We could be parents within the year

Apprehensive is probably the most accurate description of how I feel! I said from the beginning that I would *not* go through our state to adopt. I was dead set on international adoption, and yes, I've done my homework on both. Hubby has signed us up for this 9-week class, telling me we're just gonna "give it a try."
I'm gonna be straight up with the two of you who may read this - fostering, foster-adopting, d*h*r in general scares the hell out of me! I know personally several families who have done or attempted some combination of all of the above, and I can count more cases that have NOT ended well than those that have. Children promised to a couple that had them for years, then were quite literally ripped from those parents' arms and sent to another state to live with stranger-relatives. FP's that made their FC's live in a totally separate part of the house, and when we visited, we were not allowed to go to the "adult" side of the house to eat with our parents. Young friends hoping to adopt an adorable set of twins who were again promised these children, and "suddenly" an aunt decided that since mom was out of the picture, she would take them. Friends of hubby who, even after the adoption of their children is finalized, take alternate routes, watch their backs in public, and within the last couple of months, the biological grandmother saw them at a school function, made threats to take them, and nearly pushed down the wife!
I have been reassured by multiple people that we do NOT have to foster, we can straight up adopt. Don't get me wrong, FP's are greatly needed, and "good" FP's I'm sure are hard to find... It's just not for me. I get too attached, I wouldn't fare so well if I had to send a baby back to who-knows-what. Maybe if we hadn't been through so much already... But I've already given up the *dream* of (biological) children, and I I know how hard that has been. I'm not sure how many losses of actual children my heart and mind could take before I was admitting myself to one of the facilities I package medication for. :) I'm only half joking - I honestly think I would lose my mind.
But suppose I actually DON'T get crapped on in this deal, and we actually DO bring home a living, breathing child, and nobody comes out of the woodwork to take him/her back, and I'm NOT constantly looking over my shoulder for abductors... Holy crap, batman, it's theoretically totally possible that we could be parents by the end of the year!? Well, not really sure what the "wait" is, and how many hoops there are to jump through *after* this class. But wow. Not to sound like Debbie Downer, but while a part of me wants to start buying diapers and wipes and baby paraphenalia, the other part of me thinks about all of the things that could go wrong between now and then. Will there be a time when I just enjoy the moment instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop?