Backtracking a bit

On to the catching up I mentioned. Where the heck are we going with this? Are we going to show up at the next gathering of friends and family with some mysterious kid in tow? Will we be calling you from the airport having just smuggled an orphan out of Albania? Can you expect you to see us rushing to the maternity ward without Melissa having ever gone through morning sickness? Geez, there's not quite that much catching up to do, but there is progress to report. Since I'm having so much fun with writing questions, then answering them myself as if I have split personalities, I'll just continue with that method.

Question #1: Do you plan domestic adoption or foreign adoption.
Answer #1: Yes. Actually, we don't know yet, we're still investigating each type and are literally 50/50 on the subject. More on that as I re-cap what we've learned in a future post.

Question #2: Do you plan an open or closed adoption?
Answer #2: Most likely closed, although there are several levels of open vs. closed. It just seems like an open adoption would lead to a potential world of problems that we'd just assume avoid. I'm not sure how Melissa feels, but I'm not totally opposed to providing some form of occasional update to birthparents, most likely in the form of a letter or e-mail. Don't get me wrong, I mean not to judge anyone who chooses some level of open-ness. We just don't believe that's the correct path for us.

Question #3: Boy or Girl?
Answer #3: We just hope it's a healthy baby!!! Ugh, I was never fan of that line. Who the heck wouldn't hope for health? It's like a politician he's for a clean environment, safe neighborhoods, and, well - healthy babies. As if his opponent has a polar opposite platform. Anyway, yah, healthy is great; sure, we'll take a healthy one. Perhaps one day I'll regret writing this as my adopted son discovers an archive of the original Internet, but if given a choice, I'd adopt a girl. The main reason for this has more to do with the makeup of my current family. I've got 4 nephews, with another on the way, and no nieces in sight. Of course, that means my siblings have no nieces either. That being said, I do have a great niece, who just arrived a couple weeks ago, and 2 step-nieces through various routes (a sisters step-daughter and my step-sister's daughter).
If we go with foreign adoption, odds are we'll end up with a girl. I can't remember the exact stats, but something like 3/4 of Asian adoptions are girls, and over half of Eastern European and Latin American are as well. Supposedly, this is because parents in those countries prefer boys over girls. I suppose there's a whole commentary to be written on that.