Adopting after having biological children

I am one of those who adopted one of the poor kids in the foster system. There were not thousands of parents waiting to adopt my daughter. She required very specialized parenting due to her severe special needs. I have the ability to take in a special needs child and the desire to do so. Adoption isn't about finding a child for the parents, its about finding the best parents for the child.

Thank you. I was trying to sum up what i was going to say. I too adopted because I wanted to save a child. While that doesn't seem to be PC, that's the truth. I was told my son had bipolar and all kinds of issues and that's why his aparents were 'returning him' so to speak back to the system. They approached us as a last effort because they didn't want to do that. I didn't adopt because i felt the need to have a child, i saw a child that i felt needed me and he is every bit as much my child as my two biochildren are.

Melandry- Don't let anyone discourage you from adopting (even a healthy infant) just because you can have bio children. I do realize that there are people waiting who are unable to have children and sometimes that may seem unfair. But, I also believe that every birthmother who is voluntarily relinquishing her rights deserves to choose who will be her child's parents. And there are children (even healthy babies) that need families. I found out I was pregnant 3 months into our first "match." We decided to proceed, but his mother changed her mind after his birth. We still felt that we wanted to proceed with adoption and our agency was fine with that. We had situations presented to us almost monthly during my pregnancy and 3 actual "matches." YES - WHILE I WAS PREGNANT!:woohoo: We were open to an infant of any race and minimal to no special needs. We brought home our second son 4 months after I gave birth to our first. And we have even received a call since then (our boys are 6 & 9 months old) to see if we would be interested in another baby who had already been born! :eek: If you have specific question about our experience or others reactions please feel free to email me directly. As you can imagine our house is pretty busy with 2 little guys and I don't make it over here much anymore. Chris

I understand where your coming from. However, even though some women can get pregnant "easily", it still doesn't guarantee a healthy pregnancy or child. Some women are at risk of having miscarriages, down's syndrome, genetic disorders, diseases etc etc. So they choose adoption as the better way to create their families. Of course there are some people who already have a healthy child (children) but still want to expand their family through adoption. There are so many reasons why people choose adoption. But I am thankful for all who adopt for the right reasons. These are the parents who are blessed with their beautiful children. I could have gotten pregnant again if I REALLY REALLY wanted to. I could have chosen donor egg. My problem was tubal and not enough egg production. So there is nothing wrong with the rest of me :) But I thank god I was led to adoption. It was only through adoption that I was able to meet my beautiful daughter. She is the light of my life and a breath of heaven. Had I gone the pregnancy route, I would have never had the honor of being my daughter's mother.

Yes. Adoption is not an idea that just popped into my head on a whim this morning. And that is also why I'm here and asked this question, to find out as much as possible about the process and the implications. Our first choice for adoption is China. Yes, an international adoption. I'll only meet the age requirement in 3 years and we'll spend that time getting educated as much as possible. Being able to get pregnant does not assure a healthy baby, plus there can be so many complications that does not even guarantee a healthy mom at the end of 9 months. Will I get pregnant again? Most probably. This is not a second choice or a third choice or even motivated by some altruistic reason like wanting to "save" a child. For us, this is just another choice in adding to our family. I agree. There are thousands who can't have children themselves and I even know one of them. She's always crying about her empty arms, but when she had the opportunity to parent a child 4 years ago, she was very abusive - both physically and emotionally. Wanting a child and being unable to have one doesn't automatically make you more deserving of that privilege. As I mentioned earlier, we want to adopt from China. That means that we'll probably adopt a child older than one year. We won't be going the private domestic adoption route. I feel that I must point out that there are many toddlers, older children and yes, even babies in the foster care and orphanage systems. Where were all those thousands of parents while those children were growing up alone? I sincerely believe that I won't be taking a baby away or depriving anyone of a child if I adopt a baby. You didn't offend me. I think I might have offended you with my answer, but that wasn't my intention either. As someone pointed out in one comment, any decision you make will be questioned.. be it the age / race / nationality of the child, even the decision to adopt in itsself will be questioned. I think it's up to each individual how they grow their families. The only sad thing is that so few out there seem capable of supporting and respecting the decisions that others make. :grouphug:

I have two Bio teens and we adopted our baby girl after DH had a vas. rev. and we went through 1 MC and 2 years of infertility treatments. There are 13 years between our middle and youngest daughters. Our baby is the light of our family and VERY spoiled by all of us. I however went with a full AA baby even though we were a CC family because I knew there sadly wasn't thousands of people waiting for her and I knew that was the right direction for our family.

