Linda Knight and her husband desperately wanted to have children. When she found out she was unable to conceive she decided that her only option was adoption.

Knight is an advocate of international adoption, which allowed her and her now ex-husband to adopt two babies from South Korea.

“I had looked into adoption in the U.S., (until) a friend mentioned for me to look into adopting from other countries,” Knight said.

While some question the authenticity of the child’s original culture in the process of international adoption, the Knight children consider themselves Americans.

International adoption allows thousands of families to have children each year. According to the U.S. Bureau of Consular Affairs, most children who are internationally adopted come from China, with 7,906 children being adopted in 2005. Also in 2005, 4,639 children were adopted from Russia, 3,783 from Guatemala and1, 630 from South Korea.

The average cost to adopt a child from Korea is $12,250, according to the Web site, international.adoption.com. The adoption process can take anywhere from one to five years, according to Kathleen Fogarty, Director of international adoptions from Adopt International and Domestic Services.

Korea, like China and Vietnam, has stipulations to interested parents, such as: the adoptive couple should not have more than five children, the couple should not have an age difference of more than 15 years, and the income of the couple should be higher than the national average of their country. Other places, like the Middle Eastern county of the United Arab Emirates, forbade international adoption.

Before Knight adopted her son and daughter from South Korea, she looked into adopting in the United States.

“I went through agencies in America, which I wasn’t really getting anything from, when finally God opened some different doors for us,” she said.

Knight settled on the Holt organization, which specifically helps people adopt children from Korea.

The Holt organization honors the adopter’s requests of the child’s age and sex, but also gives priority to couples with one or no children.

Knight was able to have both her children in the United States after they were three days old. The entire process took her about six months. She now has a son, Steven, 21 and a daughter, Elizabeth, 23, who are not biologically related.

Steven was told he was adopted when he was five, which was not a shock to him because he knew he was different.

“I’m Asian and they’re white,” he said. “It was brought to my attention when I joined a swim team.”

Steven said he noticed the rest of the families looked like each other. He knew he was a little different but it didn’t matter to him.

“People still ask me why my mom is white,” he said. “I say I’m adopted. All my friends are white and yeah, I’m Asian, but the only thing that’s different is the color of my skin and I don’t even really think about that.”

The Knight children live American lives and have no desire to go back to Korea.

“I didn’t think of myself as different because I didn’t know anything else other than being adopted,” Steven said. “I have white parents, but I don’t even consider myself any different from them, or anyone else.”

While Steven harbors some resentment toward his biological parents, he has no desire to track them down.

“I don’t want to meet my real parents,” he said. “They ditched me, whatever. I got dealt a better hand. I’m glad I was adopted. I can’t even imagine my life if I was living in Korea right now. Everything would be so different.”

For those children adopted from Korea who are interested in their birthplace, the country now offers cultural training camps, which allow adoptees to explore the country they came from.

Similar to her brother, Elizabeth does not know much about her culture, and it is not something she thought about until high school.

“People started to ask me questions about my nationality and I wouldn’t know what to say because all I knew was that I was from Korea,” Elizabeth said.

Elizabeth said she doesn’t think about being adopted too often, only when people bring it to her attention.

“Sometimes when my mom comes into my work, people are surprised that she’s white,” she said. “It just seems like they’re confused at first. I’m not offended.”

“It’s kind of like when I was in elementary school, my mom would bring in cookies for my birthday and my teacher would have to explain to the class that I was adopted,” Elizabeth said.

Those who question international adoption show concern for the loss of one culture for another, such as was shown in a study by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. The survey, of 170 Korean-born adoptees, revealed that they were confused about their identities. Growing up, more than a third considered themselves “white,” and by adulthood, the numbers reversed, with most seeing themselves as “Korean/Asian,” or “Korean-American.”

Aside from cultural similarities and differences, Knight thanks God for her children whom she is fortunate to share a close relationship with. She recommends international adoption to those who cannot have children naturally.