Why Poland?

The most common question so far has been "So, why Poland?" Most of us have friends, family, social network acquaintances, etc. who are adopting or have adopted, but I would dare to say that not many have heard of adopting from Poland. Well, here's the answer you've been waiting for...
Bobby and Meredith think singing kid songs in Polish is a fun bedtime routine.
Not what you were expecting, right?!


Just kidding.  The real reason is because Poland found us.  When we decided we both felt called to adopt, we attended an informational "Ask and Eat" presentation with an adoption agency in Tupelo, MS.  This particular agency dealt with domestic adoptions and international adoptions in both Poland and Taiwan.  Although our initial leaning was to adopt within the United States, we found out in this meeting that our particular situation did not lend itself to a stateside adoption. We are hoping to complete the adoption before we move to NY in 18 months and adoptions from Poland seem to move pretty quickly (as long as you keep up with the paperwork and fees, etc. on your end).
One of the primary reasons for children to become available for adoption in Poland is due to poverty. The orphans being referred to agencies in the U.S. were first available for adoption within Poland but for varying reasons are still orphaned and are therefore normally not "babies" anymore. We knew we weren't set on adopting a new born or even a "baby" but still want our adopted child to live with us as early in her life as possible. Most of the adoptions from Poland are of pre-school aged children, which was encouraging. (Most of the adoptions our agency carries out are of children ages 1 – 4.) We were encouraged to learn that Poland requires families to adopt children in birth order, which was at the top of our list of criteria too. We want whatever little girl God has chosen to be younger than the boys, falling in birth order and this way we know that will be the case. We walked away from this meeting with a lot of information and a strong desire to look further into adoptions in Poland. As we did, we felt a strong peace and excitement about adopting from this beautiful country.