Interview with Virginia Walthour, HIST 150, Spring 2023, Conducted by Caroline Walthour, March 20th, 2023.
Overview to Interview:
The “One Child” policy Act has contributed to a total of 47,501 Chinese adoptees from 1988 to 2004 in America due to how one daughter was typically accepted by families, but a second daughter was frequently left abandoned. I researched adoption agencies in America verses China, and I wrote about their adoption processes below. The Chinese agency’s travel department will manage all of the family’s travel arrangements. Families usually travel to China about 2-3 months after receiving a recommendation and remain for about two weeks to finish the China adoption procedure.
My parents adopted me in March 2005 due to my mom’s infertility from radiation and chemotherapy from childhood cancer. She describes the many details of the adoption process she and my dad went through and what it was like to raise a transracial family. We discussed how her original motherhood outline didn’t go exactly as planned but shaped her life for the better. There had been another interview called Adopted Asian American Immigrant that was from an adoptee’s perspective, so I decided to make my interview from the point of view of a parent of an adopted child. There is another interview called Evolution of Family Structure and Adoption which talks about infertility from a young age and adoption.
Biography
Virginia Walthour was born in November 1970 in Alexandria, VA. She was the youngest of 3. At the age of 15, she developed childhood cancer called Askins’s Sarcoma. She underwent a 6-month protocol treatment and was in remission from the cancer by 1987. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education (Pre-K-4th) at JMU in 1992. She gave birth to her first child, a baby boy, in 2000. She and her husband adopted a baby girl in 2005 from China. At the age of 39, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was in remission from the cancer by 2010. She is now a mother of two and I will be interviewing her about her experience with adoption and transracial families.
Transcript
Caroline Walthour 0:01
Hello, I’m here with my mom, Virginia Walthour. How are you doing?
Virginia Walthour 0:05
I’m good. How are you doing?
Caroline Walthour 0:06
I’m great. Thank you. Today I will be interviewing her about international adoption and transracial families. I’ll just start. Let’s start off with the first question. Okay. Can you describe what it was like growing up as the youngest with an older brother and an older sister and Northern Virginia in the mid 70s and 80s?
Virginia Walthour 0:30
Ah yes. Neither of my parents were originally from Northern Virginia. My father grew up in a small town outside of Chicago. So, he was Midwesterner. And my mom grew up in, basically Inner City, Philadelphia. So, this was a new experience for them living in Northern Virginia. And it was a good experience. I certainly loved having older brother and sister. We were all close, age wise, we were each 19 months apart. So, my mom was home with us and very busy. But it was nice, because it was like having two instant playmates, especially with my sister being only 19 months older than me. And it was nice to be in an area where there was a lot of diversity. So, we went to school with all kinds of different kids from that were different races and different socio-economically than we were. And we enjoyed it.
Caroline Walthour 1:36
All right, that sounds good. And at what point in your life, did you know that you wanted to have kids and how did your siblings affect your decision?
Virginia Walthour 1:46
Like I said, I enjoyed having siblings. My mom was an only child, and my father only had one sister. So I felt like three children in the family was a nice number, even though I thought growing up that I would want to have a bigger family. So I did start babysitting, something called Mothers helping where the mom would actually be there. But I started at age 10, in our neighborhood, and soon, was Mother helping probably four or five families on a regular basis. And then that led into babysitting. And probably as a young teenager, I decided for myself that I wanted to have five children when I grew up and married one day.
Caroline Walthour 2:36
Wow, I didn’t know that. So knowing that you wanted to have kids from a young age, how did your cancer diagnosis and treatment affect your planned life plan?
Virginia Walthour 2:47
It was a difficult time for sure. I was 15 when I had my first cancer. And so I was a sophomore in high school. And it was a very short but intense treatment of six months at NIH (National Institutes of Health). And my parents, of course, did all the decision making for me at that point since I was underage. But I can remember exactly the day and the place where I sat with my parents with his head of pediatric oncology at NIH, and he suggested that they do what was called a total body radiation as part of my treatment, and I think that my parents knew, and I soon learned that that meant that the radiation treatment, obviously max out and kills the bad cells, the cancer cells, but it also means that it would kill the good cells. And so he said, most likely that I would become infertile, like a lot of the cancer patients after having this treatment. And I remember even at age 15, thinking, you know, that’s really awful, because I wanted to have five kids and now being told, I probably will not have any.
Caroline Walthour 4:13
Right, of course. And how did this knowledge of potentially becoming infertile from a cancer treatment affect your future dating relationships?
