There was an interesting comment left on this post from Jen, the mom of two boys and one little girl adopted domestically.(Thanks Jen, for commenting!)

You can read the whole comment here, but basically, Jen was sharing her feelings that it makes her uncomfortable when parents will only consider international adoption, because she feels like they are sending the message that there is something wrong with the kids available for adoption in the U.S. She also said that she feels uncomfortable when asked where her children are from, because she feels like it might have been “better” if she had brought them home from somewhere else.

This isn’t a concern that I have heard before, but I do understand where Jen is coming from. The whole “international vs. domestic” adoption battle can be pretty intense. I like to think of myself as a neutral party in that battle, since we have adopted children both domestically and internationally.

To Jen, I can honestly say that when we started our first adoption, we didn’t consider domestic adoption. And it had NOTHING to do with the children that were available, and everything to do with the process. I did not feel that we could handle it if an adoption fell through and a mother chose to parent her baby after originally planning to place the baby with us, and that is a risk that any family pursuing a domestic newborn adoption should be willing to take. I also did not feel good about waiting to be “chosen” by a potential birthmother, when I knew that there were millions of children waiting to be chosen by a family.

After two international adoptions, our perspective and opinions changed some, and we did do a transracial domestic newborn adoption. And it was tough. We were in an open relationship with the birthmother, and she was a young girl with a tough life and a lot of problems. There were several times during the wait for our son to be born that I wondered if the adoption would fall through. It would have been heart-breaking…not just because we would have been “losing” the baby we had come to think of as our son, but also because we knew that he would not be in a good situation (the other children in the home were NOT being well cared for, and at least one has since been removed from the home). But at that point, he was still her baby and it was her right to choose to parent him or not, and we had to support that and respect that, putting our feelings second, and just wait to see what would happen.

But it worked out and shortly thereafter, we were contacted and asked if we would consider adopting two older girls domestically. We did adopt the girls, and we have no doubt that they were meant for our family, but again, the process was difficult. Their birthmother was abusive and neglectful, and navigating contact with her was emotional, challenging and stressful (for us and the girls).

We tried several different times to adopt from the foster care system, and we were never able to get a placement, even though we were open to older children and special needs children of all races. It was very frustrating.

That being said, our international adoptions were not all easy by any means either. There are oodles of hoops to jump through for the different governments involved. Maggie got very sick while she was still in Vietnam and the wait and worry were excruciating. We had an adoption of a little girl in India that we grew to love as our own fall through after months of paperwork and anticipation (it was total heartbreak). The paperwork can be seemingly endless and overly tedious, and there is not much that is more difficult than having a child that you love be far, far away from you. The waiting stinks. And anyone who has been reading this blog for long knows the drama we went through to get Belane home.

Personally, I think all adoptive parents should be proud of where their kids come from. I am proud to say that my Marcus is from South Carolina and that my girls are from Mississippi, and I am proud to say we have kids from Vietnam, Korea and Ethiopia.

I don’t like it when either “side” is made to feel badly. Parents adopting domestically certainly should not feel like their kids are any less “good” or exciting, and parents adopting internationally should not feel like they are bad for not “taking care of our own” first. The fact is, a child in need is a child in need. They all deserve safe, stable and loving families, and it should not matter where they are born.

The reality is that both kinds of adoption…domestic and international… have benefits and risks. I know families that have had very quick and “smooth” domestic adoptions, and I know families who have had nightmare experiences with domestic adoption. I know families that have had very quick and “smooth” international adoptions, and I know families that have had nightmare experiences with international adoption. My own family has had easy and difficult adoptions of both kinds. The children we have been blessed with through both types of adoption have been equally amazing.

Both types of adoptions can be appealing (or not) for a variety of reasons and each family has to decide what risks they are more willing to take and feel they can best handle, and which benefits are most important. Every adoptive parent has the right to choose what type of adoption is right for them.

With our youngest son’s birthday this week, I have been thinking a lot about domestic adoption, so in my next few posts, I will discuss the benefits and risks of both domestic and international transracial adoption.

Here are some other posts on the subject.
Domestic Newborn Transracial Adoption

Transracial Adoption Options- Foster Care

Domestic vs. International Adoption