A mother's desperate mission to save her child
An American mother has flown to China on a desperate mission to try to save the life of her dying adopted daughter - by finding the biological parents who abandoned the six-year-old at birth.
The search to find a genetic match for critically-ill Kailee - who doctors say may have only months to live without a bone marrow transplant - hinges on finding the parents in remote Hunan province in central China.
Linda Wells, 50, of New Mexico, who with her husband Owen, 51, adopted Kailee when she was one year old, admitted the odyssey was like trying to 'find a needle in a haystack'.
But Mrs Wells - who has three other children Taunya, 32, and twins Ben and Michael, 27 - added: 'It is our only hope. We are prepared to do whatever it takes to keep our baby girl alive.'
The fight to save Kailee Makena Wells, also known by her Chinese name of Changban, has led to a massive China-wide campaign to find a genetic match among the mainland population.
After being told of Kailee's plight by Mrs Wells and the South China Morning Post on Friday, China's Red Cross organisation has mobilised hundreds of workers in more than a dozen testing centres across the country.
Tomorrow, they will launch a public campaign to try to save Changban by finding her biological family or by finding a marrow match.
Kailee was diagnosed with aplastic anaemia on her fifth birthday, and has only been able to survive through blood transfusions, chemotherapy and a cocktail of drugs.
More than nine million possible donors have been researched on global databases but so far no match has materialised.
Doctors say her best chance is to find the biological parents and hope a sibling can be a donor.
'It is a unique case,' said Hong Junling, deputy director of the Red Cross Society of China. 'The scale of the campaign we are launching is unprecedented.
'We hope that through trying to save Changban, other patients can also be saved. But first we have to hope for a miracle to save Changban.'
Mrs Wells and her sister, Paige, flew to Beijing late last week to see senior officials. South China Morning Post reporters met them in Beijing and helped them organise the meetings.
On Thursday, they plan to travel to the orphanage in Changde, Hunan, from where Kailee was adopted. It is in that remote mountainous province where they hope to find the family who abandoned the 10-day-old baby on the doorstep of a teachers' training college.
Mrs Wells said the odds stacked against them were exceptionally high. If the biological family does come forward, the odds of finding a match are one in four.
'If she doesn't make it, we don't want to look back and think, we could have done this, or we should have done that,' she said. 'At least we'll know we did everything possible, everything within our power, to save our little girl.'
Mr Hong, who has geared up a nationwide bone marrow drive in just three days, said: 'We are ordinary people in an extraordinary situation.'
He said he found the emotional appeal and desperate bid to find the biological family to be compelling and inspirational.
'The case is unique. It is about a US family who have adopted an abandoned daughter of China. Although the child is seriously ill, they not only never think of giving her up, but come to this far-away place to search for a chance to save her. We are deeply touched by their actions.'
He admitted it would be hard to find a suitable donor in such a short period.
'Already we cannot find a suitable one among the 50,000 registered bone marrow donors in our bone marrow bank.
'We have to hope for a miracle.'
Graphic: BONEXGET
