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" I recently found an old diary from my teenage years, where I blithely wrote about my future, figuring I would get married around 28 and have children soon after. By the time I met the man of my dreams, however, I was 34 and had almost given up on the idea of a family; I&amp;#039;d convinced myself I could live a perfectly fulfilled life without children. But being with Evan soon convinced me otherwise-- I knew we were meant to raise a family together. Again, life had other plans. I was 36 when we married, and instead of getting pregnant, I got breast cancer. Once I came safely (more or less) out on the other side of the treatment merry-go-round, I was nearing 40 and had little hope of becoming pregnant. So we chose adoption. We went through three &amp;quot;failed matches&amp;quot;-- adoptions that fell through at the last minute-- and there were days when I literally curled up on the floor, threw things at the wall, and sobbed in despair, believing we&amp;#039;d never have a baby. But then a beautiful young woman named Kim chose us to be the parents of her daughter. I&amp;#039;ll never forget the warm night when we watched Annika Rose take her first breath. As Evan and I looked into her wide, alert blue eyes, we knew why we went through everything we did. And for Annika, we&amp;#039;d do it all again. There are about 135,000 adoptions in the United States every year, and each one is unique. My friend Michele chose adoption because she felt drawn to build her family that way; she and her husband now have a biological daughter, plus a beautiful son from Ethiopia. My friend Viki and her husband had two pregnancies end tragically in their quest for a third child. Then they adopted a son, now in elementary school, who is still close with his birth family. Our neighbor adopted from the former Soviet Union in her 40s, after coming to realize that not having a husband didn&amp;#039;t mean she couldn&amp;#039;t be a mother. No one I know who has adopted would say that the journey came without heartache. And we all recognize that a lot of heartache is also experienced by the birth parents, and understand that just because they weren&amp;#039;t able to raise their kids doesn&amp;#039;t mean that they don&amp;#039;t love them deeply. But even though growing our family has been a lot harder than I ever imagined when I made that simple life plan back in high school, I wouldn&amp;#039;t change a single step on our path to parenthood-- because each one led us to our daughter. Why do I want to adopt? There&amp;#039;s one reason above all others to make this choice: You should do it, say experts, because you want to be a parent and love a child. If a personal concern for less fortunate kids is part of your motivation, then that may affect how you adopt-- but it shouldn&amp;#039;t be your driving impulse; adoption is about creating a family, not &amp;quot;saving&amp;quot; a child. Can I handle an open adoption? Twenty years ago, virtually all adoptions were &amp;quot;closed&amp;quot;-- meaning that records were sealed and birth parents never had contact with the new parents, or with their children, after the adoption. Some professionals thought this preserved privacy for birth parents, secured the role of adoptive parents, and ensured that adopted kids didn&amp;#039;t feel &amp;quot;different.&amp;quot; In fact, many states still deny adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates. Today, most domestic adoptions are &amp;quot;open&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;semi-open,&amp;quot; meaning there&amp;#039;s some contact between the adoptive family and birth parents. A growing number of experts now view openness as healthy for several reasons: It reassures birth parents that their child is doing well; it gives adoptive parents information about their child&amp;#039;s history as well as a sense of security (studies have shown that adoptive parents in closed arrangements are more anxious about losing their child than those in open ones); and it allows adopted children and adults to have longed-for connections to their biological family and roots. What kind of child am I ready to adopt? This question can be a very uncomfortable one. Does seeking a child of your own race mean you&amp;#039;re a racist-- or does it mean acknowledging that it can be tough for a child to look different from her parents? What would adopting a drug-exposed child or a child with disabilities mean to your family? Be honest with yourself and do research before making your decision. If you&amp;#039;re considering the adoption of a child with special needs, or a transracial adoption, explore your resources. Do you have access to services that a child with disabilities requires? Do you live in a multicultural neighborhood, or would you move to one? If there are multiracial families in your community, especially those formed by adoption, consider asking them for their perspective. &amp;quot;People worry that their children might be confused by an open relationship with the birth parents,&amp;quot; says Brenda Romanchik, director of Open Adoption Insight, a nonprofit organization in Michigan that provides resources and support for people involved in all sides of the adoption equation. &amp;quot;But if you&amp;#039;re not confused about the roles and relationships, then your children won&amp;#039;t be either.