A Heavy Load Off My Mind

September 30, 2018

I would like to tell you how the situation was like at the time. We just returned to the home village after migrating to cities for jobs, and my wife was about to give birth. At that time, birth control policy was extremely strict so we rented a house in a remote area. We were so afraid that we would be reported, so we kept the door closed in the daytime and we even did not dare to hang the clothes outdoors. It is impossible to imagine how tough it was for a heavily pregnant women to stay in a house with so little space. 

On the 28th day of January of the lunar calendar, 2004, our second daughter was born. She weighed about 3.2 kilos, with chubby little fingers and toes, chubby legs, and chubby cheeks. She looked like a baby boy and was so cute that everyone liked her. However, as the old saying goes, you can’t wrap fire in paper. The thing we were worried about still happened, and we were reported to be violating the birth control policy. 

When we knew the bad news, we immediately transferred to a safe place at 2 am that day, and the house we rented was surrounded with the country government staff the next day. Since they didn’t find us, the country government then dispatched some staff to move all my electrical equipment and valuable objects away. The government at the time was so bad. We hid ourselves wherever we went as if we had been wanted by the police. The government wanted to capture us because we didn’t obey the policy, which regulated that one can not give birth to a second child unless the first one has been born for at least five years.

Later, a relative of mine suggested giving away the baby, which was firmly rejected by my wife and I. We stopped contact with that relative for several years. However, we were so helpless and had no alternative, so we finally followed his arrangement. We were told that there was a childless couple who were honest and guileless. We were assured that our daughter would be nicely brought up. We finally decided to give the baby to them. One night, we put the baby in their doorway as we agreed on. We waited at a place ten meters away, and didn’t leave until Mei, the wife of the couple, picked our daughter up. Tears coursed down our cheeks and giving away our baby wrenched at our heart.

Finally, we migrated to cities for jobs again, but we didn’t have the mood to do anything. One day, I heard that the government knew that Mei and her husband adopted our daughter illegally and forced them to send the child to the orphanage. Otherwise, they should have suffered the consequence. I was so heart-broken when I heard the news and I hated that I could not do anything to help. I made a phone call to ask my sister to find my daughter, but was told that my daughter was adopted because of her beauty. We had a hard time, we quarreled all the time, and I was always self-condemned.

Now, since our daughter’s whereabouts has been known, we are so happy! We are grateful to all of you for your help. We are grateful to Emma’s U.S. parents, whom it is Emma’s good luck to meet. We are also grateful to Mei and her husband. At present everyone is supposed to be very happy. I am so glad that I have that heavy load off my mind. Well, I would like to stop now.