My three daughters were all adopted from China at older ages.  Despite the immense losses each of them have carried, they have loved me and accepted my affection and care without question.

It doesn’t mean they have not hurt inside or pushed back at me.  But they have called me Mama from the get-go and always reached out when they needed me.

My second daughter has a different story.  We found her family early on.  Her life in a state-run orphanage in the historical city of Nanjing ended at age 7 when I flew there to get her.  I presumed she had been one of countless abandoned infants and spent many years with her orphaned peers.

I met Jiawen on an unusually warm evening in March, 1999.  Although the flight was predictably excruciating, I was ecstatic.  I was pulsing with adrenalin and I felt very confident, having done this the year before.  I spoke Mandarin, and China was no longer a wildly foreign place.  […]