&amp;quot; Have I come to terms with my infertility?  &amp;quot;Infertility is a grief that&amp;#039;s revisited many times throughout life-- for instance, when you see the birth family and know your child looks like them, not you,&amp;quot; says Romanchik. &amp;quot;Can you handle that? You have to be able to accept that adoption isn&amp;#039;t the same as having a child born to you.&amp;quot; To get to that place, first understand that feeling ongoing pangs of loss over infertility doesn&amp;#039;t mean you love your adopted child any less. Find support among parents who have adopted or are trying to-- many have been down this path. Can I handle being &amp;quot;different&amp;quot; from other families? From &amp;quot;Did I grow in your tummy?&amp;quot; to &amp;quot;Who do I look like, Mom?&amp;quot; there will always be sticky issues that set you apart from other families. How will you discuss them with your children? &amp;quot;Very important-- do you have a thick skin?&amp;quot; asks Romanchik. &amp;quot;People will say stupid things to you sometimes, like, &amp;#039;Aren&amp;#039;t you afraid the real mother will take her away?&amp;#039; Do you know how to deal with them in a way that&amp;#039;s healthy for your child?&amp;quot; Good adoption agencies offer classes, programs, and counseling that can help you navigate these answers. Domestic adoption Laws vary depending on where you live-- for instance, some states allow attorney-mediated adoption; others require you to use a licensed agency. Make sure that you understand the rules in your state as well as in the state where the child lives or will be born. You can look up state laws at laws.adoption.com, but attempting a completely do-it-yourself education on adoption law may leave you baffled. So seek a licensed adoption attorney through the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys (adoptionattorneys.org) for more advice. Most domestic adoptions are at least &amp;quot;semi-open,&amp;quot; meaning that at a minimum, letters, photos, and other information are exchanged periodically through an intermediary such as an agency. Adoptions that are more open involve direct contact through letters, phone calls and emails. And in fully open adoptions, ongoing visits are common. Costs for domestic adoption run the gamut. Some agency adoptions add up to well over $30,000, while an &amp;quot;identified adoption&amp;quot;-- in which the prospective adoptive parents themselves locate the birth parents through advertising and other outreach-- can cost less than $10,000. PROS: Domestic adoption gives you the greatest likelihood of bringing home a newborn, an experience many families yearn for. You are also more likely than with an international adoption to find out the birth family&amp;#039;s medical history-- and to have a more open adoption. CONS: Your wait for a placement can be anywhere from less than a month to two years or more. Because the expectant parents usually choose the adopting parents-- a situation known as a &amp;quot;match&amp;quot;-- there&amp;#039;s no way to know when you&amp;#039;ll be selected. A survey found that 31 percent of families experience at least one failed match because the mother or father decides to parent the child; some agencies report that the rate of failed matches may be higher. It&amp;#039;s vital to remember that they have this right, and to be prepared for the emotional upheaval of this possibility. Foster-care adoption More than half a million children were in foster care in 2005. Of those, 52,000 were adopted, and 115,000 were waiting to be. Many of the remaining children were awaiting possible reunification with their families. Adopting from foster care usually means working with your state&amp;#039;s department of child and family services, but there are also private foster agencies, such as Casey Family Services (caseyfamilyservices.org), an East Coast nonprofit. PROS: Adopting from foster care can be much less costly than either domestic or international adoption-- in some cases, free. State agencies usually don&amp;#039;t charge fees for adoption from foster care, although some private agencies do. And all states have adoption-assistance programs designed to help parents recoup costs (such as legal fees) involved with adopting from foster care. Find out more from the fact sheet Adoption Assistance for Children Adopted from Foster Care, available online (go to childwelfare.gov and type the publication&amp;#039;s title in the search box). CONS: Dealing with state foster-care bureaucracies can be frustrating, and many children in foster care have special medical or physical needs. You can learn more about foster adoption at adoptuskids.org. International adoption More than 20,000 children a year are adopted by U.S. families from a wide range of countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America. The foreign adoption landscape has undergone some significant changes lately. Though China has been Americans&amp;#039; top choice-- 