Choosing our International Agency

We chose an international agency!

And that application process involved really thinking through exactly what we are looking for.

We are looking to be the last option for a child. The only option left before permanent life in an orphanage. In agency searching I realized how much I detested the phrase "we could find that child for you." It made me feel, whether true or not, like agency representatives are just combing the country and hospitals asking for people's children. I felt like I was talking about a commodity with some of the agencies I called.

We sent a pre-application to WACAP in February because we knew that they had subsidies available for special needs adoption (they have lost funding for this since then) but hadn't made a final decision. A phone call turned it around for me.

Last week I called the Ethiopia program manager at WACAP. I think she didn't initially realize that we are looking for a special needs child. She began by giving me a speech saying that we would need to be very patient, that they work within the community to help families keep their children, so we would need to be prepared for a long wait for a healthy infant.

I had to keep myself from laughing. Her words are our mantra. What a perfect fit. It was the sign I had been looking for. (I feel like so much of this adoption is searching for signs.)

So we are now officially a WACAP family!

On the full spectrum of care for children I really think that inter-country adoption should be listed well under placement with extended family, adoption into the local community, or local foster care. Who am I to believe that I would be better at raising a small African child than an African family??! But for some children, when all else fails, adoption is the only family option left. It is hard to wrap my mind around. That we so desperately want a child but at the same time, realistically, are the last rung on the ladder, after they have lost everything else, before permanent orphanage life.

Even though I work in this general field, the adoption brings it home, makes it personal, will connect us permanently to another family. It totally boggles my mind some days.

In other news...we have managed to shift the baby items from the dining room table, to the coffee table, to the kitchen in the last 24 hours. It is becoming a sort of Where's Waldo - Where are the baby things? game at our house. I just can't bring myself to clear off a shelf anywhere yet. I don't want to jinx anything!



~A