[tobeafamily]

We originally believed our only option to adopt a child within a short period of time was through international adoption. It was only after meeting with the agency we ultimately used did we ever even consider domestic parental placement. Our son did indeed come to us within a year of us starting our networking process, as the agency pretty well predicted.

So, why did we choose this path?

We liked the idea of parenting from birth.

We liked the idea of openness, having both known adoptees from closed situations who really had problems with the 'not knowing' part. We wanted our child to have access to all their history, not just our part.

We're also very accustomed to having family not related by blood, so having new members 'join' the troupe wasn't scary or even unusual for us or our families.

Because of DH's AD/USN status, international travel would have been more challenging for us than domestic. That wasn't a huge factor though.

We did no infertility TX during the adoption process. In fact, we waited almost five years from end of fertility tx to adoption, primarily b/c DH was AD/USN and didn't want to be adopting and deploying at the same time. Our agency will not work with families who are still actively pursuing biological pregnancy as a policy.

It's turned out very well, we feel very integrated as a family. Outside of 'adoption' forums there are no 'birth' or 'adoptive' distinctions, which was as we all wanted it to be.

HTH

Regina