[spaypets]

Our original impulse was to adopt internationally, but in the interest of doing due diligence, we briefly investigated domestic adoption. In the end we chose international.

Our overwhelming reason was because there was some idea of a timeline. Sure, it took longer than we had hoped/expected, but we knew we would get a referrral and in all likelyhood that referral would become our daughter.

The idea of waiting to be chosen by an expectant parent, who in the end might choose to parent after all, went against too many parts of our personalities. We are not patient people, DH and I. We are not by nature open and welcoming. We do not have a Christian home. We thought it might take a long time for us to be chosen by expectant parents. We also were uncomfortable about the idea of promising an ongoing relationship with strangers, which is what we would have to do if we were to have an open adoption.

Having some sort of time line and an expected process was much more important to us than the age of the child at homecoming.

We did however like the idea of adopting a child whose parents had already made the decision not to parent. We would bear no responsibility in that choice.

We narrowed our choices to countries with short stays and the possiblitity of having our child escorted (this all happened shortly after 9/11 when air travel seemed particularly scary). In the end, it came down to a choice between Guatemala and India. DH was unequivocal. He was much more interested in India. I was so thrilled that he'd agreed to adopt that I wasn't going to fuss about the country.

And, we did travel, and absolutely fell in love with India.