An article I came across today prompted a look at international adoption from the Pacific island nation of Tonga.

The story of a California woman who decided to adopt as she blew out the fifty candles on her birthday cake, like all adoption stories, is inspiring and has that usual tinge of something meant to be that so often figures into the follow-up that can be happy ever after.

It also, however, poses some questions and brings up, in me at least, a feeling of entitlement that doesn't sit well.

Shortly after making the mental leap toward becoming a mother through adoption, the woman was on a sailing trip in Tonga and heard about a motherless 8-year-old girl. A puzzle piece fell into place, and she knew immediately that she wanted to adopt this girl.

Pioneering international adoption in a country that doesn't have a system in place takes fortitude and determination. In this case, it also took the passage of a new law by the Tongan king and nine months of fret and worry for the hopeful mom.

The girl, Faye, was not an orphan. She had a father, a brother and two sisters, and her father had to relinquish if the American woman was to be allowed to adopt.

"It was very hard for him to let me go," says Faye.

"He loves Faye very much," says Carlsen. (The adoptive mother.)

"Of course, he does," says Faye.

With hopes of a better life for his daughter, he agreed, but who defines 'better'?

It has not always been easy for Faye. Asked how she felt leaving Tonga, her incandescent smile fades and she bursts into tears. "My dad came to the boat to see me off," she says. "My heart was bumping really fast. I thought I would never see him again. It was really sad."

Had this woman not been sailing in Tonga, Faye would still be living on the island, shifting among family members to be sure, but without the huge shift the move to America and an entirely new family created.

Faye is reportedly doing very well now, and she and her mom are planning a trip to Tonga next year where the girl will stay with family members and a lot of catching up will be done.

So ...

Does deciding to adopt, then sailing around a country and hearing about a child, then grabbing the bull by the horns and wrestling it into a position of behaving as you want it to behave something that happens because it was meant to happen? A good thing part of the grand plan?

Or, is this more a case of a spoiled American deciding "I wanna, I wanna", and bullying people into giving what she wants?

Of course, we don't know the real story here, and I'm not even addressing that, but rather the flavor of the situation.

Adoptive parents are often accused of being more part of a problem than of a solution, and I'm usually inclined to disagree with anyone postulating that without adoptive parents there would be no children in need of adoption. In most circumstances that comes across as plain hooey to me, but situations like the one above give pause for thought.

For a look at adoption from Tonga, see the US State Department's page on the country.

In the last three years there have been only six Tongan children adopted by Americans ... Faye apparently being one of those. There is a six-month residency requirement and a stipulation that only illegitimate children may be adopted.