Agency? Check! Country? Check!

When Alan proposed marriage to me, having children was one of the topics we discussed as we started planning our life together. We both agreed that we wanted to experience parenthood. We also agreed that we were open to how it happened. If we were unable to have our own children, it meant there was another child in the world that was meant to have us as his/her parents.

We are excited to share that we have formally started the process to adopt a child from Russia. Since we have indicated we are open to either gender, it is very likely we will be adopting a little boy. As the majority of families specify they would like an infant girl, the wait times for girls are much longer. We are excited to start our family and think it would be wonderful to do that with a little boy.

We are about half-way through the first step in the process, which is a home study. We have also chosen the agency we will use, Adoption Options based in San Diego, CA. As it is very expensive to operate in Russia, most agencies only operate in a small number of regions. Adoption Options operates in about 25 regions in Russia, so they have access to a larger number of children. This means the wait times for the families is shorter, and the children referred for adoption are slightly younger. Right now, a lot of families who adopt little boys are able to complete the adoption in less than a year.

Interesting Fact: The children in Russia must be on the national registry for “children without parents” for 8 months. Therefore most children are 9-11 months before their prospective adoptive parents are invited to Russia to meet them.

-- Kathy Carda