Oh, The Choices You Make!

So far our wait to adopt a newborn is considered an average amount of time. During the last year and a half, we have heard all kind of opinions of what kind of child we should adopt. Like we should give up on trying to adopt a newborn and just adopt an older child or adopt through foster care.  We should get a baby from "insert country here" or an African American baby like the celebrities. Or why don't you just use a surrogate. I believe these comments are intended to be good natured or helpful, but sometimes I find myself getting annoyed at them. I appreciate the interest in our adoption and welcome questions, but I feel like maybe people don't think that we have considered all of our options. Believe me when I say we have weighed the pros and cons and made an informed decision based on extensive adoption education that we've received and what's best for our family.

Making the decision to adopt is not something that you go into willy nilly. Adopting through our agency has required us to be background checked, fingerprinted, medically cleared and drug tested. We have been asked in depth questions about our marital relationship, our families, how we view ourselves and our beliefs. Our home has been inspected twice! We were given mounds and mounds of paperwork that included pages and pages of child and birth parent preferences.  We were assigned books to read about adoption and attended numerous adoption education classes.  We have considered every aspect of raising an adopted child without actually being parents yet. It takes about three months to meet the requirements to be approved as an adoptive parent.

Every adoptive parent makes choices that best fit their family.  Ideally, we'd like to adopt a white newborn from the United States that is relatively healthy at birth. Our most concrete criteria on an expectant mother is that she has not drank alcohol during her pregnancy. We are cool with an open adoption. We were recently matched with a expectant mom and the child would have been biracial, (Caucasian and African American). We felt the situation was a fit with us. The match ultimately failed, but it did make us realize that our preferences are more of a guideline than set in stone. Life sometimes surprises you and presents something so absolutely perfect, something that you didn't know you were looking for. So if you know of someone interested in making an adoption plan, let us know and we'll definitely consider it. Click here for our profile information.

Sometimes I do get defensive when people question why we want a certain type of child. I wonder if the question is merely curiosity or if you feel we should be doing something different. It's easy to say what you would do when you are not in the situation. It's far different when you are in the thick of it. So, keep your questions coming and I'll keep answering them the best I can.