[dings35]

Hello,

My husband and I are considering adoption. Can someone out there tell us how you decided which route to go - domestic or international? Can you give us the pros and cons of them?

Thanks so much!

Deb

[dlhall]

There are pros and cons to both and we had to decide what we could emotionally handle. We decided that we could not handle if a birthmother changed her mind, but we could handle the difficulties of travel and the huge amount of paperwork. We have successfully adopted twice from Russia.

Good luck with your decision.

Liz

[babydubs5]

I agree, there are pros and cons to both.... I did a lot of reading in preparation for everything.... I really enjoyed reading :

The Complete Adoption Book by Laura Beauvais-Godwin and Raymond Godwin, esq.

and

The Complete Idiots Guide to Adoption

both have a lot of information on both domestic and international, and also have a lot of resources and briefly touch on legal issues in the back. I highly recommend both!

Good luck!

[riverview]

i have done private domestic, agency domestic and now international/guat/. You can PM me with questions.

[kelceesmom]

We did domestice for a few reasons. One we wanted and infant. We also couldn't be away from home for extensive time which some countries require, and the extra $$$ for traveling. Our wait was only 6 months from signing and bringing home our beautiful girl who is now 13 months old.

[HBV]

We did domestic because we wanted to bring home a newborn and have as much influence over those critical first 3 years of development as we could. I have an almost irrational fear of RAD, so the earlier I could bond w/ the baby, the better. We also wanted an open adoption, which we were less likely to have w/ an international adoption. Frankly, for us, the cost was probably about the same (we had some unusual legal expenses.) The upside of international, as it was explained to us, was that you could be fairly certain of a placement within 9 or 10 months, chances of a failed placement were lower, and (this is only a plus if you don't want an open adoption)there was no contact with the birthparent. All depends on what your hot buttons are, I think.