Virginia Walthour 4:24
Oh, it definitely affected them. Because basically, for 13 years, I lived with the idea that I would never become pregnant. So prior to meeting your father, my husband Greg, I had dated I think two other guys pretty seriously. Both in college and then out of college and one was very open to the idea of, you know, if we were to get married, this guy would be open to adoption. And the other one was very frank about really wanting to have his own children, his own, you know, blood relatives, if you will. And that was hard to hear. But fortunately, those relationships didn’t work out.
Caroline Walthour 5:18
Of course, yeah. So when you got married to my dad, how did you feel when you became pregnant, and you gave birth to a happy, healthy baby?
Virginia Walthour 5:30
That was a wonderful time. Because, of course, I was thinking that we would not be able to get pregnant. So we saw some doctors and the doctors suggested that we just do your normal things to get pregnant. So we did not opt for any kind of fertility treatments. But I do remember the day that I was told that I was pregnant, it was over the phone, a nurse with the practice that we were seeing, had called me to ask some questions before I went in for bloodwork, and then she said, “Wait a second, let me go look at your blood results again.” And then she came back to the phone and she said, “Virginia, are you sitting down?” I said, No, I am. And she said, “You’re pregnant.” And I said, “What what do you mean!”, I just couldn’t believe those words were coming out. To me, but it was a very exciting day. And it was fun to share with Greg about that.
Caroline Walthour 6:40
That’s amazing. So can you describe what shaped your decision to adopt when you were able to carry one previously?
Virginia Walthour 6:51
Of course, we were hoping for another pregnancy, we kind of figured, you know, if there was one egg left, and must have been more than one egg. And that’s why we consider the first pregnancy with our son, Mitch, that was certainly a miracle. However, when nothing was happening, when we wanted to have another pregnancy, we decided to go forward with adoption. And you know, the only thing there was choosing a country. And at the time, we actually had neighbors who had adopted two children from Colombia. And, you know, I sat with the mom and she went into all the details of how that transpired. And, you know, is a happy ending to their story with a son and a daughter, happy and healthy. And we also had friends who had adopted from China. So basically made up a plus minus list of each of the countries. And I think the deciding factor was, I was quite interested in Colombia, most likely, mostly because you can adopt a baby at a very young age, compared to other countries. And my husband was more concerned about the the drug issues going on in Colombia. And the fact that we would have to transplant our family over there to live for, I believe, six weeks. And we were concerned about doing that, mostly for the safety of us and our son Mitchell at the time. So we decided to go with China. And I was very happy at that point.
Caroline Walthour 8:42
All right. So what made you shy away from American adoption, or, you know, domestic adoptions?
Virginia Walthour 8:51
Basically, we had known for quite some time that it was very hard to adopt a Caucasian infant in the States. And we didn’t want to be on a waiting list for a long time. We didn’t want to get too old, if you will, to the old parents. So we went ahead with the International.
Caroline Walthour 9:18
All right, yeah, that sounds good. Can you describe the adoption process such as the paperwork or certification, you know, financially, etc.?
Virginia Walthour 9:28
It was very straightforward. You know, China is very matter of fact. And they really care for their babies, in the sense that they want them to be adopted out to healthy and happy people. So we had a social worker coming to our house for several different occasions, with long lists of questions and scenarios to go over. She came to look at the house to see the environment to meet our son, Mitch, who at the time was about three and a half, probably, when we started the process, she wanted to meet the family cat. At that point, it was just one cat, pumpkin, and go over everything we needed to satisfy the Chinese government saying that we would be good to move forward with the adoption.
Caroline Walthour 10:31
Yeah, of course. So given Mitchell was very young, how did you explain to him, you know, the social worker and that his sister would be adopted?
Virginia Walthour 10:44
Basically, we had been talking to him for a while about how we felt that God wanted us to have another child in our family, and that mommy was not able to get pregnant and carry a baby. So we were going in a different direction with what’s called an adoption. And he already knew some of these family friends, and understood that some of their kids were adopted. And we looked at lots of pictures, especially of adoptions from China, and our our agency’s website. And so, Mitchell understood that his sister would look different from the rest of us. But I think that oftentimes, when you expose children, especially at a young age, the more open they are, to different races and ethnicity.
Caroline Walthour 11:42
Of course. So what were some of the differences when you were raising an adopted child versus your own biological child, you know, in a home environment or in public?