6,500 Chinese children came into U.S. homes in 2006-- that number is expected to drop, thanks to stricter regulations now in place there. (For instance, a couple must be married for five years to adopt from China if either partner has previously been divorced.) By contrast, Ethiopia is seeing an increase in adoptions, thanks in part to a relatively speedy process-- sometimes just six months, following approval from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. PROS: You don&amp;#039;t have to wait for the birth parents to &amp;quot;pick&amp;quot; you-- your adoption follows a standard process established by the country you&amp;#039;re adopting from. Many people feel more comfortable adopting internationally rather than risking the heartbreak of a failed match domestically. There are many countries that U.S. citizens adopt from, so if one country&amp;#039;s policies or requirements don&amp;#039;t work for you, another one&amp;#039;s might. CONS: The cost can be high, ranging from $7,000 to more than $30,000. A country&amp;#039;s adoption relationship with the United States can also &amp;quot;close,&amp;quot; temporarily or permanently, sometimes without much warning-- as what happened with Vietnam, which closed adoptions to the United States between 2003 and 2005, and reopened in 2006. Lydia Kirkham, 34, and her husband, Mike, 38, both legal professionals, live just outside Kansas City, MO. Their 2-year-old daughter, Addison, who loves to &amp;quot;play soccer,&amp;quot; go on hikes, and feed her cat, was adopted at birth in a semi-open domestic adoption. &amp;quot;Mike and I spent nearly five years trying to get pregnant-- first on our own, then with a total of nine intrauterine insemination and in vitro fertilization cycles. It took a toll on me and my body, and it was so discouraging. It was the biggest relief when we decided to adopt. &amp;quot;We signed up with a big national agency around Christmas of 2004. In April, we got the thrilling news that we&amp;#039;d been matched with an expectant mother, but a few weeks later, we found out she&amp;#039;d never been planning to place the baby and instead was scamming to get support money from us; she&amp;#039;d even registered for shower gifts. This happened the day before Mother&amp;#039;s Day. I&amp;#039;d had some sad Mother&amp;#039;s Days in the past, but that one was the worst-- I&amp;#039;ve never felt so angry and frustrated. &amp;quot;We got the next call from the agency on July 19. The birth parents were a married couple in South Dakota who had two children and knew they couldn&amp;#039;t provide for another baby, at least not the way they wanted to. We visited them three weeks before the due date, and when they gave us the baby&amp;#039;s sonogram pictures, we knew that this was it. After being burned once before, we were cautious, but we really felt like we could trust them. &amp;quot;Addison&amp;#039;s birth mom really wanted Mike and me to be there when the baby was born, and her doctor planned to induce her on a Friday. We went the day before, and in the middle of the night, the birth father called us and said she was going into labor. Addison was born at 9:28 the next morning. Her birth mom kept saying, &amp;#039;She was just waiting for you guys to get here.&amp;#039; &amp;quot;We were all in the room together when she was born. Both Mike and the birth father cut the cord. The whole experience was just surreal. Mike and I stared at this beautiful baby with tears streaming down our faces, thinking, This is the most incredible, selfless decision these people can make, to let us be included in her birth. &amp;quot;We have a semi-open adoption. Addison&amp;#039;s birth parents called us last Christmas, and I send them pictures regularly-- they usually call us right after getting the pictures, and we talk about all the new things that Addison is doing. We have a whole album for her that includes her birth parents before she was born, and we talk about who they are. &amp;quot;Someday we&amp;#039;ll have visits. It wouldn&amp;#039;t be right to discourage Addison from knowing these people. We&amp;#039;ve always told her that she&amp;#039;s loved by more people than she could ever know.&amp;quot; Shelby Nickel, 36, and his wife, Jen, 33, are raising four sons in Williams Lake, British Columbia, Canada: Greg, 12, and Eric, 11-- biological siblings who were adopted through the Missouri foster-care system-- as well as Tanner, 10, and Caden, 6. Shelby is a commodities broker, and Jen homeschools the boys. &amp;quot;When I started dating my husband, I told him I wanted to adopt, as in: &amp;#039;If you want to marry me, this is it!