China Ghosts

by Jeff Gammage

"After eighteen years together, Christine and I are down to our last hour as a couple. By dinner we will be a threesome. It seems strange to stand so firmly atop a generational fault line, to know that in an hour you'll be a parent, to understand that your old life is disappearing before your eyes, that a new one is about to begin. . . ."Aching to expand from a couple to a family, Jeff Gammage and his wife, Christine, embarked upon a journey that would carry them across a shifting landscape of emotion—excitement, exhilaration, fear, apprehension—and through miles of red tape and bureaucratic protocol, to a breathtaking land on the other side of the world where a little girl waited. When they met Jin Yu, a silent, stoic two-year-old, in the smog-choked city of Changsha in Hunan Province, they realized that every frustrating moment of their two-year struggle was worth it. But they also realized that another journey had only begun. Now there was much to experience and learn. How do you co