Learning

The amount of information I have been cramming into my brain over the last couple of weeks is incredible. Along with all of the learning I have met some amazing people who's stories of adoption have touched my heart forever. Bless all of these families who have taken these children into their homes.

Determination

I have a habit of becoming easily discouraged. I refuse to have doubts. I am determined to make this happen.

It starts...

To start with, I think I should tell you a little about myself and why I have decided to adopt. 

My name is Yvette. I am a 27 year old single mother to a beautiful little girl named Aria who will be 2 next month. Before I found out that I was pregnant, I was living with some friends and had already been looking into adoption. I have hip dysplasia, and after years without getting pregnant, I assumed that the doctors were right all the years they had been telling me that it was likely I couldn't conceive. It wasn't long after I received packets about domestic adoption in the mail (literally, it was about a week after.) that my mother told me I seemed different to her, we stopped at K-Mart, and I produced a positive pregnancy test. I had my daughter via caesarean in November 2009. 

When I was younger I always said I wanted to have at LEAST 5 children. Being a single parent has reduced that number to 2, haha. However, I do remember talking to my mother about wanting to adopt from India... and this is when I was around 11 years old. I am not sure that India will be the country that I adopt from, but I know that I want an international adoption.

I now know that I am physically capable of becoming pregnant and having a child naturally. I decided against having another child naturally for a few reasons... 1) Another pregnancy means another caesarean, which puts stress on my unborn child and myself.  2) I don't know if any of you have noticed, but there are A LOT of children in this world who don't have anyone. No parents, grandparents or anyone to love them.  3) I want my children to know that love and family have nothing to do with blood relation. 

The list goes on. Not only have I decided that I want to adopt a child, but I have decided that I want to adopt a special needs child, a child with some mild to moderate disability. Down Syndrome seems to be quite common in many orphanages around the world, along with Cerebral Palsy, various deformities, HIV, Deafness, Blindness, and Heart Defect. These are just some of the many disabilities so many orphans are burdened with, and much of the time the very reason why they became orphans in the first place.

I would like to share some statistics with you all, just so you can have the chance to be on the same page:

143,000,000 ORPHANS:

It is estimated that between 143,000,000 and 210,000,000 children are orphans. That’s at least 143 MILLION children in the world today. (Recent UNICEF report.)
To give you an idea of the enormity of this need, keep in mind that the approximate population of the US is 300,000,000; and the population of Russia is 141,800,000.)

Every day . . .

EVERY DAY, 5,760 more children in the world become orphans.
EVERY 2.2 SECONDS another orphan ages out, with no family and no home.

 The older an orphan gets, the chances for his/her adoption drastically decrease. 
Each year many orphans between 15 to 18-years-old leave the orphanages.
Most of these orphans have no one to turn to for help. 
10% of them will commit suicide after leaving the orphanage before their eighteenth birthday. 
60% of the girls will end up in prostitution.
70% of the boys will enter a life of crime.
Only 27% of these youth will find work

These youth live in countries that labels them as “useless” and give no assistance to turn their lives around. They live in societies that have created their own problems by placing thousands of children in orphanages, and then when they come of age, they give them no assistance to lead a successful life.

The above should give you a good idea of my reasoning behind this choice. My reason for choosing to adopt a girl rather than a boy is simply because I have more experience with girls being one myself and having one of my own (not to mention hand me down clothing will be a breeze!) And on that note, I will leave you to your thoughts.