Sixteen hours after our departure from Seoul, our plane landed at the very same airport in St. Paul, and I delivered SooKyung into the arms of her new mother and father, who sobbed with joy at the sight of their new baby and at the prospect of raising her with their four biological children. They told me they had decided to adopt a Korean child because a close family friend had done so and, after they met that baby girl, it became clear they wanted to do the same. Within weeks the first phone calls were made and the process set in motion. Out of concern for their youngest daughter's reaction to their returning from a trip with a new baby, they chose to have SooKyung escorted rather than make the trans-Pacific journey themselves. As for why they wanted yet another child in an already beautiful family, the mother said simply: "There was just something missing. SooKyung is the missing piece."

SooKyung is one of many children who have joined their families by way of international adoption. In 1998, 15,774 children were adopted internationally by American families, according to Holt International Children's Services, a major adoption agency. More than a tenth of those children 1,829 year old, and are either children of poverty or were born to young unmarried women unable in any sense them.

Along with Russia, China and other countries, South Korea has been a major source of adoptive children for American and European families for decades. While the number of adoptions from South Korea has declined in the last 10 years because of the Seoul government's efforts, Western families seeking babies still look to Korea because, unlike other countries, it allows complicated legal proceedings to be completed in the adoptive family's home country. International adoption on a large scale began in Korea in the 1950s after the Korean War, when thousands of unwanted babies were born to Korean mothers and American military fathers.

While Korean society has adapted to many modern ideas, the stigma of bearing a child out of wedlock is still enormous. A young unmarried woman in South Korea simply cannot raise a child alone. As a result, secrecy surrounds pregnancies and births. And since there is no formal sex education in the country, said Mira Lee, post-adoption social worker at the Social Welfare Society in Seoul, "Sometimes, young women do not even know they are pregnant until they go into labor." Once a pregnancy is confirmed, a woman terrified of the future finds herself isolated and alone, all too ready to give the baby up for adoption.

Over the decades, another factor that has swollen the number of children available for adoption, especially females, has been the cultural inclination of families in Korea and other Asian countries to favor sons over daughters. So strong was this bias that many families simply put baby girls up for adoption. However, this trend has declined in the last decade, according to er eyes brimmed with tears and her hands shook as she strapped the baby to my chest at the orphanage in South Korea. The middle-aged woman surrendering little SooKyung after four months as her foster mother was too choked with emotion to say anything. As we exited the office at the Social Welfare Society in Seoul, her husband slipped his name card into my hand and said, "Tell her new family to rear her well, and call me as soon as you return." Thus began our pilgrimage together last October: SooKyung the adopted infant and I, her courier. The journey took us halfway around the world, from South Korea to America, from a crowded household in an Asian culture to a new, unknown life in America. It was a journey that I myself had made a few decades earlier as a Korean baby, adopted by an American family in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was one of four babies brought to America by a young man on his way home from the Peace Corps.

Korean law requires a release signed by a biological parent for any adoption abroad, a policy not in effect when I was adopted years ago. Abandoned children, or those not released by their biological parents, must remain in Korean orphanages. I made my first trip back to the motherland as part of a study-abroad program in college. Intensely curious about my unknown origins, I went to the orphanage at the Social Welfare Society, where I too had been a resident prior to being adopted. While the orphanage did not have any information about my biological mother children like myself must have been under and the great sacrifice she made in giving me up. Many young women who have given a child up for adoption, I was told, go on to marry and have families of their own later in life while keeping their previous pregnancy a secret.

Having discovered that I had a feeling of deep connection with my country of birth and an insatiable hunger to learn more of the culture and language, I decided to return upon graduation. I was again drawn back to the orphanage, where I volunteered for a short time, caring for babies. During one of my frequent visits to the orphanage, I was asked by one of the social workers whether I would consider escorting a baby to be adopted.

Agencies like the Social Welfare Society and Eastern Social Welfare, both in Seoul, and the Children's Home Society of Minnesota have been working together for more than 30 years, creating bridges between the two cultures for orphaned or abandoned children and their adoptive families. Escorting babies from Korea has become less common in recent years. Today, 65 percent of adoptive parents opt to make the long flight to Korea to pick up their babies. Upon my return to Korea after delivering SooKyung, I knew that my duties would not be complete until I had met with the Korean foster family who had cared for SooKyung in her motherland. Ecstatic to hear from me, they invited me to dinner at their home that very evening. Their home, located in a tall apartment building in Seoul, contained a large collage featuring pictures of all the babies they had taken in. SooKyung, I learned, had been the couple's 12th foster child. The choice to become a foster family, they told me, was made mainly because of the foster mother's genuine love of babies. I assured them that SooKyung's new parents were sensitive people who had promised to "rear her well." I sat on the living room floor with the foster father, who held another foster baby in his arms, while the foster mother finished preparing dinner. Over bulgogi and kimchee, the foster mother, father and grandmother spoke of what a happy baby SooKyung was. I was moved especially by the foster father's tenderness. "I wish I was a rich man," he said, "because then I could keep all of the children we have cared for." He then shared the story of their first foster child, a boy who eventually went to adoptive parents in Europe. "I never expected to be so sad," he said, recalling the day when they had to give the boy up. "After we said goodbye, everywhere I went I thought of him. At night I cried because I missed him so much. Each baby has brought so much love and happiness to our home."

SooKyung recently celebrated her first birthday, at which time her new family dressed her in a traditional Korean hanbok dress. SooKyung, now known as Lia, has adjusted well to her new family and life in America. In conversation with Lia's new mother about my dinner with her foster family, she told me, "It is quite clear that Lia was well loved and cared for."