Why did I go to the TARE adoption web site?

[iris0110]

I have been fighting the desire to foster/adopt for a year now because I know at this stage in our lives it just isn't a good option for us but it is just so hard right now. My boys are getting older and it seems like everyone around me is settling down and having babies, considering children, or adopting (my dearest friend is finally finishing the process for his foster license after a huge setback earlier in the year and I am so happy for him). I know dh and I just had our babies very young and I was always content with that. I told myself that we would have our boys raised and be done while we were still young enough to enjoy ourselves but now I'm feeling sad because our family doesn't feel complete. I feel like we are missing some one and I don't know anymore if it is because we truly are missing a member or because we stopped too soon. I can't have any more babies but we could still consider adoption. On top of this the boys ask me almost daily if they can have a baby sister. Tharen has promised he will give up his bedroom and most of his toys if I just give him a sister. It is really cute and sort of sad. What makes me even sadder is realizing that at 6 and 11 if I want my kids to grow up with a sibling I need to consider that right now. I know the process is not an overnight thing and it would probably be close to a year before we would add a child to our lives.

Still realistically I can't even bring it up to DH because it has been such a rough year and I don't know that it is going to get better soon. We bought a used van 3 months ago with cash (hoping to avoid a car payment) and earlier this week a mechanic told us that it needs more work than it is worth so we had to go find a new one. Now we will have a lovely car payment that we really don't need and of course we are out the money we paid though we did at least get a trade in value on the van of about half what we paid for it so that is something. We are about to pay $1000 in plumbing work on our house and it then needs foundation work. The car payment is going to seriously hurt as we needed to get siding done on the house and I don't know how we will do that now. So I know what dh will say "wait two or three years and we can discuss it again". But I don't want to wait two or three years. In two or three years I will be in my mid 30's and I don't want to start over raising kids then. Our boys will be 13 or 14 and 9 or 10 then and won't have much of a relationship with their sibling.

On top of everything I dropped over to the TARE adoption website and looked at the waiting kids (a habit I picked up with my friend, he is a bad influence). I know I said that what I really wanted was to adopt a little girl and I know they say you should not adopt out of birth order but there was the sweetest little 11 year old boy on the site waiting for a home and I completely fell in love. Totally a mistake on my part. What I want to do now is tell dh we should get licensed and adopt him but I know that is crazy. I know the idea of two 11 year old boys in one house is just way too much but he just pulls on my heart and I want to do it.

I guess I don't know what I am looking for here. I think I am just having a bit of a pity party and I may come through later and delete it. I think I am just a bit angry that adoption has been "on the table" for 6 years and dh keeps acting like I am crazy for considering it now or like he never said we would. Thank you to anyone who read that novel.

[Umm_Ibraheem]

My DH wont take action either just yet but I'm still working on him. Stay away from the pictures because you'll fall in love and it'll break your heart. I have no real good suggestions as I haven't really been able to get DH to move from just thinking about it to actual fostering. Someday soon I hope. Throw a pity party, get it out of your system.

[Kristi26]

I threw my own pity party yesterday too. And then I got on FB again today and another person announced another pregnancy. Sigh...I better get back to my own party just wanted you to know you're not alone.

[ivparker]

So is your dh onboard with foster to adopt but its just the money issue? I guess I'm not sure if the issue is the cost of taking care of another child or the cost of an adoption. Fostering doesn't cost you anything and they do give you a little bit of money to help with child expenses. I would think that if you are making by but just don't feel like you have a ton of extra money, you could still very well do foster care to adopt.

[pcjs]

Ok, lets look at this logically! You came here... instead of lurking, you are joining us (yea!)... sorry, now you just "have" to adopt. Not sure what support you are looking for but to say, go for it. (some help I am).

To me, you are a great person to adopt. You have the home/heart for another child and more importantly you are such a great advocate for your kids/special needs that any child who joins your family will just thrive with all the love and support as you will go above and beyond to get them what they need and know the resources already.

To me the adopting out of birth order varies depending on family. It is a good rule, but if you are going for a girl and your kids support it, no reason to stick with that as a hard rule. If you adopt an older child, usually they come with a stipend and medical so most everything should be covered.

Age issue - we are hitting that issue but its all relative. My husband, like you had three kids when he was very young and thought/told himself he was done. Then I came along and I would not compromise on a child (I didn't care how, but preferred adoption given my background/my normal). Our son is the best thing that we ever did together (beyond getting married as if we didn't do that, no kid). He was very apprehensive but once baby was here and ours, pure love. (he say's he's done and I would start again in the fall as I want an age difference but we have a minor complication but could easily with that where it doesn't make sense). I wouldn't worry about starting over. Lots of people do it and its pure joy if your heart is open to it. As for the spacing with the kids, think about older/what great big brothers they will be and baby does not need to compete as they are at such different stages. Now that they are older/settled and you have given them that great foundation, to me, all the better in starting with a new one vs. back to back where kids are competing for the basic attention to learn those foundation skills. I am very for spacing as is my husband after he had back to back kids. But, its a very personal choice.

There are other options, such as international for an older child (seen some neat Korean and Chinese adoption but they are costly too). Also, if you are open to special needs little ones/newborn, there are some good options there too. Along with foster care.

