Adoption Column 1

Copyright, Stephens Media

Mark Buffalo is the sports editor for the Cabot Star-Herald, Carlisle Independent and Lonoke Democrat, which are members of Stephens Media’s Central Arkansas Newspapers. He and his wife Linda, who is a teacher at Lonoke Middle School, will be adopting a 2-year-old girl from China, who will be named Mary Elisabeth. They are scheduled to travel in the middle of September.

 By Mark Buffalo

About four years ago, my wife Linda and I knew we wanted a family. We had been married more than five years and we wanted a child to call our own. We decided to go the adoption route and did a lot of research on different avenues of adoption.

We thought about domestic adoption first since we are both American and possibly would want a child who “looked like us.” But with horror stories about those types of adoptions falling through, we looked at international adoption. We didn’t know at the time that China would be where we would eventually end up adopting from.

One night while eating dinner at Chili’s in North Little Rock, we saw a little Asian girl, who appeared to be Chinese, running up and down the aisle. She was corraled by what looked to be her American parents. At that moment, Linda and I looked at each other and we knew how we where going to get our family...from China!

We did some research on international adoption and came across a company called America World Adoption, which is based in Virgina. In January 2006, America World was having a seminar at a church in Arkadelphia. So, we woke up early and drove there from our home in Lonoke. When we got there, we heard from a family who had used America World for their adoption and we spoke with several people, including a social worker from Conway (more about him in a later column).

While driving home we decided to go with America World even though there are several good companies out there that are closer to Arkansas. We felt like America World was the one we wanted. It is a faith-based company, which felt good to both of us.

Once Linda got through with school that year, we found ourselves a church, one that fit what we wanted to be and how we wanted to raise our child. We joined Palm Street Church of Christ in Lonoke and we were both baptized. That was an awesome day for both me and Linda as well as our families. Not long after our baptisms, we filled out an on-line application for America World, submitted a family portrait and paid our $250 application fee.

Linda got ready for the start of school and I got ready for the start of football season. Later in 2006, the Chinese government passed new regulations on international adoptions which went into effect in May 2007. Those regulations would have essentually knocked us out of consideration for adoption but at the time, I thought since we were in the program with America World that those would not apply to us. Boy was I wrong.