After a year of trying to have a second child, Randy and I had come to the decision that God is wanting us to adopt our 2nd child. Our plan was to always have two children and then adopt our 3rd child, but I guess were going to adopt our 2nd child and see what God has in store for our future children after that. After much discussion and a lot of research of Hague versus Non-Hague countries, (if you don't know what the Hague Convention is I will explain later), we have decided to go with a Non-Hague country, so we will be adopting our future son or daughter from Russia.
Our next step is to decide on an adoption agency. Many people have stated that picking an adoption agency is the worst part of the whole adoption process, and I have to say I agree, though I will let you all know at the end of the process. We have been researching agencies, getting referrals, talking to people who have used their services before, and of course the very important part, costs. Being a single-income family will make this harder of course, but we are ready for the challenges. I have been researching fundraising ideas, and searching for adoption grants. There is an adoption tax credit that you can take at the end of the adoption process, but that is of course at finalization of the adoption and all monies have been paid. As strict Dave Ramsey followers, we are doing this all with cash, no second mortgage for us!
If you all could pray for us as we encounter this adventure we would greatly appreciate it. Our next step is to select an adoption agency, we have it narrowed down to two companies, and hopefully our decision will come soon.
Hague vs. Non-Hague: In a nut-shell, The Hague Convention was created to protect children and adoptive parents from false information being given to adoptive parents, and to also protect the children from being exploited. The pros are that you know what you are going to get with your adoptive child, the cons, it had dramatically increased the waiting time to get children, sometimes up to a 4-5 year wait as we are now seeing in China. Russia has a good reputation and has their own accreditation policy, so that is why we are going through Russia, and the wait time from submission of your dossier to bring your child home, is less than a year.