We have the same house/car issues. We've been trying to space them out to every few years to every year. We limit one major purchase every year or two and anything non-crisis can wait (i.e. waited till the roof leaked, then later did the siding which was last years project). This year its down to the basement (can't DIY as its just too much work) vs. new car. Basement right now is winning out but we'll probably do a car when the college fund is paid off in a year (in less we adopt again and need to do another college fund). Its a bunch of hard choices but a child is far more rewarding than pretty siding so for us, the siding waited (it got done last year finally).

[iris0110]

I think dh's major concern has to do with the big expenditures we weren't really expecting that seemed to happen all at once. The nice thing about buying the van is that we would now have room for another child (or even two but don't tell him I said that) however we now have a car payment we didn't need. We just really weren't planning for that. We can certainly get by but we will have to plan better and be more frugal for a while. We are also having some big issues with the house he is concerned about. We can't wait to deal with the plumbing, it is costing us $50 a month in water loss. I guess the good part of getting it fixed is that it will pay part of our car payment. I'm not sure about fixing in the foundation, we need to call some of the local companies as the engineer we had out seemed certain we already had piers under the house and so there may be some warranty already in place. So I think it is less about how much a child would cost in the long run to raise so much as the immediate cost of getting the house ready to have another child in (we would need to move the boys into one room and set the other up somehow). Plus we would need to get the house in shape. I keep the place clean but I'm not sure if it is perfectly child safe like dhs might want it for a home study.

I think dh's other issue is adding another child to the craziness that is our lives right now. We have two special needs kids and a very hectic schedule. Our oldest is ASD with a few other diagnosis thrown in and we are trying to sort out a reasonable therapy schedule for him now that he is reaching preteen status and his needs are changing. Our youngest has something going on and I am still fighting for a proper diagnosis for him. I always just thought he was high needs but it is definitely something more.

For a long time dh just told me he didn't think we could handle another child. Our house is small and our lives are hectic. Our kids just need so much. But when I mentioned TARE and all the kids waiting for families he got a really soft look and he asked to see the pictures. I showed him the little boy I wanted to adopt and all the other kids just waiting. There are so many. At first he said he didn't think we could do it, it would be too hard and they would never approve us. But when I told him the process wasn't that bad he seemed pretty interested. He told me he didn't think he could handle fostering but he thought he might be interested in adopting a waiting child from the TARE website! He made me a deal that when the house is figured out (so plumbing and foundation) and our credit card is paid off (it will be soon assuming we can keep paying it as fast as we have been) we can talk about getting licensed to adopt a child who is waiting for a home. Part of me is a little sad to have to wait as it could be a while (if we have to slow down on payments because of the car payment) and I did get pretty attached to that little boy. I'm also a little sad that this means I won't be adopting a baby or toddler probably. But I am very excited that he seems so open to the idea. I can only hope that the child who is right for our family will find us when the time is right, and that we will have time to figure things out and get ready.

[pcjs]

I think your waiting is a reasonable and logical plan. You can still adopt an infant or toddler as you aren't very old. If you were in your late 40's it would be one thing, but you still have time. And, even if you are, plenty of us do it. Take your time, get the house fixed and see where life takes you. It does make sense to make sure everything is ok with your little one or get him set up into services especially if you foster/adopt, that child is guaranteed to have some needs too.

In the meanwhile, try to maybe volunteer with CASA, at the local school or other places. See if your hospital has a need for people to just snuggle with babies who are special needs/drug addicted. Lots of ways to help without bringing one home right away.

[NSB]

Awwww mama!! I feel your pain Ever since my youngest DD was born I had adoption on my mind too. My DH, however, was in the process of changing careers (6 more years of university) so was not in the mood to add to our brood We changed cities we lived in 3 times, he got a couple of years of his new career under his belt, then one day when DD#2 was 7, he said "I don't think I'd regret one more." I had the adoption application filled out and ready for him to sign! LOL He laughed pretty hard, but we were on our way Almost one year to the day we had our DS in our arms. BEST decision I ever made. I absolutely LOVE the space between him and the girls. He is everyone's baby. He is so much fun. Now we also decided to foster and have a 12 month old FD too Busy and happy.
Good luck!!

[iris0110]

Waiting is reasonable, I know that, it is just going to be hard to do because this is something I have wanted for so long. We discussed adoption after Kearnan was born so it has really been on the table for 11 years now but on the back burner. It became a serious consideration 6 years ago but the time has never been right. I am glad to at least know that dh isn't just telling me "later" to put me off so I will forget about it. He really means it and wants to do it but there are things he wants to do first and I can understand that. There are things we need to get done first.

After having several talks with dh over the past few days I've learned that he has adoption assistance through his company so that is good to know. Dh does not want to adopt an infant or toddler though. He is also very leery of doing foster/adopt (I'm sort of with him on that, I don't know after losing a child if I can do it again). He would like to adopt a waiting child from TARE. I guess that leaves me with a lot to think about. Can we handle an older child (a child that falls between our boys ages) or another child with special needs. It is a lot to mull over. I have some time to think about it though.

If you all don't mind I would love to hang around and try to learn what I can while I wait. I want to start preparing myself even though it looks like it will be a while before we can even get started on this. My friend will hopefully get his foster license soon and we will be doing respite care for him. He had originally advised us to tell the worker we would only provide respite care for his children but now I'm wondering if we couldn't at least provide open our home as respite. It would be a chance to get an idea of what the system was like and get used to everything. Maybe we would decide we could handle the foster to adopt after all.