Seven years ago, my husband and I adopted our first precious daughter from China (who is now 8 years old).  We went back 2 ½ years later for our second daughter (who is now 5 ½ years old).  We have had many wonderful (and sometimes heartbreaking, to me) conversations about their adoption, China, their birth mothers, etc.

As part of my responsibilities as an associate professor at the University of Northern Iowa, I'm doing research on what we say to our kids about being adopted from China - why they were abandoned, talking about birth parents and how we came to be a family. As our kids are abandoned with very little to no information, it can be difficult to explain to our kids the "why" of their abandonment. I am hoping a collection of what we tell our kids would help us better attempt to explain the possible circumstances of their abandonments as they grow up.

I am contacting you to see if you would like to be interviewed by e-mail about your experiences in having such conversations with your children with me.  If you are interested, by return e-mail, I would send you approximately eight overall questions for you to answer on your own time.  You may refuse to participate or may discontinue participation at any time without penalty.

Besides the approximate half hour it will take you to complete the questions, the only other perceived risk that might come from participating in this study is that you may be reminded of uncomfortable situations you have experienced when talking about adoption with your children, as they ask difficult questions.  If at any time you become uncomfortable answering the interview questions by e-mail, you may discontinue your participation in my study, or you may submit only selected answers to the questions.

The benefits to you from participating in this study is that you can learn more about how other families, who have adopted from China also, have dealt with such touchy issues, if you choose for me to send you a copy of the results of the study when it is completed. I will use quotations from the interviews in any paper or presentation I might do from this study, but I would change all of the names and identifying information, so that you would not be able to be identified in any oral or written report. 

If you have any questions about this research or about your rights as a research participant, you may feel free to contact me directly, Dr. April Chatham-Carpenter, at 319-273-5901, or my university’s Institutional Review Board Office at 319-273-6148.

Thanks for your time to consider my request to participate.  If you agree to participate, e-mail me at chatham@uni.edu  and I’ll send you the survey questions which you can fill out at your own convenience.

april