I don’t know who told you there are no healthy infants available in Armenia, but there are. We brought home our perfectly healthy daughter less than a year ago. What agency did you speak to? Hopscotch is the only agency that is successful in this country, so you should really check into them. If you are Armenian, you should definitely go to this country…it is such deeply emotional thing to do (I am also half Armenian). Good luck!

We could adopt a special needs child, but I just cannot see being able to handle that with two children. We could take on a foster child in this country, but many of these children have emotional scars that run very deep. My own parents took on a foster child and he was physically abusive to me and my parents sent him to another family. I just cannot risk it having been through that.

I told my husband that perhaps we should forget it, but then I realized that “saving a child” was not my only motivation. The trust is, I would love a third child. I love being a mom and I love my kids–even though I may yell and they do drive me nuts. I would love another child, but feel the world is too over populated for me to bring another one in.
But this child would be so wanted and so loved.

This post helped me to realize it is okay to want a healthy baby. I prayed that my two sons would be healthy so why would I not doi this again?

i have been very honest in expressing my belief that one of the reasons that our adoption of our daughters has been so successful (to date) is because during the process i looked our social worker point blank in the eye and told her “do not attempt to place a sick and disturbed child in my home. don’t do that. if you do, i am going to be able to tell right away what you have done and i will disrupt the placement so fast it will make your head swim.”

she didn’t blink an eye. but i know she believed me. within weeks she called and told me, “Dr. Gray i think i’ve found your daughter, there’s just one small glitch.” i held my breath ready to read her the riot act “i told you NO—” and then she added, “there’s two of them, they’re a sibling pair and from everything that we can see and what we know, they are not disturbed, there are no behavior or mental health issues, no developmental delays, no medical concerns. they just need a permanent family.” i’m sure that’s not exact, but that’s how i remember the conversation.

here we are SIX years later…happy as all get out with our two girls (now ages 9 and 10) and our one biological son (just turned 12 this week!).

things are NOT perfect. they all three drive me nuts with one thing or another. and there are days that they all three think i am really nuts. but i could not have ordered up a more perfect union. all because, i spoke up without shame and without fear about what i really wanted. i guess, in a way, i did order it up!