Adopt Domestically, Internationally, or Have another kid. I'm really torn...

[sk8boarder15]

My husband and I have ALWAYS wanted to adopt we were always interested in S. Korea spicifically, but with talk of the program closing for years now (along with us having a son) we have lost some interest in Korea. 

We were too young to adopt when we were ready for a kid so we went a head and tried to get preagnant. The next year our amazing son was born. I don't think we are done yet. We have always talked about having 2 kids, and have often talked of adopting a 2nd. Since a cross-country move was in the works we kind of put it on the back burner knowing we couldn't do a home study anyway. 

Well now we are here in Portland, OR and have been for a month and my baby feaver is growing. My son is making friends in the neighborhood and I love for him to have a friend right here. My pregnancy was not easy and I really hated it. It was totally worth it, but being pregnant again is not really something I want to go through unless there is really no other way. Though we aren't taking any permanent birth control mesurures so I know there is always a slim chance. 

I'm now thinking I want to adopt domestically instead so I can know about the baby, be sure to get an infant, and possibly breastfeed the baby (dispite the many many challenges I LOVED nursing our son till he was 15 months). I'm worried that no adoptive mother would pick a family with 5 dogs (one being giant sized, an Irish Wolfhound) and that we would end up waiting a long time. My husband also doesn't have a job yet here, though we make our primary living off of stocks anyway, but I feel that would negativly affect our homestudy in a large way. 

I'm just torn. Any advice or anything at all would help. Even just some BTDT stories! Any experiance in the state of Oregon would really help. 

[rnra]

Just a note about the dogs...

I used to babysit for a family with five dogs, three cats, and two kids.  Two of the dogs were giant ones.  The house was surprisingly clean and organized despite all those bodies.  Both of their children were adopted domestically as infants, and both were adopted while the family had 4+ dogs in the house.  

Also, a different woman I am aware of chose to place her infant for adoption.  She purposely chose a family with several dogs because she had loved growing up with dogs as a child.  

So, I wouldn't count things out on account of the dogs--especially where you have another child so you know that they are okay with children.

[sk8boarder15]

Thank you. Just that gives me a LOT of hope. One of our dogs had an issue when our son became a toddler and we did LOTS of professional training and now he (The GSD) is just amazing. He is so calm and loving and just great with our son and the other kids that are around. 

[queenjane]

If i were you, i'd have another bio child. Unless pg is medically contraindicated or something. Adoption is (or at least can be most of the time) a pretty hard road, there is tons of paperwork, a cost factor (unless you do foster care adoption and even then there are often some costs), a feeling of intrusiveness that is hard to describe until you have a social worker sitting there asking about your sex life or the therapy you got as an angstfilled teen yknow? Not to mention the anxiety of waiting for the homestudy to finish, waiting to be matched, waiting to see if the pregnant mom will change her mind or place with you at all, waiting for the reclaiming period to pass(if there is one where you live), waiting for the adoption to finalize (in which you'd have post-placement visits with the worker most likely) wait wait wait...its stressful! Plus you'd want to think about how closely you want to space your kids and if a long (possible) wait to adopt would fit in with that.

And then after the wait there are the additional adoption issues, identity issues, birthfamily contact to manage and transracial adoption issues if that applies (identity and hair and role models on and on...)

That being said, if you have a strong urge/desire/motivation to adopt then of course....pursue that option! I have three adopted kids (and one bio) so of course i'm "pro adoption" but knowing how stressful it can be i like to forewarn people if i can.

I dont think the dogs will be an issue unless you get a homestudy worker who is freaked out about them. The lack of a job MAY be but if you can show sufficient stable income other than employment thats usually sufficient.

[MountainMamaGC]

Quote:

Adoption is (or at least can be most of the time) a pretty hard road, there is tons of paperwork, a cost factor (unless you do foster care adoption and even then there are often some costs), a feeling of intrusiveness that is hard to describe until you have a social worker sitting there asking about your sex life or the therapy you got as an angstfilled teen yknow? Not to mention the anxiety of waiting for the homestudy to finish, waiting to be matched, waiting to see if the pregnant mom will change her mind or place with you at all, waiting for the reclaiming period to pass(if there is one where you live), waiting for the adoption to finalize (in which you'd have post-placement visits with the worker most likely) wait wait wait...its stressful! 

