国家地理:China's Lost Girls 被抛弃的女孩 -2

And China's population is coming under control, but there are consequences no one intended. Couples often feel they must have a boy. That's because boys traditionally carry on the family name, provide labor 1 and stay with parents in their old age, a kind of social security system. With intense pressure to have boys, females are now often aborted 2, abandoned or hidden away, some are even killed. Possibly over 100,000 baby girls in China are abandoned every year. Many end up in orphanages 3 like this.

Today more than one of every four children adopted overseas and brought home to the US comes from China. They are almost all girls adopted from orphanages. But the babies adopted by Americans are only a tiny fraction of the millions of girls believed missing from China's population. And while girls are being given away, the number of boys is rising, way out of proportion. Today young Chinese boys vastly outnumber girls and it's only getting worse.

When I was standing 4 there at Tian'anMen Square and I was looking up at that picture of Chairman Mao, you know, in so many ways the policies he enacted 5, you know, kind of indirectly 6 resulted in you going to become parents. You know, did that thought cause your mind a little...?
All the time, all the time. It's a very complex weird 7 situation to be in. But it's, it's a weird feeling to notice that, yeah, like, that's how we are getting a child.

But all the tour sites in China can't ease the anxiety.

Well, we've done just about every tourist attraction in Beijing, but that's not why these families are here. Tomorrow their lives are gonna be changed forever.

I refer to myself is, well, I, I was, I was born in China and I was brought here.

Hey, so today's known as Got-you Day and all these families are gonna disperse 8 to different parts of China and meet their baby daughters for the first time. (Morning. Morning) I've to say there is kind of this air of unpredictability right now because they don't know what condition their babies are in, they don't know if they're healthy, they don't even know where they are and actually I'm a little bit nervous.

You know there was so much chatter 9 and buzz up in the breakfast room this morning, you know, I think everybody is just known like: oh, today is the day?

Not too far away is a little girl who has never known a mother, and she's never known a father, and she's never known a big sister and today she's gonna get out of that.

This is Fu Shuking. Soon to be Rebecca Lisa Thomson
Ha, you are gonna be a mother.
I know, that word still freaks me out, still takes me to be used to it... mama.
You guys ready?
I'm gonna get a baby, haha.
You know, the infectious, you know, your energy, I mean, I'm just like completely out of my mind too.
Everybody's been keeping it down for a really long time.

We follow our families as they fly out of Beijing heading south to the city of Nanchang.

Last day without a baby, you are gonna be mom in a couple of hours.

After a two-hour flight and a long bus ride, we finally arrived at a hotel in Nanchang, just one hour before it's time to get the babies.

Things that I've known about my adoption 10 are that...