re: 12 Years Ago Today, LSURussian Helped Our Dream Come True

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What made yall want to adopt from Russia instead of the US? I don’t know anything about the adoption process but I am surprised to see the number of people traveling abroad. I was incredibly disheartened to read about how expensive it can be.

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We had no parenting experience and decided we wanted to take on as few additional challenges as possible.

Foreign vs domestic adoption is such a personal decision. For us, we were emotionally in a place that we wanted a “sure thing.” I couldn’t handle additional disappointments if the birth mother changed her mind or the birth family challenged the adoption.

Also, I wanted a Caucasian child for 2 reason: 1) I didn’t want it to be obvious to strangers that my child was adopted and wanted it to always be his choice if people knew his birth story or not. 2) Nit knowing what challenges we would confront parenting an adopted child, I wasn’t sure we could also successfully navigate the additional emotional and cultural challenges that come with parenting an interracial child.

Now that I feel we have some experience with parenting an adopted child, I would eagerly adopt interracially. (I wanted to but it was years later and the hubs felt we waited too long to start again.) I feel we’ve done a good job of connecting and addressing the emotional needs of our child and could do the same for another child with or without additional obstacles. It’s all about communication and asking help from others who have been there when you are unsure.