adoption debates, yeah that again..

..mostly in my head as, fortunately, steve and i agree on everything. as we all know i am beyond convinced that IVF#2 will not work (to the point where i’m still not sure i want to go through with it), so naturally i’m researching the adoption agency we will go to and re-justifing our country choice, because some wavering, mostly on my part, has been occurring. way back when i started researching adoption, we had decided on korea. for lots of reasons: infants available, really good program, foster care, escort to the U.S., etc. BUT.. when you say “infant” in the world of adoption, you mean 6 to 12 months, sometimes older. here is where i start to flipflop to domestic. i mean really, how great would it be to possibly get ultrasound pictures or be at the actual birth?! and a snuggly little newborn.. ahhh…. precious! but that’s about where the positive qualities end for domestic (for us).

it’s well known that i can’t think without lists.. this is limited to the issues that are bothering me most:

korea pros: infants available, really good program, foster care, escort to the U.S., some medical records, predictable wait time, rare failed referrals
korea cons: child could be over 1 year old or close to it, bonding/attachment issues, we can’t submit our dossier until we’ve been married 3 years: october, 21 2010 (soooo annoying since we’ve lived together since may 2004!).. plus, as with any international adoption, the country could close or be put on hold at any time.

domestic pros: teeny, tiny, squooshy newborn, possibility of getting the baby on day one
domestic cons: everything else. the openness (we are only comfortable with very minimal openness, ie: letters through the agency), waiting to be chosen (ie: popularity contest), false starts (ie: when the birthmom changes her mind after referral, one source estimated that one-third of all domestic adoptions fails due to a false start), disruption (when the birthmom changes her mind after placement), plus there are tons of rumors about drug & alcohol abuse by birthmoms in this country (i don’t have stats for this, but even the thought scares me).

mostly the “false start” (nice name for what would essentially feel like a miscarriage) and the “disruption” (nice name for what would feel like the death of a child) are the reasons domestic adoption scares the shit out of both of us. after all that we’ve been through i don’t think i could handle this, because knowing our luck we would have a failed referral.

here’s a pretty chart:

that being said.. we are still concerned with korean adoption because we would essentially be missing out on the first year of our child’s life. … really think about that.. our child could be almost walking, eating solid foods, bonding to his or her foster mother. how much developmentally happens during those first 12 months? we would not be a part of that. the tiny little sneakers we bought at the beginning of our TTC journey wouldn’t fit our baby.

how do i get over this? i know they aren’t tiny little newborns for very long.. but i desperately wanted to experience that time. somehow i need to find peace in this decision.. steve is pretty confident with korean adoption, he joked that the kid would be closer to having cool toys if he or she was already 12 months old! hah! … argh.. i so hate the korean government for invoking the new(ish) law that babies must be up for korean domestic adoption for 6 months, only if no korean family wants the baby he or she can then be up for international adoption. sure, makes sense for them, but not for ME!!

anyway.. this has been in my thoughts lately. a lot. because i truly feel that we will adopt. again, so much so that i don’t really want to bother with IVF#2.. just the thought of it exhausts me. but how can i not go through with it at this point?

8 more pills…