Adoption for Beginners

If it wasn't clear from the first post, my husband and I plan on adopting our children in the future.  This is not due to any fertility failing (that we know of) or anything like that.  It is because we know that so many beautiful children are born every year and need a loving home.  A few questions that we have already encountered even though we are no where near starting the adoption process are: "Why don't you just have your own baby?" and "What's wrong with adopting from the US when plenty of kids need homes here?"

The first question is easy: we are going to have our own baby! He or she will just be born somewhere else, but we love him and her already and they are very much our own.

The second question I hope to be able to answer over the course of many posts.

At this point we are looking to adopt from two places: the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nicaragua.
If the world worked out exactly according to plan (which it never does) we would love to adopt an infant boy from the DRC and an older (3-5 years) girl from Nicaragua.  One of the reasons, for the ages at least, is that infants are available in the DRC while mostly older children are available from Nicaragua.  It is much quicker to adopt from the DRC but for both programs you must be at least 25 years old.  For the DRC, a married couple must be married for at least 5 years. That gives us 3 years to go for age and 4 years to go for marriage before we can start the search for our children.  We would also be open to the opportunity of adopting a sibling group from either country rather than one from each.  We feel this would help ease some of the isolation adopted children sometimes feel as they grow up in a family that only looks like them on the inside. When it really comes down to it, though, age, gender, and country are not important.  These are only abstract plans to try to make the wide world of adoption slightly more tangible.  I know when we find our son and/or daughter we will know them and love them regardless of age, country of origin or how they fit into a "plan". Perhaps we will even have the joy of meeting our children in person, on our travels, before we set about applying to be parents. And perhaps it will be from somewhere we never would have expected.

Most people who adopt from places like the DRC seem to start the process saying "I knew nothing about this country whatsoever."  I, however, am quite familiar with this country and the ongoing situations of violence occurring within it and this has largely shaped my desire to adopt from there.  Hopefully this blog will serve not only as a testament of our love for our future children but also as a way to bring their countries, cultures, and struggles home for us living in the US.  I plan on making a country profile for both countries, not only highlighting the difficulties plaguing them, but celebrating the cultures that our children will come from.  Hopefully from this I can learn more about the beauty the world has to offer and the wonderful gift of life we will be waiting for.  Along the way I hope to find other ways of helping and understanding these countries.

Now of course, I must state the obvious.  With 5 or so years to wait, the adoption programs for these countries could be closed or the situation drastically changed.  And this will all be part of what certainly will be a roller coaster ride of joy and heartache and changed plans.  I hope that you will come along with us for this ride!

Too Young for Babies

Let me begin by making it clear that we are not ready for our children right now.  BUT as we near our 1 year wedding anniversary and as we settle into a new home, my love for my little two person family is only growing and I know that soon enough we will be ready for our (hopefully) son and daughter.  Hopefully by starting this blog now (a long 4 years before we are even allowed to adopt), we will have a lovely testament to our love and anticipation that we can one day show our children.  We can show them that we were waiting for them and loving them even before they were born. And we can introduce them to the family they will one day be a part of.