© stevendepolo

Adopting a child is no small business. Child adoption is probably one of the biggest choices you will have to make in life, unless you are confronted with Sophie's choice. As a matter of fact-it is comparable. Here are some things to consider before you adopt.

Are you going to treat the child like your own? Adopting a child isn't all about you. The child will grow up. The child will turn rebellious. The child may even become a criminal. If you had your own child, this wouldn't be a problem-but are you ready for anything the child might bring?

Are you ready to have a child? This is the biggest question. Are you ready? It doesn't matter if you think you are. Ask people around you. If they think so, then you have a higher chance on adoption. If they don't think so, when the agency comes around and asks questions, you'll be scrapped from the list.

© MelvinSchlubman

Lily Nie and her husband Joshua Zhong are co-founders of Chinese Children Adoption International, a suburban Denver operation that they established in 1992. Since that time, they have found homes for 9350 Chinese orphans. Lily's passion and knowledge of the Chinese government are what have made the company so successful.

Both Nie and Zhong grew up in Maoist China with very disciplined childhoods, and they become engaged before college. Zhong first emigrated to South Carolina to study, and Nie later followed him, leaving her job as an attorney at a Shanghai law firm to do so. They moved to Denver and she ended up studying English and working as a maid and Mandarin tutor to earn her tuition money. But by 1990 they were both working on graduate degrees and they were also parents. When the Chinese government loosened its policy regarding foreign child adoptions in 1992, the couple saw an opportunity to help abandoned children in crowded Chinese orphanages due to China's one-child policy.

© MelvinSchlubman

Michael Gove, Britain's Education secretary, who was adopted himself, aims to scrap child adoption rules that make it difficult for couples to adopt children with a dissimilar ethnic background. He lambasted the policy of social workers who refuse child adoption to parents whom they deem as 'too white and middle class.' He also lashed out against child adoption policies that refuse adoption to single parents.

Britain's child adoption rates have fallen drastically, with only 70 child adoptions of babies under the age of one in the last year, compared to 5174 in 1974. Mr. Gove has asked the foster care agencies not to turn away couples willing for child adoption for trifling reasons when over 4000 children are waiting for adoption.