When Sam and I finally decided to take the plunge to adopt (and by plunge I mean pick an agency and pay them the application fee) after years of debate and research, we picked on that could facilitate an adoption for India. That was where we knew our hearts were.
And are now adopting from Korea. So how did that happen?
I?d lived in India when I was 20, with a native family, and worked at an orphanage. It was an amazing, life altering experience that changed me forever. I remember my dad half jokingly saying as I left, ?Now Diana, don?t bring any of the kids home ok? Much as you might want to.? Once I got there and saw the poverty and conditions, I thought about taking them all back. 120 of them.
::in my Oprah voice:: You get a visa and you get a visa?
Our initial application for approval asked all kinds of questions, but one specifically asked which countries we were interested in. To Sam and I, it felt weird to write down anything because we honestly just wanted to put, ?Where there is the greatest need.?
We don?t have the feeling of ?saving? a poor child or being purely altruistic in our adoption motives. We want to expand our family, don?t want to face the heartache of another potential pregnancy loss for a while, and have always wanted to adopt internationally because that?s where our hearts are. There are parents drawn to domestic and the process that comes with it, but we were led a different way. Not better, not worse.?
You ?do have to make a decision or at least put a preference ? because each country has different requirements (like we didn?t fit China because we had to be 35 and over) and you can only apply to one during the process with that agency.
They asked us to list several, so we picked India, Thailand, S. Korea, and China.?The next day the agency called to say we had been accepted into their Korea program if we were interested. For various reasons none of the others would work.
Although it still took us a bit by surprise to change course, we were incredibly excited about being accepted into any program. Sam had been in Korea during his time in the Marines, so he knew a bit about it and we?ve gotten to share his memories since then.
In the meantime, I?ve started to read various blogs on families who have adopted from Korea recently, and am so excited at the thought of one day going over to pick up our child. They have a foster care system set up there and when we receive the referral for a child we?ll also get a lot of their and their birth parents medical history (for most cases). For me, that?s important so that if something were to ever happen, we?d know if it was hereditary and our child will be able to have a good deal of knowledge about his or her family medical history. We?ll also get to stay in touch with the family that helped raise our child from almost birth.
For us, family is not just flesh and blood. It?s love and care and who is there for you in your life. I believe there is a child who is meant to be ours in a completely unique way, who is going to impact our lives far more than we could ever imagine, and we can?t wait for the day we head to Korea to meet them.
Photo Credit?FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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Diana blogs on raising a toddler daughter, the loss of her twin boys, and their families? Korean adoption in progress on the aptly named Hormonal Imbalances.
Smaller glimpses into her day are on Twitter and Facebook.
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