Originally Posted By: Win
Yeah, we've been through that mill. What do you want to know?
After we put two kids through college, my wife decided we needed more kids.
First, we went through IVF, no success. I was in the Ag school in college and we posted better results in barnyards then these Docs do in their offices.
Then we went the adoption route. I can tell you right now that because of abortion on demand, there are very few children to adopt. If you're past your late twenties or very early thirties, adoption agencies and their teen age clients think you are over the hill, regardless of how physically fit you may actually be. They'll happily take your money, but you won't get anywhere with them. Or, we didn't get anywhere with them.
You can go the private route, but that's difficult as well. I also have a law practice and thought one of my colleagues might turn up a baby, but the hard reality is that the relative handful that don't get aborted, or go to an adoption agency, wind up with the grandparents.
You can also try foster parenting - some of those kids wind up with the foster parents, but the percentage is low because the goal of legal proceedings is always family reunification, not adoption.
I absolutely ruled out international adoption - wouldn't consider it then, or now.
So, I would suggest that you just hire a surrogate. Ultimately, that's what we did. The first one didn't work out too well, but the second one gave us a beautiful baby boy, that is my biological child, who just turned two last week, and we couldn't be happier with him.
So that's my advice, after spending a decade and enough money to buy a third house, in utter futility, just hire a surrogate and be done with it.
Be advised that some states are much more friendly to that process than others. When we started it, Arkansas and California were really the only states that had any legal protections for it. Other states may have followed these states.
Obviously, consult a lawyer.
I always wanted a large fam, I am 40 so the clock is ticking...
Wow, local adoption sounds near to impossible.
I never thought about hiring a surrogate.
IVF clinics are like buying a lottery ticket, you never know if you will win.
So, now I understand why I see all these internationally adopted kids around my town.
I don't know if I can foster, I get too attached.