Virginia Walthour 11:54
I don’t think we found there to be many differences, of course, with a child that a family adopts with the same background, race, ethnicity. I think in some ways, it’d be harder, because if the child looks like a couple, then the child may be surprised to hear that they’re adopted. But because we’re adopting you from China, and knowing that we had no Asian blood in us, we knew that it was going to be transparent to everyone that would meet our family, that you would have been adopted. So that part in some ways made it easier. I think the only I don’t even know if it’s a difficulty, but challenge, I would say, would have been when some of our family friends’ children were at the house. I know you and I both remember one instance, where a little girl who was just a little older than you, I think a year older, just came right out and said, “Why don’t you look like your parents.” And I think she was maybe the age of seven or eight. And so maybe you were a year younger. I was right there in the room. And so I was able to, you know, handle it the best I could. But I think what was most difficult was what she said in front of you, which was after I answered her questions, she said, “Well, I wouldn’t never want to be adopted by another family and taken away from my parents.” And I remember thinking when she left, I was gonna have kind of that conversation left to clean up with you. But I think we handled it okay. And you know, it all worked out. But those were far less of the situations that we had to deal with. We certainly never had to deal with any kind of negativity or animosity from adults.
Caroline Walthour 14:17
Right. Of course. So also, how did your relationships with the other parents from my adoption group contribute to you know, the whole experience overall?
Virginia Walthour 14:29
It was a great experience. Um, we’ve found an adoption agency in Colorado. And There ended up being 14 different families, including ours, who adopted baby girls from China. And they were from all over the US. I think the closest family was from upstate New York. But what was really great, you know, with the internet, and you know, emails and I don’t think we were texting quite yet. But just staying in touch with those families, we were able to, you know, share some of the challenges we may be having, or the successes and just the joys of adoption with them. And then we were also able to meet up with families. A couple, just one on one and then other times through, like many reunions after we’ve had the girls home for a year, you know, five years, ten years. So that was really helpful.
Caroline Walthour 15:37
Yeah, that’s great. Yeah, I remember some of those. Well, um so thank you for being here with me today.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Research
According to a peer-reviewed article by Anita M. Andrew describes how the “One Child” policy has contributed to a total of 47,501 Chinese adoptees from 1988 to 2004 in America. She emphasized how one daughter was typically accepted by families, but a second daughter was frequently left abandoned which allowed American singles and couples to adopt those children from China. She informs how the Chinese government-imposed conditions on these adoptions, including the need for travel to China, a two-week stay to complete the adoption process, a monetary donation to the orphanage, and vows to the Chinese government regarding the child’s welfare.
America World is a China adoption organization that has helped over 4,600 families bring their children to their home country. The agency describes the three main stages for adoption in China. The first stage of adoption in China entails assembling a collection of documents called a dossier. These papers must go through several levels of authentication by US government offices before they can be used as the legal framework for your adoption procedure. This period is known as the “paper chase” or “paper pregnancy,” and it typically lasts 4-6 months. After the CCCWA receives your dossier, you enter stage two of the Chinese adoption process, the waiting stage. The referral procedure refers to the process of connecting a family with a child. Several photographs, a medical description, a short description of the child’s life, a developmental and social report, and other basic information are included in the recommendation. During the waiting period, you can do study to prepare for bringing your child home (China culture, connecting time with your adopted child, etc.), speak to adoptive families for tips and ideas, fundraise to help with adoption costs, and generally prepare for your new addition. After you receive your referral, they will start planning the details of your trip, which is the third and concluding step of your China adoption procedure. Their travel department will manage all of your family’s travel arrangements. Families usually travel to China about 2-3 months after receiving a recommendation and remain for about two weeks to finish the China adoption procedure.
Gladney Adoption Center started in 1887. They help American families adopt a child domestically. They have certain requirements for eligibility to adopt such as Minimum two years of marriage, openness (specifically to the characteristics of children available), must live in the U.S., one parent has to be a U.S. citizen, etc. I thought this website will help compare and contrast American adoption and Chinese adoption.
Bibliography
Andrew, Anita M. “China’s Abandoned Children and Transnational Adoption: Issues and Problems for U.s.-China Relations, Adoption Agencies, and Adoptive Parents.” Journal of Women’s History, Johns Hopkins University Press, 21 Mar. 2007, https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/211693.
“America World Adoption.” America World Adoption, 26 July 2021, https://awaa.org/adopt/adoption-programs/china/overview/.
“Gladney Center for Adoption.” Adoption.org, https://adoption.org/adopt-a-baby.
Reflection
When I interviewed my mother, I learned more details about her story that I didn’t know before. She told me some parts of her story in more depth when the audio wasn’t recording. I felt a little more connected to her story than before. I have more knowledge about the events that led up to my adoption story. My mom was very patient with me and let me record the audio twice. I enjoyed the opportunity to have a conversation with her about some of her experiences from her point of view.