Once they sent the “stab in the heart” letter on April 8, 1999, we turned to our attorney and stopped trying to communicate directly with the agency. Through him, we tried to find out what happened to the referral – Did the agency have it? Did they return it to China rejected? It was addressed to US, and it required our signature of acceptance or rejection. We had heard about children who were rejected. An orphanage (called welfare institute in China) invested some money in submitting the paperwork of an orphan to the central office in Beijing, so if the child was rejected, they might not have a second chance.

As I said, we proposed a way for the agency to let us complete the adoption by releasing the referral or giving it to us and letting us travel with our own guide. Their attorney wrote a letter to us insisting that our proposal was ILLEGAL in China, and insulting to the Chinese authorities. Since we knew this was a lie, we urged our attorney to speak frankly with their attorney. In his letter, he said they only wanted to discuss the terms of our quitting the adoption. We refused to do that.

There were some possibilities at this point, and some things that were not, although you might think so. One suggestion was to go to a judge and get a court order for them to give us the referral. Our attorney, well versed in the ways of judges here, said that no judge would rule against an adoption agency. No one wanted to be the judge that gave a child to an unqualified family, and the agency held ALL the power.

Now, you might think that there is some state bureau that regulates adoption agencies. In fact, they do little, and will only investigate after the fact of a failed adoption or problem, not in the middle of a situation like ours. They also did not keep records of previous lawsuits – because I learned of people who had sued this agency in the past.  The licensing bureau performed inspections of agencies every couple of years, and those included important information like whether or not the agency used proper rules of order in their meetings.Seriously. There might be a count of how many adoptions were complete and how many did not complete, but no information about what happened to the families involved.

So, once the agency knew we were not going to slink away quietly, they insisted that to continue, we had to have a psychological evaluation. I know you are thinking, “For a contract dispute?” Yes, and it got “better.” We had to meet with the director and an assistant, in their office, WITHOUT our attorney present. This meant that everything we said or did there could be twisted into declaring we were unfit to adopt, and we would have no recourse at all.

Why did they insist on this meeting? Their attorney basically said that we had to “kowtow to the Adoption Goddess.” We were judged to be insufficiently obedient. So many families are afraid to challenge any rule – they do not see themselves as consumers of a service. It is sadly true that agencies are tempted to see themselves as all-powerful beings that “bestow” children on desperately grateful families.

So, with the long-shot hope that if we stayed calm and reasonable in the meeting, they might release our referral, we agreed to go without our attorney. For insurance, we first had a psychological evaluation done by another adoption professional, so if the agency DID claim we were nuts, we would at least have an alternate opinion.

I could go on and on about the meeting, because when I left I immediately wrote notes of some of the highlights for our attorney. They insisted that there was NO referral. The agency director looked me in the eyes and whined, “When I sent you that letter [putting our adoption on hold] why did you call a lawyer? Why didn’t you call ME?” I had to reach deep inside to stay centered to tell her that, in fact, I had never MET her, although she was making a judgment on my emotional readiness to travel, and this was a business matter. She did not seem to comprehend anything we said.

She still insisted that we have a psychological evaluation, from HER choice of psychologist who SHE called – did not even give us the phone number, so she would have the opportunity to “discuss” us with the evaluator. Again, we were not stupid and this sounded like yet another trap to find something wrong with us, but as we had already passed one evaluation paid on our own nickel, we agreed.

We passed, and the person who evaluated us promised to recommend that the adoption be completed as soon as possible. It was now early summer, 1999 and we seemed to be going nowhere. My husband had reached his limit.  I was not in good shape – I had insomnia so much I got bronchitis, and people who knew we were adopting just backed away and did not know what to say to us. To say I was the angriest woman in North Carolina was not an exaggeration. Still, we were determined to fight on.