A Change in Plans

I received a call from my social worker yesterday afternoon saying that Kazakhstan had decided to work with only a few agencies, and Bethany was not one of those agencies. We were told that we would most likely need to choose a new country or choose a new program, because it didn't look like Kazakhstan was going to happen. I was told that there was a small chance that we may be able to proceed with our adoption from Kazakhstan, but we won't know anything until July. By then most of our documents will expire, so we will have to redo them if we choose to continue. With Guatemala being closed and the wait for China being 2+ years, many people are switching to the Kazahkstan program, and this is causing delays. We have to make a choice, and we have three options:

1. We can choose to stay in the Kazakhstan program and hope for the best, knowing that there is a possibility that we won't be able to contine or that our dossier will be rejected.

2. We can remain in the international program and choose a new country to work with. The Central/South America programs are mostly closed right now. The Ukraine and South Korea programs only allow a certain number of adoptions per year, so we would have to wait until 2009 for those countries, Russia has a lot of issues, and China and the Philippines both have a really long wait. Our only real options would be Haiti and Ethiopia.

3. We can switch to the domestic program, create a profile, and wait to be chosen by a birthmother here in Indiana. This program can vary in the time it takes to be chosen and there is the risk that we may go through several failed placements before we have our son or daughter.

If we choose domestic, we wouldn't be spending seven weeks in a foreign country, and we would be able to spend more time at home with the baby before going back to work. We keep going back and forth with our decision, and we're just not sure what to do right now. We will continue to research out options and will hopefully make the best choice.