Beginning the Adoption Journey

I've been doing a lot of research and calling a lot of agencies and facilitators lately.  All I can say is it's very overwhelming!!  The differences between the two, the number of places to choose from...whether to go local or national, the COST...it's all so overwhelming!!  And don't even get me started on "religious" requirements for some of the better reviewed agencies.  I'm not really sure what being a Christian has to do with being a good parent...I know great parents who aren't at all religious!  Ugh...



I thought adoption would be a great way and a great journey for us to obtain our dream of being parents and maybe sooner than growing our family naturally and having biological children...but the cost and the questions and everything are so overwhelming...I can't even wrap my head around it! And maybe that's because I'm not emotionally ready to deal with it?  I don't know.

I thought I had found a great place with a cost that seemed just right, but then find that they are a facilitator and as I read more and more about facilitators I start to question using one!  And I have no clue who to turn to for help!  If there are so many children that need homes, why is adopting an infant so darn expensive?!?!

State/foster adoption is the least costly, but I'm scared of it.  I'm scared to have a baby that we take home from day one and then have the baby relinquished to a family member after we've fallen in love...I don't know that I could do that.  Not after losing Sammy and Andy.  That doesn't really seem like something I would be able to handle at this point.

Maybe I just need some guidance from someone...all the agencies and stuff seem to have people who will talk to you, but I can't find a neutral party who can help guide me through the process...there's a ton of stuff online, but it's all over the place and I can't seem to wrap my head around it still!

Why does having a family have to be so difficult for us?! It's so easy for so many other people who can't even afford having a child and who can't even provide for a child the way we can both intrinsically and extrinsically....but for us, it's so damn difficult...I don't understand...why is the world so unfair??!