I have experienced both sides of the international vs. domestic adoption and will tell you that international adoption is MUCH easier than domestic, which seems very weird to me. My husband and I have adopted four children internationally - two from Korea and two from the Philippines. In each case it took us less than a year to be matched with a child and have the child in our home. However, foreign adoption has become very, very expensive and involves a lot more paper work, fingerprints, INS, etc., so when our four children were older we decided to adopt domestically.

We wanted a sibling group of older, minority boys - supposedly the hardest group of children to match. We are experienced parents, have a comfortable income and wanted a hard-to-place group of children, so I mistakenly thought that once our home study was done, agencies would be beating our doors down offering us children. The opposite occurred.

Like others who have written in the Speak Out column, I inquired about many sibling groups I found on-line. In most cases, the social worker never contacted me at all. In other cases, the write-up on the boys would say, "we want to find a home that will accept both (or all three or all four) brothers". I would call the social worker to say we were interested, only to be told that they had already split the kids up.

In two cases, we were asked if we wanted the ones who were left, like they were a litter of puppies or something. In the end, we were matched with a sibling group of three from Missouri. Missouri, or at least the caseworker we had, was wonderful to work with.

My advice for anyone wishing to adopt domestically is to be very proactive without
being pushy - contact the social worker more than once, be sure your social worker has actually sent your home study, and don't give up. My very best advice is to pray constantly, because God knows your heart, your family, and what you can handle. He also already knows which child or children belong in your family. So, even when things get really frustrating, know that God is in control and He will do what's best for you and your family.

Credits: Cheri Tillman