In the beginning of this blog, I shared an essay that my 8 year old son, Ryland had written after visiting his sisters in Haiti. I mentioned in that post that I would discuss the pros and cons of bringing children along on adoption trips in a future post. Over the last few days, my thoughts have heavily been on this subject.

Way back in 1999, I lived in Viet Nam for three months while I worked on getting Ryland’s adoption completed. My 3 year old, Sahara, was at home with my husband. I missed her terribly. For much of the time in Viet Nam, I was without Ryland. I spent my days shopping, meeting new friends, hanging out in my hotel room, with the occasional trip to some government office where I pleaded my case. I never once felt afraid for my safety. In retrospect, I wish I had brought Sahara along. She could have had a wonderful experience of getting to know her birth country, and also been able to bond with her new brother without any outside distractions. It would have made my husband’s life easier as well. If I had only known in advance what a great experience it could have been, I would have done things differently. (I had made many friends while there, and could have had Sahara babysat the times I was doing adoption work.)

A good friend of mine did that very thing. She brought her daughter to Viet Nam when she adopted her second child. There were times it was difficult, but overall it was a positive experience for their family.

When we adopted our three children from Ethiopia in 2004, we had intended to bring our other three children along. We could not get a passport for one of our children in time, and so we scrapped the whole plan. We made arrangements for them to stay with relatives, and desperately missed them the two weeks we were away. However, during the hectic trip in Addis Ababa, I was relieved we had not brought them. It would have made the trip all the more difficult, and would have made our early bonding time with our new children nearly impossible. Although our first three children still wish they had been to Ethiopia to bring their siblings home, it was the right decision for our family at the time.

Continued...