CHINESE BABY MAKES VALLEY COUPLE A FAMILY.

Byline: Terri Hardy Daily News Staff Writer

She was found abandoned in a cardboard box, on the west side of the New Banner Bridge in Sanshui City, China.

Just one of 100,000 babies abandoned each year in China, where families are urged to have only one child and parents more often than not prefer a boy, she was placed in an orphanage.

Workers there called her "Xiaojin" - which means little one of the bright and brilliant future. In November, the 8-month-old girl was adopted by a Van Nuys couple, Jo and Nancy Hansch.

"Isn't she as cute as a bug?" Nancy Hansch said last week of her daughter, now named Paris. "We stare at her all the time and think, lucky, lucky, lucky."

Last year, Paris was one of 2,130 Chinese orphans brought to this country by American parents.

Since 1992, when the country began allowing foreign adoptions, China has emerged as a leading source of babies for American parents adopting abroad, according to U.S. State Department records.

If the flow of adoptions is uninterrupted, it is estimated that 3,000 to 4,000 children will be brought back from China in 1996, said Suzanne Lawrence, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of State, bureau of consular affairs.

American adoption agencies estimate there are from 1 million to 1.4 million foundlings in Chinese orphanages.

"There is no future for these children in China - they won't find a home and without a family they won't have a place in that society," said Sandra Browne, executive director of Adoptions Services International in Ventura.

But there are plenty of U.S. families interested in adopting the babies.

After years of unsuccessful attempts at artificial insemination and fertility drugs, the Hansches - Jo, a 49-year-old music consultant and Nancy, a 31-year-old casting director - decided to adopt.

They contacted Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services in Los Angeles, which urged them to consider adopting an orphan from overseas.

After a detailed background check and interviews, they flew to China last year to adopt the child.

The Chinese government has the final say in the adoptions. The cost to new parents is usually $15,000 to $20,000 - including a $3,000 required donation to China's orphanage system.

The Hansches' trip to China was an emotional one, starting with a rushed, frantic drive to the airport. They laugh now about how inappropriately they packed, bringing a huge suitcase full of baby formula and only one change of underwear.

Before they were taken to the orphanage, they were interviewed by a businesslike and polite Chinese official.

"They asked if we intended to abandon our child, and how long we were married - that was it," Jo Hansch recalled.

The night before their trip to the orphanage, the couple hardly slept. They tossed and turned, thinking of their daughter, sleeping somewhere so near to them.

In the morning Nancy Hansch nervously packed an enormous bag for the baby.

"I kept asking, 'How many diapers does a baby go through in a day? No one knew," she said.

At the orphanage, they and other couples sat in a waiting room. Although drinks and fruit were offered, no one could eat. One, by one, names were called. Finally, little Paris was placed in her parents' arms.

"All the years of infertility, of frustration and misery - it was gone," Nancy Hansch said.

After collecting the children at the orphanage, the dazed families took their children back to the hotel.

On the bumpy trip back, there wasn't a sound from the babies.

"It was freaky, none of them let out a peep," Nancy Hansch said. "For two or three days, not one sound."

Back in Van Nuys, Paris now gurgles and cries. She has learned how to play with her toys.

When she's old enough, she'll hear the whole story.

"Maybe someday she'll go to the bridge where she was found and look at the river," Nancy Hansch said. "She had a fantastic journey, and now we're a family."

Other prospective parents, meanwhile, and the adoption agencies wonder how long the Chinese government will be so accommodating in allowing the adoptions - particularly after ominous reports about conditions in some orphanages.

The Human Rights Watch/Asia reported in January that unwanted children often die of starvation and abuse.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., released a statement dismissing the allegations as "unfounded." It stated that the Human Rights Watch report claiming more than 1,000 unnatural deaths of children at the Shanghai Children's Welfare Institute was "sheer fabrication."

"The Institute has always tried its best to give them medical treatment and keep infant mortality rate at a lowest possible level," the statement said.

A State Department memo issued to some adoption agencies in January said the negative reports "do not appear to have significantly affected the processing of adoptions in China."

Still, some adoption services are worried. It's not uncommon, officials say, for countries to react to political controversies by slowing or stopping the flow of adoptions.

And Chinese officials have begun refusing to allow their groups inside their orphanages.

In response, the agencies have tried to step up their Chinese adoptions. Adoption Services International in Ventura has launched a campaign to recruit 100 families in 100 days.

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(color) Jo and Nancy Hansch of Van Nuys traveled to China to adopt 8-month-old Paris. Myung J. Chun/Daily News