Russia vs. China

Well, as promised, here's a partial installment on the Adoption background.

AFter losing Sophia, we spent a lot of hours talking, discussing and researching about adoption. We looked into domestic and international adoption and felt that for us and where we are right now, international adoption offered more benefits than going domestic. Of most importance was knowing that once the court date in the country of choice was over, there was never a chance of a relative coming back to claim the child. This was of such great importance to us in order to avoid an even deeper loss than we'd already suffered in our days battling infertility. We just couldn't imagine the pain of a parent returning to claim a child we'd given our heart to. So knowing how secure international adoption was from that standpoint, it made the decision easy. The only other advantage with international adoption was that it wouldn't be 'open ended' from a time perspective, meaning that it might take 1-2 years at most to get through the paperwork and bring a child home, but we knew that would be all it would take. With a domestic adoption you can't predict how long it might take to be 'chosen' by a birthmother, and in the world of predominatly open adoptions, there aren't many other options.

so without a doubt, for the first time around with the thought of adoption, an international adoption was the way to go!

so then it was onto the big question... which country and why? Well, this became easier as we narrowed it down quickly between China and Russia (briefly considered Guatemala). I know a few couples who've chosen one or the other and both had good experiences. In addition, these two programs are by far the largest in terms of where people in the US adopt children from. This gives the added advantage of knowing the programs aren't in the newly formed stage and all the problems that can ensue because of it. It also gave us the reassurance that many other families have children from those countries who could share in the heritage of our children. The ability to bond and to know someone else is like you is so important growing up.

As for why Russia, this was harder. We share a strong interest in both countries. I have always desired strongly to learn more about Russia, to visit it one day and to experience it. Likewise he has a strong tie to Asian cultures from his days in the military. We couldn't imagine 2 coutries with more diverse cultures, heritages, history to chose from. In the end, we opted for Russia. It's hard to exactly put into words why we chose this route, but we can imagine a time where we might also one day opt for China if we do this again. The uncertainty of delays in either program was a concern, years past chinese adoptions faced delays due to political climates, while recently the same can be said for delays to the program in Russia too. And of course there's the expense, nearly the same when you think of the overall scope of cost to adopt, it's not something most people can do in the blink of an eye. It takes careful planning and consideration. Each country had it's advantages and disadvantages.

So this is how we came upon the decision of domestic vs international and China vs Russia. It took us many recent weeks to decide, filled with tons of internet research, along with the talks over the years on adoption and what we might do 'if and when' we reached that decision point.