We started the adoption process before we found out that we were pregnant. We were planning to do the foster to adopt program through our state. Now that we have our son, I am not sure what to do. We still want to adopt, but I feel like we would be taking away our son's birth place as the oldest. We also feel like we would be taking away time that our son deserves. We are planning on waiting until he is at least 1, but we are also unsure of how a child would react to having a sibling that age. Would the child be jealous and so on. I know I'm babbling but I guess I am just looking for your opinions. What would you do?
avidreader
07-01-2008, 12:38 AM
Our journey sounds similar except that we hadn't started the adoption process yet. I have always been somewhat torn about having bio children vs adopting our children. We decided to try to have a bio child and when I got pregnant with ds, we talked about possibly adopting our next child. So here we are, ready to either try to get pregnant with another bio child or adopt a child. We decided that, for us, keeping the birth order is extremely important in adoption. The difficulty with this for me is that I have always been incredibly passionate about adopting older, difficult to place children as this is the population I work with. Anyway, we kind of decided to bite the bullet and just start the process and see what infants are in need of homes in our area. I am anxious about all the uncertainties but we both are so passionate about adoption. Also, if you have reservations about adopting out of birth order, talk to other parents who have and find out the unique challenges. For me, I have seen it not go well in too many situations (i.e. adoptive parents were not prepared to deal with challenges, there was too much competition and not enough reassurance given to each child etc. etc.) and I would really like ds to be the big brother. Someday, I am hoping to adopt some of the older, more difficult to place children that I am so passionate about. All this being said, I think every situation and child is different and some may be able to adjust just fine with time and the right support system in place.
juclark77
07-01-2008, 11:29 AM
When my adopted daughter was 11 months, we hd her biobrother placed with us for adopton (23 months). It has been really good in terms of my daughter. She is endlessly entertained by her brother and it keeps us from spoiling her. They do fight a lot, but she adores him. Adopting out of birth order has been harder on me. I am somewhat clueless about 2 year olds. He is very persistantly disobedient. I think this is ormal, but harder if you just start there instead of having them from infantcy. That said, overall it has been great and the order we got them isn't really an issue. When they are that young, I don't think it makes as much of a difference.
