Babies

There were so many different  ways to dissect this article. My mind is still processing. My head hurts! Before we get into it, I have to say this: As a parent, there is nothing I wouldn't do for my babies. I don't agree or disagree with the path these  parents took to get their families. I do understand and empathize. 

Let's get to it.

Adoption, surrogacy, and in-vitro are a few non-traditional methods of creating a family. I would argue that non-traditional births have become traditional in their own way, a part of the fabric of our culture for the current generation.  This article was eye-opening for me. This small sliver of reproduction and parenting was nowhere on my radar.

Chinese parents seeking American surrogates.

The article breaks it down into a few reasons why:
1. Access to an American passport for their child, a valuable ticket to American education and opportunity.
2. Skirting Chinese law restricting number of babies. If you have the babies outside of China, the single child law no longer applies to you!
3. Wanting American genes in hopes their children will have "American" features of blond hair, blue eyes, and tall height.

I cannot even get into the vile comments around illegal citizenship, distorted American values, and a sundry of other ridiculous hate. So I won't. Instead, let's focus on these top three reasons the article identified as values of the Chinese parents who participate in this market.

1. American passport, access, and education
This is why international experiences are crucial to informing and shaping our perceptions. I know I complain about the poor state of our education in this country. I read statistics and watch movies like "Waiting for Superman" and fret over what is to become of our children, why we don't pay our teachers better, and what my role is supposed to  be in it all. Advocate? Change agent? Critic? Supporter? Educator?

But these families are coming from all over the world because they want their children to have an American education. I am dumbfounded. Have they not read the data? Or been in the schools? What information are they getting that leads them to believe an American education is superior to other educations? And if that is so, how much worse is the education in their communities? 

I am guilty of the same behavior. I love me some Finland! I will talk about Finland all day. I actively seek Fulbright opportunities and jobs at the University of Finland. I am Facebook BFFs with the Finland Consulate. Everything I read tells me nothing but wonderful things.  Is the information I'm getting accurate? Or is the Finland Tourism Board decidedly good at their job? 

I understand we take our citizenship for granted. I couldn't cite rhyme and verse every reason an American passport is a benefit, but I understand it does guarantee access and privilege in a way that is unattainable for others countries. 

2. Chinese Law and Single Baby Households
Ellie Chang. My best friend since 5th grade. She went to USC and works for Nestle. Her parents are refugees from Cambodia. Anything I know about Chinese culture, I know from her, her brother, and her parents. Their dining room table was my home away from home. I tried all parts of a duck at her grandmother's hand one Chinese New Year. I love her family. We never asked questions about why her parents left Cambodia for America. I wonder if this law contributed in any way to their decision. 

There are a few exceptions to the law. Twins, multiple marriages, untimely death of a child, and a few others.  When I first learned about it in grade school, I was scared. It was scary to me to think that my government, the people I was supposed to trust, could make such an intimate decision for me. And now we see the impact of these decisions.

The population is aging and there is no one to replace them. Because of the emphasis on boys, there are not enough women to marry sons off to, assuming the son is straight that is. Women are taking advantage of the situation, waiting longer to get married, moving and marrying other non-Chinese,  and asking for huge dowries and lavish weddings. 

If I was in the same situation, what would I do? 

3. "Superior American Genes"
It seems we always want what we don't have. Short people want to be taller. People with long hair want short hair. Thin people want curves and voluptuous people want a thigh gap. Good gracious, can we please love and appreciate what we were given?  

The more pressing issue, is from this rational I draw two conclusions:
1. All Americans are blond, blue-eyed, and tall. When these families think America, they see Barbie.
2. These traits will ensure my children will be successful.

This is where my head started hurting. I cannot wrap my brain around the number of issues with this rationale. And if this is what these families think, then is this the image we put out there to the world? In 2014,  is American still in denial about who is American and what we look like and who is successful? My answer before reading this article was, "Yes". My answer after reading this article was, "Yes and how do we change that?"

The link and full text are below….There are some uber-cute pictures of kids and happy families  :-) 




http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/04/21/305514689/made-in-the-u-s-a-childless-chinese-turn-to-american-surrogates
Chinese couples who are unable to have children are turning to a surprising place for help these days: America. By hiring American surrogates, Chinese couples get around a ban on surrogacy in China, as well as the country's birth limits.

It also guarantees their children something many wealthy Chinese want these days: a U.S. passport.Tony Jiang and his wife, Cherry, live in Shanghai and couldn't have children naturally. First, they turned to underground hospitals in China for surrogacy.

It didn't go well.
Jiang says one of the surrogates ran away."It was almost Chinese New Year's break. She became so homesick so she flew back home," he says. "My wife was just two or three days away from embryo transfer. That was really ridiculous and disappointing."