Yep, I am right in the middle of all this. So far we are about 5000 dollars in and half way through the home study, which I found really exhausting. To have a complete stranger go through you life, home and a marriage with a fine tooth comb, is about as fun as a trip to the gynacologist. 5000 would be a sizable chunk into a college fund. If I could give her a sibling myself, I would. Dont get me wrong. This is the right path for us, but its the events in our lives that brought us here. 

[sk8boarder15]

Thank you for another view point. Adoption is something that I've always wanted to do, its something close to my heart, I've been "Parenting" kids that aren't mine for YEARS one who I was acting as a real parent but was I too young to apply to take her when DCFS took her out of her home and she got sent off to an aunt. I'm not sure if I would be content with my life if I didn't adopt at some point. But I've also considered adopting an older child when I'm older and my son is grown (in addition to adopting or having another now). I'd love to foster, but my husband is comfortable with that, and I worry it wouldn't be the best for my son either who tends to get very attached to everybody. 

It will be a while before we do either, but the gap thing isn't a huge deal to me I would like my first born to be the oldest and that's pretty much it. I wanted him to have 2 years with no siblings so I could focus on him, and he turns 2 in 2 weeks, I don't care if his siblings are 4 months or 4 years younger. :) 

[excitedtobeamom]

-

Edited by excitedtobeamom - 9/14/12 at 11:37pm

[Smithie]

Why not go to an info session with an adoption agency? I hear nothing but good about http://www.openadopt.org/.

[SplashingPuddle]

Our family would like to adopt at some point in the future, and we are foster parents now (off and on as needed).  After fostering, I would say that I would really prefer to foster a child first before adopting in order to know the child far better before becoming a family. Two children we fostered were up for adoption (a five year old and a newborn which we picked up from the hospital).  We have learned its generally easier to foster children younger than ours.   Also, we have learned to interview the social workers to try and really determine the needs of the children needing placements and whether our family can meet those needs/ handle those challenges.  

[queenjane]

Originally Posted by Tara L 

Our family would like to adopt at some point in the future, and we are foster parents now (off and on as needed).  After fostering, I would say that I would really prefer to foster a child first before adopting in order to know the child far better before becoming a family. Two children we fostered were up for adoption (a five year old and a newborn which we picked up from the hospital).  We have learned its generally easier to foster children younger than ours.   Also, we have learned to interview the social workers to try and really determine the needs of the children needing placements and whether our family can meet those needs/ handle those challenges.  

I'm  curious why you didnt adopt the children you fostered that became available for adoption? No judgement, i was just wondering (if you dont mind sharing.) How long did you foster them?

[SplashingPuddle]

We did seriously consider adopting the five year old who was very sweet, and I do think about her all of the time.  Yet, we realized that some of her challenges were too much for us and she would have become our oldest child at that point.  We realized that it would be easier to adopt/foster younger children so our older children could be attached/bonded to us and hopefully be role models in some ways for younger ones. If the timing had been different we may have gone further. We had her for about 4 months.

[sk8boarder15]

I feel like it would be easier to foster or adopt a child younger than mine. We decided we aren't going to make any hard decisions (and be careful not to get pregnant) till next year. We need time to settle in our new house (we moved to Portland a month ago) and save money. I will be thinking hard about this and keeping the baby fever at bay as much as I can for now. I know I want to adopt a newborn, I'm just not sure if this is the right time or not or if I can deal with the wait and possible let downs invovled.... We deicided a long time ago we would only have 2 biological children max (unless there were twins), as we are convicted that there are enough people in the world consuming its resources already and there are pleanty of children out there that need loving homes if we decided we want more. 

I'm hoping when we are older and my son is older we will get involved with fostering, but for now I don't feel like we are ready for that challenge. I need a few more years life experiance first. 

[Smithie]

You are very wise. I think I am a quite good foster parent, but I wasn't "ready" until I'd had three biokids and was over 30. Your "ready" point might be very different, but you'll probably know it when you hit it.

If where you're at right now is that you want to adopt a newborn, I'd seriously suggest the openadopt.org people. 

[sk8boarder15]

Thank you. :) I'm still flip flopping every day. I think. You know I could be pregnant again.. it would suck, but I could do it. Then the next day I think of being off my feet for who knows how long and how hard that would be on my family and how much I would love to provide a family for a baby that needs it. 

