Dear Friends,
I’ll keep this as short as possible because I am certain most of you have been following our story for a while and know about our China adoption. We’ve come to a point where we need your help, and we need it quickly. I’m sorry to ask for things on such a short timeline, but this is, afterall, 2020 and we roll with it, right? Our adoption agency has been working with the National Council for Adoption to help us bring our daughter home from China, along with approximately 1,000 other families.
The Congressional Adoption Caucus, a group of lawmakers dedicated to supporting legislation and policy that improves the lives of children and families in the United States and around the world, is taking steps to help bring children home from China. The co-chairs of the Caucus, Senators Roy Blunt and Amy Klobuchar and Representatives Donna Shalala and Robert Aderholt, are leading the creation of a bipartisan, bicameral letter to send to Chinese Ambassador Ciu Tiankai advocating for special permission for prospective adoptive families to travel to China to bring their child to the U.S.
We are asking that you please call your Senators and Representative and ask them to sign on to the letter to Ambassador Tiankai. The more voices the better. You can look up your representative at this website by clicking HERE!
I have done a little bit of that work for you, if you live in our area of Northern Indiana. If you’re a Florida resident or another state and need help, I will gladly help you look up the information if you can’t find it in the link above! The contact info is below for Indiana. And I’ll attach a letter at the end that you can download and copy/paste into an email to both senators and your state rep.
Here’s what to do:
- Look up the local office number for your representative HERE.
- We recommend that you CALL first, tell them who you are and that you’d like to speak to the service/staffer for (YOUR CITY HERE). If they ask what this is in regards to, please tell them you are a friend/relative/coworker, etc of David C. Miller and Stacey Kidder who are adopting a little girl from China and that you want to request that our Senators and Representative sign on to a letter to Ambassador Tiankai, asking that adoptive families be allowed special permission to travel to China for our adoption. Tell them that this is time sensitive, and you’d like an email address so you can send them the contact information and details on signing the letter. We need them to sign on by Friday, September 11th, close of business.
- Next you will get the appropriate email address and copy and paste the text in the letter. Be sure to swap out the NAMES for the right person. The name appears three times in the letter.
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- For the email, put in the subject line “Urgent Adoption help needed” then copy and paste this into the body of the email:
- Dear (insert rep name here),
Thank you for taking my call this afternoon. This is a time sensitive matter. My friends, David C. Miller and Stacey M. Kidder are adopting a 6yr old little girl from China. They have been unable to conceive any children naturally and adoption is their only path to becoming a family. Stacey has two adopted sisters and adoption is near and dear to their hearts.As you can imagine, adopting internationally during the time of Covid-19 has been stressful and difficult. They are in the final step, which is waiting for travel approval from The People’s Republic of China, so that they can go pick up their daughter. They have bonded with her through videos, letters and photographs. She just celebrated her 6th birthday and they sent her a video singing to her in Mandarin Chinese and English.The Congressional Adoption Caucus, a group of lawmakers dedicated to supporting legislation and policy that improves the lives of children and families in the United States and around the world, is taking steps to help bring children home from China. The co-chairs of the Caucus, Senators Roy Blunt and Amy Klobuchar and Representatives Donna Shalala and Robert Aderholt, are leading the creation of a bipartisan, bicameral letter to send to Chinese Ambassador Ciu Tiankai advocating for special permission for prospective adoptive families to travel to China to bring their child to the U.S. We respectfully request that (Insert Rep NAME HERE) co-sign, preferably by COB on Friday, September 11th.Please find the contact information for the relevant Caucus co-chairs offices so (Insert Rep NAME HERE) can review and sign on to the letter:· Alexandra_McPhee@blunt.senate.gov (Senator Roy Blunt, R-MO)· Jennifer_Treutel@klobuchar.senate.gov (Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-MN)· Carla.McGarvey@mail.house.gov (Representative Donna Shalala, D-FL)· Megan.Medley@mail.house.gov (Representative Robert Aderholt, R-AL)Thank you again for your time and prompt attention to this issue. I will be in touch within 24 hours to inquire as to whether (Insert Rep NAME HERE) has agreed to sign-on to the letter.Sincerely,(Insert YOUR NAME here)
- Then repeat the process with your two senators. Look them up here.
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If you live in Northern Indiana, here’s the info:
- Congresswoman Jackie Walorski
Local: (574) 204-2645
Email: Jacqueline.ridenour@mail.house.gov
(260) 427-2164
Dave and I appreciate your help with this. I know it is a big ask and a lot of work in a short amount of time. I truly can’t thank you enough.
Much love,
Stacey & David