Writing from personal experience as adoptive parents or professionals working with adoptive families, the authors discuss such topics as:
-the waiting period
-the adoption journey
-settling in as a new or expanded family
-specific issues of health and development for children adopted from China
-the special challenges and rewards of adopting children over age one
-single parenting through adoption
-perspectives on China and international adoption
-culture, language, identity, and race
-going back to our children's birth country
-thinking about birth parents
and other adoption issues.
Proceeds from the book benefit the Amity Foundation and the Foundation for Chinese Orphanages-two charitable organizations providing medical care, foster care, and other services to improve the lives of children living in China's orphanages.
Amy Klatzkin is a book editor specializing in Chinese studies, a member of the board of the San Francisco Chinese Culture Foundation, and a contributing editor to Adoptive Families Magazine. She and her husband adopted their daughter Ying Ying in Changsha, Hunan province, in January 1994. An invaluable resource for any family who has adopted or is planning to adopt from China, A Passage to the Heart gathers together more than one hundred articles published over the past few years in the regional newsletters of the leading Chinese-adoption support group, Families with Children from China, and similar organizations across the United States, Canada, and Britain.