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Photograph by George Sakkestad

Proud parents Steve and Cheryl Kellond play with their 10-month-old daughter, Anna. The couple worked with a nonprofit international adoption agency to find their new child in China.

Long wait pays off--Kellonds get their China doll

Saratoga family has new daughter, Anna

By Jason Sweeney

Steve and Cheryl Kellond decided to adopt a baby. Cheryl could give several rational, logical reasons for how they came to that decision, but what it really came down to was a gut feeling.

"I literally woke up one morning and said, 'Honey, our daughter is in China and we have to get her,' " Cheryl said. "That emotional level is what drove the whole process."

A year after they began working with a nonprofit international adoption agency based in Los Altos, called ACCEPT, Steve and Cheryl brought home their new daughter, Anna, a 10-month-old from China.

Steve, an architect, and Cheryl, who works in product management for Adobe Systems Inc., moved to Saratoga with their three sons in 2004. "We knew that our family wasn't necessarily complete," Steve said. "We were contemplating what to do. There are a whole lot of kids in the world that need a home. We really felt like there was an opportunity for our family to do something great. It felt like the right thing to do."

They began the adoption process on Jan. 4, 2005. They gathered the necessary documents, finishing all the required paperwork in six weeks. Then came a yearlong waiting game.

As they waited for government officials in China to review their adoption package, Cheryl communicated with other potential parents on Yahoo Groups. She followed rumors about law changes and kept track of new parents who had received their referrals. She documented on a blog her thoughts and experiences, and all the ups and downs that came with trying to adopt a child from overseas. Her blog, www.addonechi
nesesister.blogspot.com, developed a following. Readers followed her through the adoption process and posted comments.

"The anticipation was just crazy," Cheryl said. "It was very much like being pregnant. The one thing that was different was that you didn't know when the final date would come. Sometimes it felt open-ended."

After a series of delays, the Chinese government matched Steve and Cheryl with baby Anna.

In February, the couple traveled to China with 16 other families, most of them from Northern California. The group arrived in Changsha, a city of more than 2 million people and the capital of Hunan Province.

"We got a chance to see rural China, agricultural fields and the pretty countryside," Steve said. "It's obviously a developing country in some ways. But Changsha is actually a fairly big city."

Anna, whose Chinese name is Meiqing, had been left by her parents in an orphanage in a town outside of Changsha. China's one-child policy has caused many Chinese families, especially rural ones, to abandon baby girls in the hopes of having a boy, or because of poverty.

"Their families, for several reasons, can't keep them," Steve said. "It doesn't necessarily mean that Anna's parents didn't love her. Some families cannot afford to keep their babies. The government then tries to take care of them."

According to the ACCEPT website, China's large population has forced its government to consider various social policies aimed at limiting population growth. The government of China enacted a "one child per family" restriction in an attempt to limit that growth. A consequence of the policy has been a significant number of girls abandoned by their parents shortly after birth. The one-child policy has been relaxed in some parts of China, however.

The website states that since opening its doors in 1991, ACCEPT has helped bring more than 1,200 adopted children to the United States from China, Russia, Guatemala, Vietnam, Ukraine, India, Kazakhstan and other countries.

Ann Hillen, executive director of ACCEPT, said 22,728 babies were adopted from other countries and brought to the United States last year. Of those babies, 7,906 were from China.

Hillen said domestic adoptions are most commonly done by negotiating with a birth mother, usually through an attorney. International adoptions, however, are generally done through agencies that work with foreign governments. There are pros and cons to both, Hillen said. "People decide what's best for their family and then go from there."

Hillen, who has two adopted children from Russia, said the Bay Area has a high percentage of adopting couples, mainly because of the affluence and diversity of the area. "It's a very rich and warm environment for adoption," she said.

In late March, Steve and Cheryl returned to Saratoga with Anna. "In hindsight, we know it was the right thing to do, without a doubt," Steve said. "It's quite an experience--the joy that she's brought us and our family, and seeing the joy we've brought to her. She's completely adjusted, and she's happy. She smiles and laughs. It's been quite special."

With their adoption odyssey complete and Anna at home in Saratoga, Cheryl has stopped posting to her blog. "I'd love to keep blogging every day, but I've got four kids and a full-time job," she said.

"The experience has been as equally wonderful as having a child biologically," she said. "It's different but just as wonderful."