It’s been nearly 10 years since I adopted my daughter, Eleni. Since then, so many things have changed. The adoption restrictions in China have tightened. My “baby” has grown immeasurably, having morphed from a curious, wide-eyed infant into a strong, athletic, confident preteen. I have a decade of parenthood behind me, making me tougher, more compassionate, more forgiving, and more in love than I’ve ever been. I have learned that motherhood is an art, both surprisingly simple and complex.

Shortly after I returned from China, I wrote the essay below. In it, I reflected on Eleni’s birth mother, a woman whom I’d never met. One morning, years ago, she made a decision that would change her life, and my own, forever. While I don’t often find time to think of her lately, I do owe Eleni’s first mother a debt of gratitude. She gave me a child who is hard-wired to be cheerful, resilient, kind, smart, and sporty. I’ve provided the structure, the love, and the opportunity for my daughter to thrive. In a sense, she and I have had a mystical, long-distance partnership that has shaped Eleni into the wonderful child she has become. One decade later, I can simply say to her birth mom, “Thank you. We’ve done great.”

About six months after I returned home from China with my adopted daughter, Eleni, I dreamed of her birth mother. It was a brief dream that allowed me just a glance of a young woman’s face, but it moved me nonetheless. As the adoptive mother of a baby from China, I know little of my daughter’s past. I know that she was born sometime around December 5, 1998, and that several days later, she was abandoned at the gates of the Changsha Social Welfare Institute-a state-run orphanage near the Yangtze River. I know that Eleni, who was named Du Xue Jing by orphanage officials, spent the first months of her life sharing a bamboo crib with another baby and playing in a room filled with colorful mats and toys. And I know that she was given rice and hot milk and was nurtured by a staff of loving caregivers.When I adopted Eleni, at 8 ½ months of age, last summer, it was apparent that she had been cared for. But the question of her family-and the mother who bore her-remained a mystery. Like Eleni, thousands of baby girls are abandoned each year in China, often in the darkness of early morning. Their parents, who must adhere to a one-child-per-family rule, have most likely abandoned them in an effort to conceive a son. (For thousands of years, Chinese sons have been expected to care for their elderly parents, while daughters are expected to marry and care for their husband’s family.)

Because of the situation in China and the circumstances surrounding Eleni’s adoption, I will never know her birth mother, nor will she know me. But as a mother myself now, I can barely imagine the pain and conflict Eleni’s birth mother must have felt when choosing to give up her daughter-or the joy and magic I would have missed if she hadn’t.

A Brooklyn Baby

Eleni, at 17 months, is an integral part of my life now. She toddles around our Brooklyn neighborhood, happily and systematically making friends. She loves the park, her books, and all things American-particularly Cheerios and our TV’s remote control-and she has made it quite clear to everyone that I am her mom. (She began her campaign in earnest with various, expressive forms of “Ma!” soon after we arrived home from China.)

For my part, I marvel at the distinctions-and the similarities-between us. I am 43, with a strong Mediterranean heritage. Eleni, a mere fraction of my age, hails from the province of Hunan. According to the Chinese calendar, I was born in the Year of the Monkey; Eleni is a Tiger through and through. But like me, my daughter is dramatic (I’ve often dubbed her my “Mediter-Asian” girl), and like me, she has a spirit of compassion and adventure. We share the same jokes, an affinity for Pat the Bunny and Goodnight Moon, and a fondness for baseball and pasta. After the months of red tape and bureaucracy that preceded Eleni’s adoption, I find it remarkable that the two of us-kindred spirits-were given to each other in this world.
A Life-Changing Decision

Unlike so many mothers, including my own, I came to motherhood later in life, and on a path that was somewhat circuitous. I was 41 when I decided to adopt a baby from China-on my own. In retrospect, I was driven first and foremost by my desire to become a mother, whether I was married or not. And second, I was moved deeply by the fate of the girls in China.

In the winter of 1998, I began my journey to motherhood. I joined a national support group called Families With Children From China; found an agency that would help me facilitate a Chinese adoption; began the long, convoluted process of collecting personal and official documents that would eventually go to Beijing; reorganized my home for a baby; and did a lot of soul-searching.

Many nights I lay awake wondering whether I was doing the right thing, and pondering whether I had the capacity to be a single mother. I told myself I could always turn back and withdraw my application for adoption, but in my heart I knew my decision had been sealed. In August 1999, I flew to Changsha, China, and after many months of anxious waiting and wondering, I met my baby daughter.
Two Mothers, Two Worlds

So much of what happened during our first days together-in China and in transit-remain a blur to me now, partly because of the emotion I felt and partly because my daughter had fallen ill. About 24 hours after I adopted her, Eleni spiked a 104° fever that lasted two days and began a bout of diarrhea that lingered for nearly two weeks. Her illness turned out to be nothing more than a virus (as I learned upon my return to America), but it presented me with my first test of motherhood. In hotel rooms in Changsha, Guangzhou, and Shanghai, and on a long international flight, I comforted a sleepless baby-and slowly nurtured her back to health.

In the months since Eleni and I have been a family, I have been given even more tests of motherhood. I have stayed up nights when my daughter has been sick or restless. I have fought back tears of exhaustion after a long day of work and baby care. I have agonized over my choice of caregivers. But motherhood, I’m learning, is a process that changes from day to day, as quickly as my growing daughter. It’s a place where I can make mistakes and be forgiven, and a place that offers strength and pride and confidence. And nine months into my role as Eleni’s mom, I can safely say that motherhood has little to do with biology or a shared family tree, and much more to do with the love and experiences that two people share.

On my final day in China last August, I was boarding a flight for New York City. I was tired, relieved, and overcome with emotion. As Eleni lay sleeping in my front pack, a Chinese worker came up to me, placed his hand on my back, and said: “You know, you’re giving her a life.” In hindsight, I believe he was right. Eleni and I share a day-to-day world filled with music, dancing, and laughter. I am there for her when she cries, and when she achieves each momentous milestone. But I know that her life-her destiny-has been shaped, too, by the woman who bore her, and by the decision she made many months ago on a cold December morning in China.

* This article originally appeared in American Baby magazine (May 2000).

Laura Broadwell is a writer and editor in Brooklyn, New York. She has written for national magazines and web sites, and was previously the author of the Single Parent column of Adoptive Families (adoptivefamilies.com). She also wrote “Raising Eleni: An Adoptive Mother’s Journal,” a weekly, year-long column for BabyCenter.com.