Domestic vs. International

So after looking online and doing as much research as possible into domestic vs. international adoption and the different agencies that offer adoption services we have finally narrowed down our agency search to domestic. What it comes down to in the end for us is wanting to experience the entire childhood from birth to toddler to teenager and beyond. Although that might be possible with some agencies in some countries, the amount of time we would have to wait on a list is either much longer than some of the domestic options or it requires us to stay in that country for months after placement that we just can’t afford to do logistically or monetarily.

Now the search continues as we look at the different options out there for domestic agencies. We are looking at four or five different agencies that all offer very similar views of adoption however some of them have more open policies than others and offer different support services as well that they offer to both the birth mother and adoptive parents. Hoping to soon find the right agency for us so we can begin the paperwork process and get even closer to bringing home a child into our lives.

Adoption: Who, What, How??

So Andy and I have decided that it is time to stop fertility treatments and look for another way to expand our family. We have started doing research into adoptions and different agencies we could potentially work with. There is a lot of information out there though and we haven’t even decided if we are going to do international vs. domestic, closed vs. open, do we want gender selection, what age range are we looking into, does race play a part in our selection, etc. So many options and so many things to think about.

There are lots of agencies out there that do adoptions across the globe and finding the right one for us seems like it is going to be a daunting task. From our beginning research we have found that a lot of the international adoptions are not what we are looking for right now. For starters a lot of countries don’t do infant adoption but only toddler and up and those that do infant usually have long wait periods for being in country between placement and finalization. We don’t think that needing to be in another country for months is something we can financially afford plus something we want to do at this point. Although adopting a toddler is something we might be interested in eventually, we are leaning towards wanting to start with an infant adoption first.

Then there is the whole issue of open vs. closed (not that there are many places that are fully closed anymore). If we do an open adoption neither of us really knows much information about how that works and what that means. Are we really willing to open up our lives to a stranger and have them participate and won’t that make it more difficult to handle the adoption for all concerned? At this point there is just not enough information that we have read to understand this aspect of adoption.