How do you choose which country you will adopt from? I think each family has a unique story as to how and why they made their decision.

For us, we initially considered domestic adoption, but it somehow felt competitive to us. We didn't want to be in a pool with others, selling ourselves. It just didn't feel like the right way to go for us.

We are not from a diverse community and wanted to have at least some connection to our child's birth country. My sister had recently travelled to India to volunteer at an orphanage. We fell in love with the pictures she was sending back of the people, especially the children. In addition to this, she had many friends from India that we hoped would be resources as we began the journey.

As we were completing our dossier for India, our local home study agency called with a unique situation. While they usually had long waiting lists for domestic infants, at the moment they had a baby and no families to match it with. We were offered the opportunity to complete a profile for the birth mother to review. We initially said yes. It seemed easier, faster, and it made sense in our heads. I couldn't sleep that night. It just didn't feel right to me. I talked to Dan about it the next day and we both agreed. Our baby was in India. This baby was more convenient, but it wasn't ours. We were sure that India was the right path.

The epilogue to that story is that the birth mother of the little boy offered to us decided to parent her child and is doing very well. Although we didn't have strong preferences to begin with, once on the journey we knew where our child was.