American firm says it plans to buy White Swan's red couch

People who adopt children from China often learn the legend of the red thread, a mystical tie that will lead them, despite setbacks and challenges, to those they are fated to love.

At the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou, China, is a red couch that has come to embody both that cultural legend and the adoption dreams of thousands of families.

The couch has become famous as the place where many parents take some of their first photos of their newly adopted children.

It is a literal love seat, a resting place that says the journey to find each other - to follow the red thread even as it twists and tangles - is complete.

"It's a rite of passage that after all this waiting and travel, you are finally together," said Carter Lee, a former Haddonfield resident who lives in Madison, N.J., with her husband and their two daughters adopted from China.

But now the future of the red couch is in limbo, reflecting the changing fate of Chinese adoptions themselves.

In March, Lotus Travel of Bellevue, Wash., which specializes in adoption trips, announced that it planned to buy the couch from the White Swan, which is renovating, and, Lotus said, getting rid of the sofa.

In an e-mail, a White Swan spokeswoman said she had no information about the sale of the red couch, although she acknowledged that the hotel planned to redecorate.

Iris Culp, homeland programs director for Lotus, said the company had a "gentleman's agreement" to buy the couch and expected to have details soon.

"It's symbolic of the families spending some of their first moments together, and that is why we felt it was important to retain it for families," Culp said.

That there is even talk about the sale of the red couch speaks to the declining popularity of U.S. adoptions from China. In 2005, Americans adopted 7,903 children from there, more than double the 3,401 adopted in 2010.

Similar drops have occurred elsewhere as countries struggle to improve transparency and end corruption and child-trafficking.

China is still the most popular foreign country for adoptive U.S. parents. That is in part because families feel more comfortable knowing that China's one-child policy for Chinese parents offers an explanation of why the children are available.

Perhaps embarrassed by the huge number of baby girls it was giving up to other countries, China began restricting adoptions in the middle of the last decade. It limited adoptions for single people and banned them for those older than 50.

Chinese prosperity may also have played a role. More families there can now afford to pay the fine for having a second child, and the Chinese have begun to recognize that an imbalance between men and women could leave it with a lot of lonely single men.

When Chinese adoptions were booming, so was the White Swan, which is near the only U.S. consulate in China that processes adoptions. Known for an over-the-top decor that includes a waterfall, bridges, and a buffet catering to American tastes, the hotel grew popular with adopting families.

Its reputation for babies was such that some mistakenly called it the "White Stork Hotel." It was even the subject of a 2002 children's book, The White Swan Express.

"There were two or three floors that were only for adoptive families," said Jodie Rapp, who lives with her husband and two daughters adopted from China in West Caln, Chester County. "The kids take over the hallways."

Mattel gives a free "Welcome Home Barbie" only to adopting families staying there. That version of the blond bombshell carries a Chinese baby.

For Carter Lee and daughters Emilee Maas, 12, and Caroline, 8, the bonds formed on the couch at the White Swan, like the red thread of legend, have proved unbreakable. They regularly visit other families who adopted girls from the same orphanage in China.

"The kids pick up like they just saw each other yesterday," Lee said. "As my daughter likes to say, 'Mom, I knew them before I knew you.' "