Why Ethiopia?

People have asked why we chose to adopt from Ethiopia. The answer is actually mostly a practical one, but of course we now feel drawn to Ethiopia emotionally as well. Matt and I had discussed international adoption a long time ago and knew it was something we wanted to do even before we had Finn and Gus. A few years ago, we began seriously researching our options.


As it turns out, there are not really all that many countries in the world willing to allow foreigners to adopt their children. I think I had the conception that if a country has a bunch of children who don't have families, they would be more than happy to let some nice American family take one off its hands. In fact, most countries have laws that make international adoption very difficult, if not totally impossible. There are a ton of reasons why that is so, which I won't go into here, but the bottom line is that the choices are more limited than you would think.

Anyway, we knew we wanted a girl, and we thought it would be nice to get a child as early as possible so that we could see her go through all those big milestones. Because we knew we wanted a baby (under 2), our choices were more limited. Children adopted today from more common adoption countries such as China and Russia tend to be at least two years old, as countries are making greater efforts to place orphaned children with families within their birth country. 


Additionally, many countries from which an American can adopt require multiple trips to the country and/or a lengthy stay in country around the time of the adoption. I know families who have adopted from Russia who have made as many as three trips during the adoption process, with trips of up to five weeks at a time. Because we already have two children, that amount and length of travel was not an option for us. In contrast, Ethiopia requires only one trip of a one-week duration. So Ethiopia started looking better and better.


Many people have asked why it takes so long to get a baby when they hear that there are so many orphans in Ethiopia. Actually, the process of adopting a child from Ethiopia is faster than almost any other country people adopt from. It takes a long time to adopt from anywhere, because the laws in our country and the laws in other countries require certain things to happen before a child can be removed from his or her country of birth and brought here.
 
Ethiopia, a country of 82 million, has an estimated 6 million orphans. I find that to be a shocking number, and, quite obviously, our adoption of one child from that country is not going to have a major impact on Ethiopia. However, we are not adopting a child for charity, or to save the world. We are adopting because we want another child, and we are so excited that we will get to meet her soon and make her a part of our family.