Thinking about THAT question

It's inevitable that people will ask, and I'm increasingly thinking about it myself. But... let me see if I can explain with an analogy.

Imagine that you've lived somewhere all your life. This is my blog, and I make the rules, so let's call it England. You grew up in England, and you expected that when the time came, you would find a home and a job in England, just as most of your friends and family had done.

You realised that some people were homeless and unemployed, and that others chose to go and work abroad, but you just wanted to do what most people did and live and work where you grew up. You just never expected it to be so difficult when so many other people just seem to have fallen into their jobs without ever really having to think about it.

One day, someone tells you that you're never going to be able to find a job in England, and suggests that you try China as an option.

You have nothing against China, and you realise that many people have chosen to go and work there in the past. Even those who didn't initially plan to end up in China have often gone there and been very happy.

But you also know that others have found it very difficult, have had trouble getting to grips with the language, the food and the culture, and some have even ended up giving up altogether and coming back to England with no home, no job prospects, and a sense of failure and guilt that they couldn't make it work out in China.

You also know that before you can go to China, you need to fulfil some fairly onerous requirements. You have to have a full and fairly intrusive medical, including AIDS tests and chest x-rays. You need to fill in loads of paperwork for your visa. And at the end of it all, you may not even get a job, or the job might be very different from what you had hoped for.

Knowing that you can't get a job in England and that China may be your only hope, you try to get excited about China. You search out the positive stories about people who have been happy there, but you can't help also reading about the people who were turned down for a visa, or who never found a job, or whose job didn't work out.

It's daunting, it's different, and it's not what you hoped for or dreamt of - but it's an option, and the longer you spend out of work, the more you consider it as an option and see it as possibly your only hope.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

No? Well, try substituting 'England' for 'natural parenthood' and 'China' for 'adoption'. Then substitute 'job' for 'children'. Now do you see where I'm going?

I'm considering it - I know it's an option, and I know it may be my best hope of being a parent. But it's definitely different, it has its own very real challenges, and I'm not quite ready to give up on the English job market yet.