Why Adoption? Why Ethiopia?

Some Background… My first memory of anything on TV is of watching the 1980’s famine in Ethiopia on the evening news with my parents when I was four years old. I can still bring to mind those images. Since that time, I have had a fascination with Africa. Growing up, my parents carefully nurtured a social conscience in all of us. We were always provided with opportunities to “do good” both locally and globally. We were constantly challenged to think about what kind of people we wanted to be and how we wanted to impact the world around us. When I was 16, my dad took me on a month long business trip to India. On that trip I saw opulence and poverty together in strange juxtaposition. I also witnessed the incredible, tenacious human spirit. The trip cemented in my mind and heart, a need to act. I believe that as one of the ten percent that holds ninety percent of the wealth in the world, I have an incredible responsibility and that responsibility is to share. I am not exactly sure when the idea of adoption grew on me, it was a really natural evolution that eventually grew and blossomed into one of my greatest desires. Fortunately, I am married to a man who responds to and delights in my dreams and ambitions. Like most couples, before we were married Jeremy and I discussed children. Our conversation was a little different from most couples though… in addition to discussing how many children we would have, we also discussed what the source of those kids would be. I wanted to adopt, which Jeremy was more than happy to do, but he also wanted to attempt biological children. So for us, adoption has never been a second choice which is something that I hope our daughter always realizes. Ryan was born a year after we were married and twenty five months later, Paul. When I was pregnant with Paul, we began investigating adoption. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to adopt from somewhere in Africa, so I began the research. I was appalled to discover that there was only one adoption agency in all of Canada (now there are two) that had any experience facilitating adoptions from Africa, and that they really only worked with Ethiopia. I had just assumed that with all the need in that part of the world, it would be quite commonplace. Afterall, the UN estimates that there are over 12 million AIDS orphans living in sub Sahara Africa. But unless we wanted to attempt to wade our way through government red tape on our own, Ethiopia was really our only choice. We have never regretted our choice, but are saddened that there are not more opportunities for children in other countries to find “forever families” in Canada. We were encouraged by the adoption agency to wait until after Paul was born to pursue adoption. We waited till Paul was one to begin, mostly because we did not want him to feel displaced by the new baby. The day we filed our application, was like both days we found out we were expecting the boys! We were so excited about the prospect of adding to our family. So that’s basically it… how we came to be expecting from Ethiopia.