from Liberia to the US?

Yes, it is a drastic change in plans.

I don't know how to say this in a politically correct way, or even in a way the communicates our passion about this...but since it's our blog...I'll just say it straight. We know our child is black probably like most couples know their children will be born to them. When we picture our family, we see beautiful black children. So, basically our options were Ethiopia, domestic adoption, or a different African country, which would have been far riskier than Liberia. Our first inclination after we had decided to withdraw from Liberia was to go through Ethiopia. But, we decided to also explore domestic adoption.

About 500 children born in the US are adopted to other countries every year (mostly Canada and European countries).

We have good friends who adopted their little girl domestically last year, and are in the process of adopting domestically again. We sat down with them and talked through all the things that initially scared us away from a domestic adoption. As it turns out, most of our beliefs about domestic adoption were based on faulty information.

While 75% of expectant mothers placing a baby for adoption are carrying a black or biracial baby, only 10% of couples building their families through domestic adoption are hoping to adopt a black or biracial baby.

Some things that scared us away from domestic adoption originally were the process, openness in adoption, and the fear of an expectant mother changing her mind. I'll be sharing my views and debunking some myths in the coming posts.

But, for now, I'll just add a couple pictures of our progress in the nursery: