Deciding to Adopt
Our story is not one of infertility. In fact, Jack and I have never tried to conceive a child. Before we were even married we talked about adoption. I have several cousins who were adopted, and it always seemed normal to me. I have been interested in pursuing adoption to build my family since I was a child.
In the fall of 2005 Jack and I decided we were ready to start a family. We briefly discussed trying for a biological child, but quickly decided that we wanted to do an adoption at least for our first child. Our feeling was there are so many children out there who need homes, and we can provide one. Why bring a new child into this already overpopulated world?
Our next step was to figure out which type of adoption to pursue. Domestic, international, or foster care? Although I was tempted by foster care, because I know those children have the hardest time finding homes, I was a bit intimidated. I wanted to parent an infant and being a first time mom, I wasn't sure I could do a great job with a child who had experienced trauma, as most children in foster care have. As for domestic, I was afraid that with the birth mother choosing the parents, and Jack and I not having experienced fertility, no one would want to choose us and we would have to wait a long time. So it was international. Now we needed to find a country. Several countries had restrictions that ruled us out. We weren't old enough for China, not infertile enough for Columbia, and not religious enough for the Philippines. We ruled out Russia and Kazakhstan because of our fear of poorly staffed orphanages and two trips to travel. After we had narrowed it down to Korea or Guatemala, we had a very hard time picking. We finally decided on Guatemala because it is closer to the US and cheaper to travel there. We really want to take our child back to Guatemala to visit, perhaps multiple times.
Next post I will talk about our homestudy and the paperchase.
In the fall of 2005 Jack and I decided we were ready to start a family. We briefly discussed trying for a biological child, but quickly decided that we wanted to do an adoption at least for our first child. Our feeling was there are so many children out there who need homes, and we can provide one. Why bring a new child into this already overpopulated world?
Our next step was to figure out which type of adoption to pursue. Domestic, international, or foster care? Although I was tempted by foster care, because I know those children have the hardest time finding homes, I was a bit intimidated. I wanted to parent an infant and being a first time mom, I wasn't sure I could do a great job with a child who had experienced trauma, as most children in foster care have. As for domestic, I was afraid that with the birth mother choosing the parents, and Jack and I not having experienced fertility, no one would want to choose us and we would have to wait a long time. So it was international. Now we needed to find a country. Several countries had restrictions that ruled us out. We weren't old enough for China, not infertile enough for Columbia, and not religious enough for the Philippines. We ruled out Russia and Kazakhstan because of our fear of poorly staffed orphanages and two trips to travel. After we had narrowed it down to Korea or Guatemala, we had a very hard time picking. We finally decided on Guatemala because it is closer to the US and cheaper to travel there. We really want to take our child back to Guatemala to visit, perhaps multiple times.
Next post I will talk about our homestudy and the paperchase.
posted by Jill @ 9:18 AM
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