Thoughts on Adoption

As most of you know, I have a beautiful five year old daughter. I'll spare you all the details, but we had a tough time having her, more accurately, my wife had a very tough time.
 
In any event, what we went through to have Caitlin Sierra has made a biological sibling for her all but impossible. We have been considering adoption for almost three years, and it's been an emotional roller coaster, equal to that of Tami's pregnancy with Caitlin.
 
So, we are just about done with the prerequisite homestudy, which all agencies require. This is a process of a joint interview, separate interviews, then a visit to our home. It's taken me awhile to warm up to the idea that someone has to bless my ability to be a parent, when I already have Caitlin, but I have come to understand the need for it. For this we paid just about $5,000.
 
We've considered both domestic and international adoption, and quite frankly, the choices are mind boggling, with all of the situations different regarding age of children available, open vs. closed adoption, paperwork required, length of wait, parental age maximums and cost.  As an example, Russia is quite popular these days, and some of the requirements are:

-You can be no older than 42 to adopt
-Children are typically 8 months - 18 months when adopted
-Parents required to take 2, 2 week trips to Russia.
-Tons of Paperwork
-12 month wait for a boy / up to 2 year wait for a girl
-$38,000 total costs (including home study, travel, fees, etc...)
-Practically zero information regarding parents of baby, so no medical records.
 
We have ruled Russia out, mostly because about 10% of the children adopted from Russia suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome, which affects childrens development and can lead to serious health problems as an adult, among other things. Also, the travel needed is excessive and I can't see taking my daughter to Russia at this point, and frankly, I have many other places I'd like to see first.
 
We are pretty close to signing up with an agency out of Texas. The cost is a bit less than Russia, but not much, and we'll get an infant (3 day's old!) as well as a full medical background of the biological parents. We also need to put together a "marketing book" which will have pictures and stories about our family which the birth mother's review to select the adoptive family. (Birth mother's are amazing, and would require a separate blog entry for me to accurately spell out my admiration)

 
If all goes well, we could have a little one by winter. Another neat thing about Texas is that you get what you get, meaning you won't know if it's a boy or girl until you get the call. Plus with Texas, it's a shoe if for a Dead related name.:)
 
The cost factor has really been an eye opener. I understand the agencies needs to stay afloat, but it sure is an expensive proposition when all you really want to do is open your home to a child who needs one.
 
Anyway, if you've read this far, thanks for doing so. Have great weekends!