Choices

Today I had phone interviews with 2 adoption agencies. They are night and day to each other, and I really like both of them. Instead of feeling, "how do I choose?", I am feeling, "how lucky I am to have such great choices - I can't go wrong either way."

The 1st agency, my husband was on the phone for the interview as well. They are a large, national organization. Very professional, very on-the-ball, with extensive marketing. They seem to attract a really high quality group of both adoptive parents and birth parents (S and I were telling each other we'd have to make sure we don't look too poor - we have opted for little debt instead of a big house, and let's face it, the only people in the country with manicured lawns are retired). Our friends used them, were very very happy with their experience, and were matched within 4 months. Their daughter's birth mother was a law student at the time of the adoption.

The 2nd agency was returning a call from last week, and S had just headed off to work, so it was just me on the phone. They are a local agency, located about 5 hours away, working with adoptive parents from around the state, but with birth mothers within a couple of hours of their office. This way they can give a lot of hands-on, one-on-one time with the birth mother. It is small and personal. Personal to the birth parents and personal to the adoptive parents.

The prospective wait time is a little less with the national agency, but they are more expensive. The wait time is S's number one concern, so this may be a factor for him. We'll see. I can't wait for him to come home to talk with him about all of this. 'Cuz either way, we've got great options. :-)

PS - you may have noticed I've more or less stopped my end-of-the-blog list of what I am grateful for and what I am doing to take care of myself. I have found since deciding to not continue fertility treatments, my stress level is so much less that being grateful and taking care of myself is coming more naturally now, not something I have to work on.