Foster/Adoption: We looked into this first. There are plenty of babies but also plenty of adoptive parents who want these babies. Biggest downside: Biological parents’ rights aren’t terminated until after 12 months. We could raise a child for a year and then have her taken away!
Domestic adoption: Biggest downside: there are way more parents wanting to adopt than there are babies. We didn’t want to be competing with parents who were desperate for their first child when we have already been blessed with two. Other downsides: you are not guaranteed that a birth mother will ever pick you, it is expensive, and higher risk of drug/alcohol exposure.
Russia: biggest downsides: high risk of fetal alcohol exposure, only babies who haven’t been adopted by a Russian family after 9 MONTHS are eligible to be adopted by foreigners. Wait for girls over 12 months. Youngest child will be is 18 months.
China: the wait in China is 3 years! Plus, we haven’t been married long enough.
South Korea: haven’t been married long enough, very few girls, and long wait time
Haiti: Desperate need for adoptive families there, BUT, we haven’t been married long enough, and after your matched with a child you wait about 2 YEARS to bring them home (gov. very screwed up)
Other countries: only available children are older, girls hard to come by, marriage requirements too strict for us.
Not to mention that cost to adopt domestically is the same as international when all is said and done. We were surprised by that…