China’s Lost Girls | National Geographic

I’m Lisa Lillien one of my favorite
shows for Explorer was called China’s
Lost Girls my mom said that I was born
in someone else’s stomach and that my
biological mom couldn’t take care of me
so she put me in orphanage so I could
have a better life I was born China and
I was brought here if it wasn’t for my
mom and dad I bet out filming the orphan
orphanage over one-quarter of all the
babies adopted from abroad into this
country come from China and most are
girls it’s a consequence of one of the
biggest efforts to control population
growth in history China’s so-called
one-child policy it limits millions of
families there to having only one child
traditionally baby boys are preferred
and as a result girls are often
abandoned aborted or hidden our cameras
were the first television cameras ever
allowed into China to shoot at an
orphanage we followed American couples
over to China to adopt their Chinese
baby girls the anxiousness was so
palpable the day that these couples were
going to adopt the their little girls
they were so nervous they’d been waiting
for more than a year to finally meet the
new addition to their family and we were
all waiting in this really cold room and
all of a sudden the people who work at
the orphanage started to bring the baby
girls into the room it was the most
incredible scene these little girls had
looks of terror they were so scared
about what was happening they were
they were crying and it was chaotic and
all the parents started crying and when
the parents took these little babies
into their arms it was so moving because
these little girls had been abandoned by
their parents and on that day they were
enveloped into the arms of these parents
that just had been waiting for so long
to just love them
as I stood in that room it was like
everyone was going through labor at the
same time you know with tears in their
eyes you just see this inexplicable joy
on everyone’s face
it was a beautiful thing