Why International Adoption

I know a lot of people are interested in why we chose international adoption. Many people have asked, while I'm sure some people think it but don't want to ask.

For us, the choice was simple. That doesn't mean that a lot of thought and careful consideration didn't go into the decision, because it did, but in the end the decision was easy.

Many people are somewhat surprised that fertility was never an issue in the decision. Many people turn to adoption when they are unable to, for whatever reason, conceive a child biologically. That had nothing to do with our decision.

Many things led us to consider adoption in general. One being that adoption has played a big role in my life in many different ways.

• I had friends who were adopted.
• I babysat through college for a family that had adopted two children. The mother also worked in adoption.
• My brothers and I were never legally adopted, but we may as well have been. John raised us as his own when he had no obligation. He provided us with a life better than we would have had otherwise.

Another thing, which I will add played a way lesser role, is that I was never crazy about the idea of being pregnant. I know that the end result is priceless, but...

I will admit that when I brought up the idea to Mark, he wasn't completely sold on the idea. He wasn't against it either. I think it was just something that he had never really considered. At first he thought maybe we could have a biological child, as well as international child.

After a lot of consideration we asked ourselves a few key questions:

• Could we love an adopted child the same as a biological child? This was a very important question to be able to honestly answer. In the end, the answer was yes.
• Would we make a distinction between an adopted child and a biological child? The answer was no. Once you have a child placed in your arms, and that child becomes YOUR responsibility, it doesn't matter whether you conceived this child or not. At least to us it doesn't.

In the end, we decided that it didn't matter how we chose to expand our family, it would our family just the same. I cannot say that we will never have a biological child. If that happens, it happens. It's just not the path that we feel we are being pulled towards right now.

Soooo......

INTERNATIONAL VS DOMESTIC ADOPTION

This was never much of an issue to us. White, healthy, newborn infants are in the highest demand in the US. It can take years to find a match. We chose not to purse this, because:

1. The color of the skin is not important to us. There will not be a shortage in homes for these children.
2. Many people turn to adoption for reasons such as infertility. Many of these people want babies who are biologically similar to themselves for whatever reason, which is not a terrible thing. Many people choosing adoption need/want a child who is ethnically close to them. No matter what the reason, being that it didn't matter to us, we did not want to stand in the way of people who this type of thing mattered to.

By choosing international adoption, we are providing a loving home to a child who without us would grow up in an institution and never know what it's like to have a family. We are making a big difference in the life of this child, but in the end, this child will make a bigger impact in our lives!

We are not so naive as to think that there won't be difficulties ahead for us because of this decision, but we definitely think that all the benefits and rewards far outweigh any risks. And we are prepared to love this child as our own no matter what. Hopefully, all of you will feel the same.

Love,

Angel and Mark

***Stay Tuned for the Next Topic:

There are many special difficulties that come from raising a child of a different ethnic background. My next post will touch on some of these issues and also touch on how to hope to deal with them.