&amp;#039; A few months after Tanner was born, we investigated adopting through foster care both in Canada and the United States and were eventually matched with two brothers in Missouri, Greg and Eric, who were 4 and 3 at the time. &amp;quot;To help get the boys ready, we made a video of ourselves showing them our home and things like the table where we&amp;#039;d eat-- with places set for them. Then we spent a week in Missouri getting to know them. They&amp;#039;d been with their foster mom for three years; even though she&amp;#039;d prepared them well, their first year with us wasn&amp;#039;t easy. Greg had a breakdown in a restaurant, crying that we&amp;#039;d stolen him. It took Eric longer to show his grief, but he was processing a lot of pain, too. We loved the idea of our kids even before we were matched with them, but loving the reality of your children-- that&amp;#039;s a process, one that&amp;#039;s both wonderful and hard. &amp;quot;I found out I was pregnant again 18 months after the boys came home. When Caden was born, he was all of ours-- the first member of our family that we all had from the very beginning. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve worked hard to establish relationships with the boys&amp;#039; birth parents. Their birth dad is in prison, and over the years, we&amp;#039;ve worked our way from letters to phone calls with him. It&amp;#039;s hard to have kids deal with serious grown-up issues, but it also helps them to understand why they were removed from their environment and love the reality of who their birth family is, not the fantasy of who they&amp;#039;d like them to be. &amp;quot;We want our kids to grow up with a strong sense of self and racial pride, so we switched to a church with an African-Canadian pastor and a multicultural congregation. And every year, we go to the Harambe Festival Camp, a weeklong camp for families with children of African heritage-- the kids love it. Fortunately, we live in an area that&amp;#039;s racially integrated, but sometimes there are inappropriate questions, like, &amp;#039;Are they really brothers?&amp;#039; My answer is, &amp;#039;All four of our boys are really brothers.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Scott and Karen Petty, both 33, live in North Carolina. They adopted their 2-year-old daughter, Gwen, from Jiangxi Province in southern China in September 2005. Karen, a stay-at-home mom, is a freelance copywriter; Scott is a marketing manager for a swimming pool company. &amp;quot;One day, Scott walked through the door and said, &amp;#039;What do you think about adopting from China?&amp;#039; We&amp;#039;d been trying to get pregnant for years and endured a difficult year of infertility treatments, and we had finally started discussing adoption. Then Scott went on a business trip to China and spent the flight home sitting next to a family that was bringing home their adopted daughter. It just felt right to him, and as soon as he suggested it, it was one of those &amp;#039;aha!&amp;#039; moments for me, too. Ten days later we signed with our agency. &amp;quot;I treated the dossier of vital documents that we prepared for the adoption with such care. Turning in that paperwork to the agency was hard for me because to me, it symbolized our little girl-- and it was like I didn&amp;#039;t have her anymore. But it got us one step closer to our daughter! &amp;quot;Six weeks later, a woman from the agency called with our referral. It was July 28, 2005. I fell apart-- when I told her that I had to call my husband, I couldn&amp;#039;t remember his name! She emailed me a picture of my daughter. In the photo, she had a doll on her lap that was almost as big as she was. Her Chinese name was Lin Ying Tong; we&amp;#039;d name her Gwendolyn Faye Ying. I slept with her picture that night. Our daughter. At last. &amp;quot;Two months later, we were in China. Our guide at the civil affairs office told us, &amp;#039;Your baby is sick, but she&amp;#039;s okay.&amp;#039; We didn&amp;#039;t know what that meant, but we were ready to deal with anything. &amp;quot;Gwen was 7 months old and weighed 8.2 pounds. She was sicker than we thought, and her highest fever was 105.8. She was having seizures and was hospitalized multiple times while we were there. The minute we got back home, we took her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a respiratory infection that isn&amp;#039;t serious in most children but can be life-threatening in children who are already small and weak, like Gwen. &amp;quot;Her first year home was hard. She was also developmentally delayed, not sitting up or rolling over. So we put her in physical therapy and occupational therapy; we had her work with sleep specialists and nutritional specialists. Now I look back and realize I got to experience everything with Gwen. I saw her sit up, roll over, take her first steps. If it hadn&amp;#039;t been for those struggles, we wouldn&amp;#039;t have had those moments. &amp;quot;Today Gwen runs everywhere, loves to laugh, loves to play in the water, and she&amp;#039;s entranced by books. She&amp;#039;s on track with all the other kids. Some people say love can&amp;#039;t conquer all, and maybe not, but love and a whole lot of work can get you very far, and all I have to do to know that is look at Gwen.