faq's

Not surprisingly, once people hear that we are adopting, we get lots of questions: why adoption? why Ethiopia? what's the process like? have you considered surrogacy (yes - this one keeps coming up) or [fill-in-the-blank] other options for having a child? I don't really mind the questions. I'm glad that people are interested and I understand that they are curious about how we came to our decision.

Adoption was always our "plan a." We knew from day one that we would pursue adoption when we ready to expand our family. It's simply something we both believe in deeply. Sure, we've talked about lots of other possibilities, but there was never really a question that adoption would be for us.

Choosing a program was a little bit harder. Sadly, there are so many children in need worldwide. On a practical level, we felt that the Ethiopia program requirements, the time frame, the costs, the process, etc. were a good fit for us... We've both been to Africa and felt a connection to the area. We wanted to adopt from a country we were likely to travel to in the years to come with our child. And we have been comforted by what we have read about Ethiopia's approach to their orphans and adoption. Once we started focusing in on Ethiopia, we never looked back....

I imagine I'll be venting here about the process quite a bit as we continue on. It's mostly a lot (a lot!!) of paperwork and what seems like 100 sets of fingerprints (okay, maybe only three). Proof of employment, proof of insurance, birth certificates, marriage certificates, proof of our good health... Making sure we've dotted all our i's and crossed our t's... and becoming very friendly with notaries. We're struggling to recall all our various addresses since 1973 (m: 12; r: 10 - we think) for our state criminal clearance (not to be confused with the fbi clearance we'll need). And we're anxiously awaiting a homestudy visit from a social worker in the next couple of weeks. This post is already too long, so I won't describe every step now... needless to say, we think it is all worth it.