Many people wonder and ask why we chose to adopt internationally when there were so many children in need of forever families in the United States! What a perfectly appropriate question, and I totally understand the curiosity.
When adoption first crossed my mind, I had no thoughts of going the international route. I assumed I would just adopt someday domestically, likely through the Social Services organizations.
As Nate and I talked about adoption after we were married, he said he always dreamed and thought of adopting an Asian girl, likely from China. So we discussed it, but at the time, felt adoption was in the distant future, so no decisions were made.
Then our lives began to change. With the loss of our babies, we both felt that if we were going to adopt, it would be internationally for several reasons. As we began the process, our first two children were 7 and 4. At an age where they were completely aware of what was going on. They had felt, deeply, the loss of their siblings. They understood that mommy had a baby brother/sister in her belly and that the baby died and went to be with Jesus. They had already suffered so much heartache. There is no way we could travel down the bumpy road of domestic adoption.
We could not chance going through the process of fostering children, and loving children, and having them return to their birth families. Or having a birth mother choose us, then change her mind late in the process. We knew that international adoption had a much higher success rate, without the heartaches.
I will say now, should we be blessed enough to adopt again, domestic may not be out of the picture, we would once again, need to sit down and decide what is best for our family, at this time in our lives.
God is Good
The story of the Mills' Family. Nate and Carol have been married since 1997. Taylor was born in 1998, Drew was born in 2001 and Toby was born in 2005 and joined our family forever in 2007. Here is our journey, where God leads us, we will go. That is my prayer.
2 comments:
Thanks for the adoption posts this month...you are answering questions for me that I didn't even know I had.
Carol, I'm really enjoying your adoption posts. I get asked why we chose international adoption frequently. Most people are just curious and I'm happy to tell them, but I've had some people who are downright rude and ask, "Why did you bring home some foreign kid when there are so many kids here to adopt?" I know these people are just ignorant of the process and it usually comes from someone who's just being self-righteous, but I get really steamed when they ask it in front of my kids. My favorite response to it is to explain why we chose international adoption, and then follow it up with, "Why did you choose to adopt domestically?" Their answer is always, "We didn't adopt." OK, I'll get off my soapbox now. Keep the posts coming.
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