This really starts with the question - "Why not a domestic adoption?"
This is easily answered after a discussion of "Open" adoptions, adoptive parents rights, and health issues in domestic adoptions. Basically we just couldn't stomach all of the issues and after talking with other people who have gone through the process domestically we just did not feel good about going that way.
Then along comes our friends Kalvin and Pam who had completed an adoption for their first daughter using CCAI. Their experience started us down the path to China, and then after doing more research found that it had everything we were looking for in an adoption.
The babies are healthy and were wanted by their parents, but because of being a girl and China's strict family planning program they are abandoned because the parents are looking for a son. This contrasts to children who are available for adoption in the US because many of them are suffering from the effects of their parents drug and alcohol abuse. So with a China adoption we could get a little girl who has health problems, but the chance is actually less than if we adopted in the US.
The babies from China are abandoned. Babies in the US are put up for adoption and if parents rights are not terminated correctly they can come back years later and demand their child back. Combine this with "Open" adoptions where birth parents and adoptive parents get together at adoption agency functions and we just couldn't do it.
The child that we adopt is ours, and will be treated as if we had given birth to her. She will have everything we are able to give to her/do for her. We will be her "forever family", and we take that responsibility very seriously.
There are also a deep respect for China and her people which helped move us toward an adoption from China.
All of these things combined with the positive experiences of our friends, and spending time interacting with their daughters made our decision for us. All that waqs left was filling out the piles of paperwork, raising the money, and waiting.
Even though the wait has extended I still feel we have made the right decision.
