Nancy claims that Chloe looks like her side of the family.  She can already say “Momma” and “bye-bye”, and she truly is a little darling.  A happy ending, indeed.