Drum Roll Please....It is a life-altering decision - the decision to initiate a search!

Now that you have decided to begin your search, I would like to offer some words of encouragement in case you are feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the possible ways to search. If you peruse some of the myriad of on-line search guides, embarking on an adoption search may seem quite a daunting task. (See an upcoming blog for a list of links to the sites that I feel have the most useful search guides.) The whole process can seem quite daunting in the beginning as there are so many different ways to go about searching. As the optimistic “Mary Sunshine” sort that I am, I will say this. Though it may seem as though there is almost too much info available, remember the scant information available for those poor souls who searched before Al Gore invented the Internet (Okay, I know that he really didn't, but us Tennesseans must stick together, so I'm gonna give him the credit anyway!).

Please keep in mind that you can break up the seemingly gargantuan task of a search into manageable parts. You do not need to drive yourself bonkers and plunge in and try to do it all in one fell swoop. If you need to proceed slowly, allow yourself to do so. The average search is 6 months to a year. I believe that I read somewhere recently, but, don’t quote me on this. As you will find, I am not a statistical genius. Seems to me though from the reunions that I know about though, most searches drag on – sometimes for many years. I attribute that to three factors:

1) The searcher is using the ‘hit and miss” method of searching and really not approaching the search in a methodical, efficient manner;

2) The search is a particularly difficult one for various reasons; or

3) The searcher exerts some effort into searching, then gets cold feet and stops for awhile – very common. Common - and it is fine to do.

For whatever reason though, many searches seem to last for years. Do not let that discourage you though – it usually need not take that long!