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About 15 years ago we started our first adoption process. My husband wanted to only adopt internationally, feeling there was more need...that so many woudl choose to adopt a US infant, and fewer would choose intertnational. I'm not sure if that is actually true now, but I could see his reasoning. I was very willing to adopt a child from Guatemala thru the orphanage our agency works with. But I also wanted to leave room for God to work how He would choose for our family. He agreed, because he also wanted God's best for our family. About 14 months later, we (and our three bio daughters) met our newborn baby girl thru domestic adoption. We had faith in our agency to do things right and counsel birthmothers w/ their best interests in mind. The issue of whether our daughter's birthmother would ever change her mind or try to interfere was never a concern, for our faith in our agency and the laws of our state concerning relinquishing a child and giving up parental rights. The horror stories you read about or see on news shows I am convinced happen only because agencies or lawyers are in a hurry to place a child or cut corners or don't see the warning signs of a birthmother not being stable enough or confident in her decision. But that's just my opinion on why things would go awry.
The next adoption, we both felt we were too old to parent a newborn and went only with the Guatemalan program, asking for a child up to age four. We have since brought home three children from the same private orphanage in Guat City. The boys came home in 1998 and 2000, both at age four. Our daughter came home this Feb at the age of ten. This time around, we wanted to adopt an older child. (We didn't consider our boys "older", since we knew there were much older kids at the home than they were.)
My advice is to ask God to lead. He knows His plans for you and any children He may have plans to bring to you. Also, that you both are headed in the same direction, or one of you is willing to let the other go with their feelings at the time you make those decisions. We just felt great about allowing God to choose for us. We're so thankful we did, so he could bring our daughter to us thru domestic adoption.
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