&amp;quot; Four years ago, Breanna Conner gave birth to a daughter and placed her in an open adoption with John Sgro, 30, a minister in the Chicago area, and his wife, Amanda, 31. Breanna, now 22, recently graduated college and works for a family-services program in Indiana. &amp;quot;When I found out I was pregnant at 17, my family and my ex-boyfriend&amp;#039;s family both suggested adoption, since they thought life would be difficult for me as a single mom still in school. At first I was against it. I couldn&amp;#039;t imagine placing my daughter with people I didn&amp;#039;t know and never seeing her again. But when I went to the doctor, I also met with a social worker who brought up the idea of open adoption. I researched it more and thought it could be a good option. Open adoption would be a way I could give my baby the best. &amp;quot;I found an agency that offered the opportunity for real openness-- not just letters, but calls and visits. I emailed couples I liked, and John and Amanda just fit. I wanted a Christian family, and he&amp;#039;s a minister. And I&amp;#039;d spend hours on the computer talking to Amanda-- my mom and her husband would both tell us to go to bed! &amp;quot;When I was five months pregnant, we met and became even closer. I went to Amanda&amp;#039;s baby shower and she came down to go through birthing classes with me and my mom. On September 26, Eden was born; John and Amanda chose her name. Amanda and my parents were in the room, which is what I wanted. I held Eden first, and Amanda cut the cord and gave Eden her first bottle. &amp;quot;We visit all the time. When they were living closer-- they moved from Indiana to Illinois when Eden was almost 2-- I&amp;#039;d babysit for them. Now I visit every two months or so. Eden is very possessive of me-- she&amp;#039;ll say, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m talking to my Bre!&amp;quot; She also tells everyone how she came out of Bre&amp;#039;s belly. &amp;quot;I got engaged earlier this year, and when I marry next August, John will perform the ceremony, Amanda will be a bridesmaid, and Eden will be the flower girl. &amp;quot;I do sometimes wish she could be here with me; birthdays, holidays, and Mother&amp;#039;s Day are hard. But then I wouldn&amp;#039;t have her parents in my life. It&amp;#039;s a catch-22. I have hard days, but for the most part, I believe my daughter is where she&amp;#039;s supposed to be.&amp;quot; Cheryl Sams, a 41-year-old computer programmer in Atlanta, adopted her daughter, Lauren, now 2, through a national Christian agency. Cheryl is exploring adopting a second child through foster adoption. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve known since high school that I wanted to adopt a child someday; I&amp;#039;m not sure where the desire came from. As I grew up, I knew that adoption was for me whether I got married or not. I even began going to adoption conferences years before I actually brought my daughter home. &amp;quot;I got started around my 37th birthday because I wanted to adopt an infant and thought I&amp;#039;d be too old for an agency to place a baby with me if I didn&amp;#039;t adopt soon. The social worker told me I should expect to wait awhile, because birth parents often don&amp;#039;t choose single parents. Usually single parents get chosen when the birth mothers don&amp;#039;t want to choose and leave it to the agency. &amp;quot;But only three months later, on a Monday, I got &amp;#039;the call&amp;#039; from the social worker, who said, &amp;#039;I have a baby for you!&amp;#039; I said, &amp;#039;Really?&amp;#039; I was both excited and scared! &amp;quot;The next day, the social worker emailed me beautiful pictures. And on Wednesday, I met the baby and theinterim-care mother at the agency office. The little girl had been in temporary care for five weeks while the birth parents&amp;#039; rights were terminated so that she would be legally free for adoption. When I first saw her, she was in this little yellow sleeper with Tweety Bird on it, and I just sat with her for an hour and held her and looked at her and fed her and changed her. Afterward, the social worker asked me if I wanted to accept the placement, and I said, &amp;#039;Of course!&amp;#039; I decided to name her Lauren. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s hard to juggle everything-- work, maintaining a household, caring for Lauren, and finding time for myself. My days start early in the morning and end late at night. But-- and this might sound like a clich\u00E9-- it&amp;#039;s so hard to imagine my life without Lauren. If she wakes up in the morning before I do, she comes into my room with a big smile and a &amp;#039;Good morning, Mommy!&amp;#039; Those moments, and the hugs and kisses, are priceless. She&amp;#039;s so funny, so happy, naturally inquisitive and so much fun. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m now on the waiting list for foster adoption. I had a great experience with a private agency, but I couldn&amp;#039;t save the fees needed for a second adoption, and I have friends who have had great experiences with adopting from foster care. I&amp;#039;ve been waiting for a month, and I&amp;#039;m hoping to bring home another girl, younger than Lauren. It&amp;#039;ll be good for her to have a sibling, and I love being a mother.&amp;quot; WANT TO LEARN MORE? For your guide to books and organizations that can show you the ins and outs of adoption, plus more info on international adoption, click here: redbookmag.com/adoptionresources. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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