Only children?

The subject came up recently on some of my message boards about only children and adopting again from Ethiopia and what that might look like in a few years. These were not things that I had thought of. I know for sure that we will have more than one child. I have always wanted at least 2 children and maybe 3. Adoption definitely makes that possible yet expensive and rewarding all at the same time.

Our first child will be from Ethiopia but what about our second? I guess it is possible we could have one of our own, highly unlikely but who knows what God has planned for us. I would like to adopt again and maybe from Ethiopia or maybe another African country, that will have to be determined later.

When we made the decision that adoption was the right choice for our family, we looked at lots of options. Our Social Worker helped us tremendously. She told us to look into Korea,Vietnam and Ethiopia as a lot of other programs like Guatemala, Russia and China were experiencing some issues or were shut down all together. So I sat at the computer for a few hours, printing out a ton of info. I think I should plant a tree or two to make up for all the paper I wasted.

After looking at our options we narrowed down out choices to Haiti, Korea or Ethiopia based on the age of the children available and our desire to become more familiar with the cultures. Once that choice was made, we had to select an agency. I could have just listened to my Social Worker as she recommended the agency that we are now using and we love them so far. But, I am pretty stubborn sometimes and I thought I could find something else. I looked at what seemed like hundreds of agencies across the country to find the best fit for us. We looked at time frames, price, and requirements both pre and post adoption and the history of the agency in the countries that we were interested in. It became clear that at that time Haiti would be a challenge. The cost was pretty high and not a lot of agencies had well established programs there and there were some corruption issues. Korea didn't seem to be a fit for us after all, I am not really sure why but it just didn't feel right. Ethiopia became a part of me. The more I looked into agencies the more I started focusing on Ethiopia. I 100% fell in love with the children and the country. Ok so that decision was made.

My next step was to make a chart of all the agencies that I liked that had the price, requirements, age of the children and time frames. The price and the time frames varied greatly from one agency to another. I kept emailing my Social Worker with questions about various agencies and she kept telling me to go with CHSFS. They were well established and accredited in Ethiopia. So after more research, I finally realized that CHSFS made the most sense. The time frames were reasonable and their commitment to Ethiopia and the people there is amazing. They weren't the cheapest agency around but they just might be one of the most dedicated to Ethiopia. After we found CHSFS, it was about a week later that we had our application turned in and started the process to get where we are now.

I feel so much at peace with our decision to adopt. It feels right in so many ways. If you had asked me 10 years ago if I would adopt a child much less a child from Africa, I would have said no way. Now that I am in the process, I can't imagine not doing this. I have so much love in my heart for our child or children (keeping fingers crossed for twins). I know that we have made the perfect choice for our family. Who knows what the future holds for our family and what new adventures we may have. Right now we are reading as much as we can about Ethiopia and I am working my way towards eating Ethiopian food.