So Jiang went online and found a fertility clinic in Orange County, Calif. Three years and $275,000 later, Tony and Cherry have a son and two girls, which would have been against the law had they all been born in China.

The couple now works for the clinic, connecting it with Chinese clients, the vast majority of whom suffer from infertility, Jiang says. Others clients have included gay men and heterosexual couples barred from having a second child in China.

Jiang's first clients were a couple — both Communist Party members — who were leaders at a government-owned firm."How could leaders violate this kind of regulation?" he says. "You could be easily laid off if somebody knows you already have two kids."The wife had nearly died giving birth to their first son. The couple did have a second child through surrogacy, who — because he was born overseas — did not violate Chinese law.

Still, they're very cautious about appearances.

"Only their closest friends, relatives, know they have two boys. All their colleagues, leaders, bosses don't know," Jiang says.

 Advantages Of American Surrogacy 
Chinese women routinely fly to the U.S. to give birth so their children can get an American passport and enjoy the benefits that come with it, including clean air and a U.S. education. Birth tourism is so common it provided the plot for a popular movie last year, Finding Mr. Right.

Amy Kaplan is the director of West Coast Surrogacy and West Coast Egg Donation, the fertility clinic that helped and now employs Tony Jiang. She says Chinese surrogacy took off in recent years through word of mouth. Her clinic saw their first Chinese client in 2009. Now, 47 percent of clients waiting for a surrogate are from mainland China, she says.

There are no hard numbers on Chinese surrogacies, but Kaplan figures in California alone there are perhaps several hundred right now.

She says her firm only works with clients who can show a medical need for surrogacy, and not those who just want a passport for their kid. But she says perfectly healthy couples have forged medical records to try to meet the requirements."The surrogates are putting their own health at risk for another person," she says. "And for immigration reasons, to me, that's .... not ethical."For a Shanghai businessman, who gave his English name as Mark, there are other reasons for seeking out a surrogate.

"I know my dream, to have a baby," he says. "For my status, to have a baby is not easy."

What he means by "status" is that he's gay, which is still considered fairly taboo in China. So he went to America to quietly start a family. Last year, he had a daughter, Yifan."When I hold her, look at her, my heart was expanding," he says. "She looks exactly like my mirror image."

Mark, who is 34, chose the U.S. because it gave Yifan a clear, legal identity, including an American passport, which she can use to attend school there in the future.

Like many Chinese his age, Mark is disappointed with China's education system."For Chinese school, you are not allowed to have a free talk. So you just sit there quietly, just passively receiving knowledge," he says. "But in the U.S., it's different. Be more innovative, creative and free spirit."When Yifan reaches high school, Mark plans to move to America and educate her there. 

East Meets West, Clashes Sometimes 

Chinese parents often have specific concerns and novel demands of their American surrogates. At first, Tony Jiang did: "I remember very clear how panicked I was in the first 12 weeks." When his surrogate, a woman in Northern California named Amanda Krywokulsky, was carrying his first daughter, Jiang worried about radiation. Krywokulsky remembers: "Once the pregnancy was confirmed, they had asked about me wearing a lead apron when I used the microwave, which I thought was kind of weird." Jiang says some couples apply the principles of traditional Chinese medicine to pregnancy and childbirth, which clash with American behavior.

"I saw my surrogate when delivering; she was chewing ice," he remembers. "So that's quite weird. Most of my clients don't understand or don't suggest their surrogates to drink icy water during pregnancy because they believe these cold things they drink or eat could arouse miscarriage."

Some of Jiang's clients even tried to have lifestyle provisions written into the surrogacy contracts: Don't eat seafood, don't drink ice water, limit activities in at least the first four weeks. "They say: I will pay your four months' salary if you can [stay on] bed rest four weeks," Jiang says. "People raise these kinds of ridiculous provisions, but finally they understand the situation, and they let it go."Jennifer Garcia, a surrogacy case coordinator with Extraordinary Conceptions in Carlsbad, Calif., says some Chinese clients don't just want American surrogates — they also want American eggs.

"They all say the same thing: tall, blond, blue-eyed and pretty," Garcia says.She says they see an egg from a tall woman as a way to genetically trade up for stature. "In Asian culture, they are a bit shorter; they just want really tall children and strong boys," Garcia says. "And they're thinking the Caucasian girl is stronger and taller, therefore they'll have stronger, taller children."

Garcia and other clinicians expect Chinese demand for American surrogates to continue to grow, even with the recent relaxation of China's population policy.There was a rush to conceive children earlier this year — the Year of the Horse — which, according to the Chinese zodiac, is especially auspicious for boys.
Frank Langfitt is NPR's Shanghai correspondent. You can follow him @franklangfitt./blogs/parallels/2014/04/21/305514689/made-in-the-u-s-a-childless-chinese-turn-to-american-surrogates