International or Domestic?

I am often asked why we decided to pursue an international adoption. This question is the hardest for me to answer because I don't really know why, for us it was just always what we envisioned when we thought about adopting.

Since we are blessed to have a child it was not of utmost importance (for us) that we adopt an infant, as you can do by going through a domestic adoption agency that works with pregnant woman who wish to place their child up for adoption. The idea of adopting a baby that has just been born so that the only parent he ever knows is you is, for obvious reasons, very appealing. It is my understanding that they do not have as hard of a time finding parents for the unborn children of these pregnant moms, so we took that into consideration. Of course any child that is being placed for adoption needs to be adopted so I think it is a wonderful choice to choose a private domestic adoption, however we wanted to adopt a child that had a lower chance of being adopted. If you would like more information on an adoption of this kind I have stumbled onto some wonderful blogs of people who are in the process or have adopted from the same private agency and live here in College Station.
Sit a Spell
The Bacak Nation
Fundamentally Feldman

The second domestic adoption option is to adopt through the state, which are children removed for various reasons by Child Protective Services. I cannot tell you how much I admire the people that foster and adopt through this process, if more Christians would become involved in fostering and adopting these children the system would be completely different than it is today. However, for us after praying about it we did not feel like that was the path God was taking us down. Having spent a short period of my life working at a job that was part of the "system" I just felt unprepared to become part of it on a parenting level. Maybe on our next adoption God will ask that of us, and if so I will grit my teeth and say...Ok. :) If you are interested in more information on adopting through the state you can click here: Texas foster and adopt .

So we were left with international adoption. We did not feel specifically led to adopt from any given country, although I had a strong feeling it should be an Asian country, I have no idea why. So we went online to different adoption agencies that dealt in international adoption and requested their free packet of information. Each country has different requirements for who can adopt from them in regards to your age, your marital status, your income, the number of children you have, etc. So some countries we were not qualified for and that narrowed it down. Second we looked at time frame for the adoption process, cost, age of child at placement, and care of child before they come home to you. It was by looking at those factors that we chose the country that we felt like was the best fit. If you are interested in getting information on international adoption you can visit Holt International .

In a couple days we will reach the 8 month mark for amount of time our homestudy has been in our country. Unfortunately we don't have any news yet, but please do pray for us that we will be able to bring our child home soon. Your prayers keep us going and keep us sane during the wait, they mean more than you could know.