Decisions, Decisions!

Well, we decided in December that wanted to pursue adoption in 2009. We have found an agency we like, but are still doing a lot of research on our options. We are still leaning towards international adoption, but we both have a lot of questions to explore.

We first thought Russia would be our country due to having the shortest wait (referral only 2 to 7 months after submitting our dossier then 4-5 weeks until our first trip to Russia). But it is the only country that requires both parents travel and requires two separate trips. And it is a little more expensive since two trips are required for the adoption.

We thought we might like to adopt from China, but it can take more than 30 months just to get a referral and up to 4 years for the adoption to be finalized. With Benjamin turning 5 in just a couple of months, we don't want to wait that long. He would be 8-9 by the time we brought our child home. China does have a "Waiting Children" program, which we have begun seriously considering. If we adopt through the China Waiting Children program, we could have a referral only 2-10 weeks after submitting our dossier!! The waiting program is for special needs children and we are exploring the possibility of opening our hearts up to a special needs child, but we're just not sure that's where we are being led.

There's another possibility that we could adopt domestically, which costs about the same as international adoption, but could also take years. Again, we both feel we are being led in a different direction, but want to be sure that we have explored all of our options. And I thought the decision just to adopt was hard!! Figuring out the who, what and how is even harder. Thanks for letting me work through some thoughts while we try to figure out and pray through all of these decisions.

On an exciting note, we talked to Benjamin today and asked him what he thought about the idea of adopting, explaining that we have been asking God to put another baby in Mommy's tummy for a long time now and that maybe we should see if we could be a family to a baby who doesn't have one. He was very excited about being the big brother to a child who doesn't have a family. I think he really understood what that meant. However, we were sure to tell him that, just like having a baby in Mommy's tummy, we needed to pray and ask God to give us a baby through adoption; that we would try, but that we still wouldn't know if and when it would happen. I wanted to be sure he understood that it was a process and not set him up for more disappointment.

Anyway, thanks for letting me share. I have a feeling I'm going to be a little more active now that we are actually proceeding.