The below link gives fantastic information about the changes in Chinese adoptions.
Feel free to cut/ paste the link. I've included one excerpt that may help our family and friends understand why Todd and I MUST be the ONLY ones to care for Sophie's needs when she arrives home.
http://chinaadoptiontalk.blogspot.com/2010/07/amy-eldridge-of-lwb-speaks.html
...Finally, Amy talked about orphanage conditions that adoptive families need to be aware of, so they can understand some of the issues their children may face.
First, as to attachment, adoptive parents need to be aware that children may have had numerous changes in caretakers. A child might spend time with birth parents, especially since there's been an increase in
older-child abandonment in China.(
Sophie spent the first year with her birth parent) Then the child might spend time with the person who found her, who thought she might keep the baby before the neighbors or extended family said she wouldn't be allowed to.So the child is turned over to the police, who might keep the child for a few days before turning the child over to the orphanage.
(Sophie spent an entire year at the police station before being taken to the orphanage, according to her paperwork.) The child might be in quarantine for a month at the orphanage who is trying to avoid the spread of HIV or Hep C. Then the child enters the young infant room, and then in a few months to the older infant room, and then the toddler room or foster care. And the child in foster care may be returned to the orphanage for two weeks before the adoptive parents come. With a special needs child who might have had hospitalizations and/or surgeries, the child would likely be alone at the hospital through all of this.
(Sophie had surgery in 2005...at 4 years old.) The orphanage can't spare the nanny who might have been the primary caregiver, so they might send a groundskeeper to take the child to the hospital and then leave her alone. In Chinese medicine, there is a great reluctance to give children pain medication, so post-operative time will be painful and scary for a child alone.
All of this affects attachment.
Second, children may have feeding issues. Overcrowded orphanages don't have the time to hand-feed children, so bottles are propped and often boiling hot. Solid food is beyond the resources of the orphanage, and most orphanages can't afford meat. Newborns might wait 5-6 hours between feedings. Infants might wait 12 hours. There won't be between-meal snacks for toddlers or older children. Children are often hungry all the time, never feeling full. From this, you can expect aversion to certain food textures, no ability to suck, food hoarding, gorging, no off-switch when eating because no feeling of being full.
Third, children might experience "irrational" fears that aren't so irrational after all. They would often be alone in the dark at night, with only a skeleton orphanage staff on hand. There might be bugs and rats in the dark. Fear of the dark, of thunderstorms, of animals, of bugs, are not irrational fears for these children.
Adoptive parents can't know what their children experienced in the orphanage, so must be understanding of these fears.
