Someone made a comment

It was something small, and while I do like to think prior to Katie I would have been offended by it, I'm not sure how offended I would have been. It was a little rude, and it was racist in that the person who made the comment took a physical characteristic of a Chinese person and applied it in an "across the board" kind of way. It was not meant as mean, or mean spirited...but it was a remark made regarding a physical characteristic of a Chinese person. It stung.

The parents made the comment that because their daughter had been squinting a lot lately due to a physical ailment that when she started talking it might be Chinese.

I know they were joking as the Mom told us the context and was laughing about it. But it still stung. It was a reminder of the comments we will get for years to come about Katie. They will come from children and adults. "Does she speak English? Does she speak Chinese? Are you her mother?" I've gotten some already, and luckily Katie is young enough to not notice. She's oblivious. Luckily as my least favorite questions have been asked in her presence, "How much did she cost?" Or "Isn't it expensive to adopt from China?" Yes it is. I don't elaborate, but if they ask how much, I typically reply, about the same as a new car.

That's probably not a good answer, but it does make them OPEN their eyes. They routinely buy new cars, think nothing of it...but to adopt a child it is expensive? I personally find that all the fees we paid to various agencies, travel, and governmental entities were all well worth it. I ALWAYS mention that many of the expenses were for the US government portion as we had to pay for fingerprints, for background checks, for papers to be notarized, authenticated (in triplicate), and had to pay shipping costs to each and every place a paper came from or was going to! Then, we had to pay for a 2 week trip to China AT THE LAST MINUTE with about 1.5 weeks notice! By this point, people are beginning to understand that YES it is expensive, but the fees for the adoption agencies and the in-country fees to the orphanage and such are NOT expensive!