Share Your Story: Choosing a Route

We asked our reader panel: How, and why, did you choose your adoption route? Please share your thought process with other readers.

Birthparent Connection
It was important to us to have medical histories for our children, as well as relationships with their birthparents, so we decided on a fully open domestic adoption. We're the proud parents of two beautiful children, and feel particularly fortunate to have good relationships with both of their birthmothers and birthfathers.
--Bonnie Barocas

"Lost" and Found
In college, I took an Asian History course and wrote a paper about China's One Child Policy and its implications. As a newspaper reporter, I covered the SARS epidemic, interviewing hopeful adoptive moms, some with broken hearts because their agency had cancelled trips to China, and others unfazed by their upcoming trips to the beleaguered country. My husband and I watched The Lost Girls, and the rest is history. Now, I think we would be more likely to adopt a second child from China than to attempt to have a biological child. All I have to do is visualize the thousands of Chinese girls waiting for a better life, and I know we are making the right choice.
--Stephanie Doyle

Open Minds and Hearts
As my husband and I considered adoption, several things became important to us. We wanted all the experiences that new parents have, like naming our child, counting tiny fingers and toes, night feedings, and those call-the-HazMat-team diapers.

We chose an open domestic adoption and have loved getting to know our daughter's birthmother and sharing stories and photographs with her. We wanted to be in the position to tell our daughter how her birthmother loved her, how long we searched for her, and to answer as many of her questions as we can.
--Lynn Melton-Vennefron

Written in the Stars
After several years of trying unsuccessfully to conceive, my husband and I decided that adoption was the right choice for us. As a young girl, I'd had a Russian pen pal. This seemed like a sign, and it eventually led us to Novokuznetsk, Russia, to our beautiful little boy.
--Lori Wiley

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