Proactive
I just answered a comment that was posted to the entry below and thought I’d bring it up here.
I know that there are lots of people pursuing domestic adoption who are way more proactive than we are about getting their match. They might register with more than one agency or attorney, they might do a lot of networking, they might advertise or post their profile on various sites.
Brett and I made a conscious decision not to do these things. To use religious terminology, we are not “led” to do them; it wouldn’t feel right to us. Why? Hmmm. Well, part of it is that we want an in-state adoption so we haven’t looked at out-of-state agencies or attorneys. The other bigger part of it is that we have faith in our agency.
We’re sure that the right baby will come to us and even though the wait is hard, this feels like our path. We know our agency’s placement rates and we know that we will eventually get our baby. Searching harder for our match would be stressful and expensive and I just don’t feel all that driven to pursue things that much. Passive we may be but we also feel like this wait is part of what we’re meant to experience.
It’s difficult to explain to anyone who feels “led” to do things differently. Fortunately, people get to do things their own way and don’t have to understand but I thought it was worth a shot to try and explain it.
I like the way you phrased it…”led” - people had a hard time understanding why we didn’t do IVF the first time around and even a harder time understanding why I’m still having issues with this the second time around.
Hi there, I have been reading your blog for some time, but this is my first time commenting. I also like that description. When people ask if we considered domestic adoption before pursuing international adoption, my only answer is that we never considered it. “Why?”, they often ask, and the only answer is that it never occurred to us. We always knew that we would adopt, and that it would be an international adoption. I guess that we were led in that direction, quite happily, as our 8 month old daughter came home to us last week after 2 1/2 years of paperwork, sweat and tears.
I look forward to the happy day when your baby is home with you Dawn. 
I love that there are so many ways to adopt in this country. Like so many things in life, adoption is not one-size-fits-all.