Acts of Kindness

When she sees infants in China, pediatrician Barbara Rumberger's medical suite is a crowded hotel room, and a flashlight and stethoscope are her main tools. Although the setting is very different from her modern offices on Marco Island, it's instinct and experience-not equipment-that make her a valuable volunteer for China Adoption with Love (CAWLI). In the past year and a half, the Naples resident has made three two-week trips to China with the agency and adoptive parents. There she has been called upon to identify everything from fussiness to serious neurological disorders.

"The families are so happy to have someone along as a resource," says Rumberger, who has practiced medicine for 30 years. CAWLI began as a Massachusetts-based agency placing American couples and Chinese children together. Licensed in Florida, the agency has a nonprofit support group headquartered in Naples. Adoptive parents host get-togethers, hold fund raisers for orphanages in China and encourage potential parents to adopt.

Although she knew little about the group when she made her first trip, Rumberger has particularly embraced this last part of its mission. "There are many, many people in Southwest Florida who would be wonderful families for these kids," she says. Because China limits families to one child, tens of thousands of babies are abandoned each year, most of them girls. Most babies-many left in stadiums, grocery stores or other places where they'll be found quickly-have no identifying information. With no family medical history or notes about prenatal care, and with the birth date in most cases an estimate, CAWLI's policy of taking a doctor on trips is important, Rumberger says.

"Not just a doctor, but an experienced doctor," she adds. CAWLI has physicians from all over United States who travel with the group. One bowed out of an April 2003 journey a week before departure, citing the SARS scare. When an adopting friend told her the trip might be canceled, she volunteered.

"Within 24 hours I was besieged with e-mails from the 12 families, thanking me," she says. The next day, thanks to the agency's connections in China, she had a visa. "By that point, even if I had had second thoughts, there was no turning back," she says.

Rumberger had been to China in 2001 with her surgeon husband, Ed Rumberger. This time, he thought she was crazy for heading straight to the heart of an infectious epidemic. She downplayed his fears, seeing little chance of exposure, but came closer than she would have liked when she accompanied one of the babies to a Bejing hospital, a baby she had recognized as having serious mental retardation. A team of Chinese physicians at the hospital agreed with her diagnosis, and the government-run Central Chinese Adoption Agency matched the family with another infant within a few days.

Supporting the adoptive parents in their decision not to keep the first baby was an anguished but necessary part of her role. "It helps to have an objective voice, because the parents are already emotionally attached," she says. "What I had to say to the mom was, 'We've done her a favor-we've brought her condition to light.' Hopefully, she will get additional services."

Most of Rumberger's experiences have been more routine-curing colds and earaches, and teaching new parents how to comfort a homesick infant. "Imagine you've never had a child," she says. "You're in a hotel in China and someone hands you a baby. My door was open, literally, to the parents."

The adoption process averages about 18 months, with children going to Europe, Australia and other parts of the world as well. The government is "quite blunt" about choosing well-behaved, smart and attractive infants to place overseas, she says. "They want to produce happy families."

But now that it is becoming widely known among citizens that girl babies are being adopted internationally, China has begun a "Treasure Your Daughters" campaign. Rumberger says the government may be worried about the growing imbalance between the numbers of men and women. "There's a dawning awareness that you can't have a future society with only men," Rumberger says.

Rumberger looks forward to returning to China in the spring. In the meantime, she receives updates-about everything from first words to picky eating habits-from her families. "You're actually present at and witness to families being built," she says. "It's not an everyday thing."

For more information about China Adoption with Love, call Michael Thomas at 404-9504.