This why I'm waiting to make any decision. I would like my kids to be 3-4 years apart and my son is turning 2 in a week. So hopefully next year we will either start the adoption process or get pregnant.... 

[Mom31]

Its not for the faint of heart. Read some blogs by everyone in the triad and see if its really something you want to do

[APToddlerMama]

Originally Posted by sk8boarder15 

Thank you. I'm still flip flopping every day. I think. You know I could be pregnant again.. it would suck, but I could do it. Then the next day I think of being off my feet for who knows how long and how hard that would be on my family and how much I would love to provide a family for a baby that needs it. 

This why I'm waiting to make any decision. I would like my kids to be 3-4 years apart and my son is turning 2 in a week. So hopefully next year we will either start the adoption process or get pregnant.... 

I don't want to burst your bubble but if you're adopting because "you'd love to provide a family for a baby who needs it", I'm sorry to tell you that having worked in adoptions for years, that I have never once been aware of a situation in which a newborn baby had any fewer than twenty potential adoptive families waiting to adopt him or her. That included newborns who were born to alcoholic and drug addicted mothers, significant special needs, etc. The need for families to adopt newborns just does not exist except in highly unusual circumstances.

If I were in your shoes, I would not pursue adoption. At the very least, I would really educate myself on adoption before even considering taking this any further.

[Smithie]

I disagree with the conclusion that adoption should not be pursued, but agree with APToddlerMama that the number of families wanting an infant far outstrips the number of available infants. But just because there a lot of potential adoptive families out there doesn't mean mean that your family is not the "right fit" for one particular birthmother, or that an infant placed with you to foster won't "need" the love and devotion that your family has to offer. 

[APToddlerMama]

Originally Posted by Smithie 

I disagree with the conclusion that adoption should not be pursued, but agree with APToddlerMama that the number of families wanting an infant far outstrips the number of available infants. But just because there a lot of potential adoptive families out there doesn't mean mean that your family is not the "right fit" for one particular birthmother, or that an infant placed with you to foster won't "need" the love and devotion that your family has to offer. 

To be clear, I mean that I would not pursue adoption if my reason was because newborns need homes (because they don't.)

[Smithie]

I guess I'm OK with "because kids need homes" as ONE reason for adopting instead of having a biokid, as long as "I want to adopt" is one of the other reasons. Newborns DO need homes. Just because there are a lot of people offering homes already does not mean that family who wants to adopt an infant should not throw their hat into the ring, because there might be a birthmother out there who is looking for a family just like theirs, and her decision to place her child might be that little bit easier because she found a family that could offer everything she wanted her baby to have. 

[queenjane]

Originally Posted by Smithie 

I guess I'm OK with "because kids need homes" as ONE reason for adopting instead of having a biokid, as long as "I want to adopt" is one of the other reasons. Newborns DO need homes. Just because there are a lot of people offering homes already does not mean that family who wants to adopt an infant should not throw their hat into the ring, because there might be a birthmother out there who is looking for a family just like theirs, and her decision to place her child might be that little bit easier because she found a family that could offer everything she wanted her baby to have. 

I can see the point in that. And its not like a baby should be the "prize" for infertility. But at the same time, there is *something* that kind of bothers me (well *bothers* is too strong of a word i think) if someone who is married, fertile, etc wants to adopt a newborn domestically when there are so many people who do that because they have fewer options. But then again, i suppose *I* could go buy sperm and birth children instead of adopt them. My adopted children (although from the foster care system) would not have gone without a family. So i guess the same "argument" could apply to me. I dunno.

But i do think sometimes people have really skewed ideas about adoption...either they think that there "are no babies to adopt" and if you do adopt you have to wait ten years and pay $50K.....OR they may think there are all these babies who are just waiting for a family (people esp think this about black babies...i've read so.many.times on the internet or have seen on tv "no one wants to adopt black children" which is simply not true) when the reality is somewhere on that spectrum. And infants of any race or even severe medical needs do not often go without a family, indeed there is often stiff "competition" for those children regardless of issues(i guess this might depend on geographic location). 

But that being said....IMO more options for a birthmom choosing a family is better than less options. So i guess im just sort of conflicted both ways. Obviously each person has to make their own decisions, but i do think there's an interesting discussion/debate in there somewhere.