Talking Terminology... "China Doll"

Occasionally people make reference to our (future) daughter as our China Doll. They say things like “I bet you can’t wait to bring home your China Doll.” Or “She’ll be such a China Doll.” And I know people are well meaning when they say this, and I also know they have probably never considered that what they are saying can be offensive to Asian women (generally) and as such this not a term that is (generally) used in the China Adoption community.

Why is ‘China Doll’ such an offensive term? Historically the term China Doll was used to describe Asian prostitutes. The ‘China Doll’ stereotype insinuates that Asian women are hypersexual, submissive, exotic, feminine, and eager to please white males. According to author Sheridan Prasso, the China doll stereotype and other variations of this submissive stereotype exist in American movies: Geisha Girl/Lotus Flower/Servant/China Doll: Submissive, docile, obedient, reverential (including Asian men as effeminate, servile); Vixen/Sex Nymph: Sexy, coquettish, manipulative; tendency toward disloyalty or opportunism; Prostitute/Victim of Sex Trade/War/Oppression: Helpless, in need of assistance or rescue; good-natured at heart (from: www.answers.com/topic/stereotypes-of-asians).

Using the word ‘doll’ is also a term that objectifies women as an object instead of a human.

I personally don't take offence when people use this term, I know it is generally meant to be a cutesy kinda nickname - and given we haven't shared what our daughter's name will be with many people, sometimes I think they don't really know how to refer to her. But I also think putting this explanation 'out there' is important. As prospective adoptive parents of a child from another country and culture - I feel we have a responsibility to educate not only ourselves but people who will be in our daughter's life.

Welcome beautiful girl...

My beautiful new niece - Lauren. Welcome sweetheart xxx

P.S. - I can't wait to see you and your cousin playing together. Or perhaps with the current China wait times - you could babysit for us?!

How cool does this look...

We have a structure!

Of course it could only happen to us. We live in an area that has been quite severely affected by the drought. Our rivers have dried up, people have sold their livestock and we are carting water from the main town to our house every 2 weeks to fill our water tanks. And the week we were scheduled to have our slab poured - it rained, and rained and rained. We got about 50mm in the space of three days. The issue was not so much pouring the slab in the rain, but getting the concrete trucks up to the block - which is at the end of 15km of dirt road - without them getting bogged.

But here we are and not only now do we have a slab - but we have a house frame! Now its getting exciting.

The formwork and plumbing.

The slab from the west side of the house.

The frame goes up. Looking at the west side of the house.

The frame at sunset! Standing in the family room looking toward the Home Theatre Room, Rumpus Room and Main Bedroom.

Front of the house.

Once upon a time...

Now we have actually started building - it's interesting to look at where we were a year ago. We have had our land for about 2 years but only got serious about building a house on it this time last year...

So we chose a house site (not easy to do on 200 acres)...


And we cleared the land (yep - that's me!)...


And then we had a great idea. "Let's live on our land in a Big Red Bus (sundeck and all)..." so we moved in!


And even though we had no electricity and no running water we had a great time and we became very creative...

And then winter came... and in our part of Australia - it gets COLD...

And even Gerry the Wallaby looked cold...

And the dogs said... "bugger this we're outta here..."

And we merrily moved back to the house down the street. THE END.

The road less travelled...

This has been something on my mind for a while. And it's really an attempt by me to answer why... Why us? Why me?

Infertility is a crisis. A crisis for a couple and a crisis for both a man and a woman. I don't think this crisis can really be understood by anyone who has not 'been there'... Close your eyes and imagine for just one moment... how it feels to find the love of your life, that someone who is so like you in every way... someone who is your best friend... someone who loves you for who you are... someone who you want to share everything life has to offer... someone with who you plan your life together - talk endlessly about your dreams: getting married, buying a house, travelling the world, having a family.

But having a family doesn't happen. Not the way it seems to happen for everyone else. We love each other, we are young, we are healthy, we are good people. But we are not fertile. Why aren't we fertile? What have we done to deserve this? All we want is to be parents. To have a child together. Why can't we? What have I done? What have we done?

We don't know and the answer is probably nothing... we haven't done anything. We are just on the road less travelled.

Shane and I tried to fall pregnant for about 8 months until we sought 'help'. We thought given we were only in our late 20's that we would pop some pills and voila - 9 months later we would have Baby E. Well 5 IVFs later... including one ectopic pregnancy and the removal of one of my fallopian tubes... I could not face any more... and to be honest what I couldn't face was the look on my husband's face when I told him, once again, I had my period.

We needed a break from the appointments, the injections, the pain and the disappointment. I needed some relief.

We turned to adoption pretty quickly. Interestingly, we had always talked about International Adoption as being one way we would form our family... we had always said 4 children, 2 biological, and 2 through Intercountry Adoption. We had discussed this even before we knew having biological children would be difficult for us. It very quickly became an obvious choice for us to become a family.

And suddenly we were faced with 'when' not 'if'.

We seem to have always been on a road less travelled. We got married in solitude on a beach in the Whitsunday Islands of Queensland, Australia (read - we eloped). We were so much more interested in being married to one another, than having the cars, and the dress, and the cake and all the attention. We didn't tell anyone we were married until a week after the fact - including our parents.

Our friends travel to Europe or Asia and stay in 5 star hotels. Our preferred trips are to remote places living 6 weeks on the back of a truck - sleeping under the stars in sleeping bags.

We buy 200 acres and move to drought ridden Australia to start the life we have talked about for as long as we have known each other... building a country homestead in a small, country town where everyone knows our name.

... And we apply to the People's Republic of China to entrust us with one of their precious daughters (or sons... I have always thought that our road less travelled will bring us to one of China's sons - and of course we would be thrilled).

The wait is much longer than we anticipated... we will be first time parents at an older age than we thought we would be. But we are living the life that I know was laid out for us. We are living a life that only a few get to live... we are living the road less travelled. And I am grateful.

Lisa xxx

Eleven...

In the famous words of Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel "this one goes to eleven."

So here we are 11 months logged into the systems in CCAA. To date CCAA have allocated children to families logged in to November 1 2005. We are not yet in the review room - April 06 seem to be in Review at this stage and who knows how far we are from receiving any news of our child?

Until then we have a house to build and will post updated photos when we have them. Fortunately (or unfortunately for us) we have had a small break in the drought here in Gundaroo - but that has meant we are delayed in our house building. We hope to have the slab poured this week - and we can't wait! After 2 years of nothing - getting a slab will be fantastic.

Cheers to all our fellow 06.06.06 LIDers.

Lisa & Shane xxx