Why adopt now?

I was talking to one of my brothers today and he asked me why we chose now to start the adoption process, we have demanding jobs, are in school at night, and are still relatively young (at least for New Yorkers:-)

I have wanted to adopt for as long as I can remember.  Ababa has been considering it, but in the year since we got married he's really started seriously contemplating adoption.  We decided for sure that we would really like to have a children join our family through both birth and adoption.  We thought given biology, finances, space, etc. that we would wait to adopt until later on.

A few things prompted us to start the process now...

1. We both feel ready/called/and very eager to become parents now
2. Our hearts and minds have become more and more open to and aware of the tremendous need for adoption
3. We haven't gotten pregnant (and even if we become pregnant during this process there is flexibility to complete our adoption if we've been matched to a child)
4. There is a tax credit that expires in 2012 which will help us afford the legal and other fees associated with adoption (the 2011 tax credit is $13,701 and the 2012 credit is slated to be $5000--obviously we're hoping to complete our adoption in 2011:-)
5. Although our schedules are currently busy, we do have the flexibility to scale back for a while when a child/children joins our family, this will be much more difficult when Ababa goes to medical school in a few years

So, after much prayer and considering we are stepping forward in faith, joyfully waiting to see where God leads us and how he grows our family!