Hubby and I did similar. We read every scrap of info at our Central Resource Library on adoption, abuse, trauma, legalities, you name it, we read it. If a person suggested a book to us, we snatched it up and devoured it. The CRL was our “lunch break location” for months and months. Almost two years worth of months.

As a child, adoption stories drew me in. I checked out books like “The Family Nobody Wanted,” and “SonRise,” a groundbreaking book on autism. (interesting side note: that groundbreaking work was done by the CHILD’S PARENTS) By age 12, Helen Doss was my personal childhood hero! My college background was in psychology. This stuff was and is fascinating to me! Helping hurting children and just people in general is not exactly a casual interest in our family.

Educating ourselves is great. It is necessary. Adoptive parents are responsible for that, as well as the decision made regarding acceptance of any given placement. Since the library info is generalized, it will never be sufficient to prepare for the individual child. Additionally, not all adoptions are recent history. Some of us are in the “older” category, and were doing our legwork pre-internet. Not that much older tho! The major point of it is, the individual anecdotal evidence wasn’t readily available. Progress is being made on the availability of accurate info, and it’s a lot harder for unethical adoption people to hide.

And our agency has been upfront with us everytime. They sent their alert last night w/ regards to all that’s happening now, outling our options to switch countries, wait it out, etc. Never pressuring or condeming our choices.

We decided to forego a referral at this point, and see what the new year brings with all the Hague stuff. But in the meanwhile, helping PAPs in -process bring their children home. We can wait.

The first step on the adoption journey should always be toward educating yourself. With all the information available now, there is no excuse for anyone entering into the process blind.