starbulletin.com/97/03/12/news/story2.html Honolulu Star-Bulletin ...

Honolulu Star-Bulletin Local News By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin Liz Ornellas relaxes with daughter Norine, whom Liz adopted from China. Motherhood at last There was a time when single women had few options for motherhood, but China s changing that By Susan Kreifels Star-Bulletin Aimee McCullough and Lenore Peterson have a lot in common - professionals in their 40s, outgoing, independent, single. And they want to be moms. Peterson, 43, tried two years of artificial insemination that ended in a miscarriage. McCullough, 48, had pretty much given up the idea of having children. Then a new frontier of motherhood opened for them in China, which allows single people 35 and older to adopt healthy babies. Peterson and McCullough now have the same opportunity as married women who have adopted overseas, and the two have seized the opportunity, as have a growing number of single women in Hawaii and on the mainland. They were approved for adoption in China late last year and are awaiting Chinese babies. "China is the first country in the history of international adoption to really embrace single mothers," said Kristine Altwies, executive director of Hawaii International Child, one of the first four adoption agencies in the world to be approved by the Chinese government, in 1992. For Peterson, a counselor at Punahou School, China ended "such a long journey. "I thought it (marriage and family) would all come together for me. Not until my 40th birthday did I think maybe it wouldn t," Peterson said. "I realized I would have to take things into my own hands." For McCullough, who found it harder and harder to leave her nieces and nephews when she visited them on the mainland, the China opportunity resurrected feelings she thought she had buried. "I just kind of gave up on having kids until it came into my consciousness again," said McCullough, a Kailua psychologist specializing in children. "I pondered and pondered. And then it clicked. You need a ...