Thanks to the people who took the time to answer to my question :DI wasn't talking about older children/special needs adoptions though - for those I agree that there's definitely not many people willing to do it (and I'm one of those... for now), and I find it wonderful for people who want to give those children a home.About China though, I see thousands of people wanting to adopt there - heck even in the US I believe there is a wait to adopt toddlers from the foster system. The reason lots of children stay that long in orphanages abroad are because of those countries laws, not because of lack of interested families - why do you think the wait is so long in international adoption? Also, I realize you don't always get a healthy baby when you get pregnant, but overall you have more control over it than a birthmother you don't know - that, and you don't have to deal with the possible development/attachment issues that you can get with older baby/child adoption.

Actually depending on the agency you use the wait in China is not so long. Most people I know who have adopted from China had thier children home in a year. That is a reasonable time in international adoption. See the thing is, the wait is not just because of the foreighn government (China is actually one of the more efficiant governments when it comes to adoption) First you have to have a homestudy, this is an additional 1-2 thousand dollars that is not part of the fee you read about in the brocures from the agency. This can take time, the social worker must visit you more than once. (I think China has specified 3 or 4 visits, but I can't remember). they have to speak with all members of your household and see your house. They will ask you for documents, which must be notarized. You will need to have a physical, and get notices from places like employers, the bank, mortgage company, letters of reference from friends, a letter from your pastor is required for some agencies, a background check, etc. Then once the homestudy is done, you send it, along with a bunch more paperwork and a couple hundred bucks to Immigration. Then you wait for them to give you a finger print appointment. You drive to where they tell you to be fingerprinted (two hours away for us) and then you get fingerprinted. You wait for your fingerprints to clear and for Immigration to send your approval. This can take months. Then you send all your paper work to your state capitol (along with money for each peice of paper - depending on your state this can be several hundred dollars) and then you send all your paperwork to your agency, and they send to to be translated. it is quite a stack of documents so you might have wait several weeks for this. (of course the agency will want to check it before they send it, so that may delay it a few days depending on how much is going on that day at the agency and how many they recieved that week) Only then does the process start with the other countrie's government. So anyway, a wait of a year for a foreign adoption is not unusual. Go to some of the foriegn adoption pages and you will see that some people's sigs have time lines. I know the talk is that adoption is faster than pregnancy, but really it's not, it often takes longer from the time you make your decision and start. It is not a process for the faint of heart. The foster care system is actually very difficult to negotiate and they tend to not be in a hurry to find homes for even young children who probably do have many willing people. China sadly has more children available every day. The numbers are staggering. It's the paperwork that makes the wait so long, not the lack of children. Also there are so many children with minor special needs that many won't even consider. Anyway, thought I would give a little overview for those who are just now considering adoption.

Hmmm... let me take a shot at this. :) We adopted after 3 years of infertility and then easily got pregnant twice. Pregancy was not easy nor kind to my body. I have lasting health problems brought on by the two pregnancies. So, when I was in the OR having M by c-section, I had my doctor tie my tubes. I am not done growing my family and I know that making that decision means we will now be adopting again in a few years. We had always planned to adopt again, but I wanted to ensure that I couldn't get pregnant again. So, just because a women can get pregnant, it doesn't mean that she wants to or should. And for the record, we'll be adopting from the system again. Like Lorraine said, it's about finding teh best parents for the child, not just finding a child for parents. Adoption is a big enough decision across teh board anyway, let's not turn this into a debate on which method is right or wrong. :) Blessings, Jenny

I love your story!! While we were waiting for our oldest son's birth, I became pregnant with our middle guy. We choose not to tell the agency or our bmom - after many false starts we were not even close to believeing the preganacy would stick. I remember my sister in-law was about to ask me "why would we continue with the adoption if we could have one of our own" and I had to stop her - we were so invested and excited about our adoption, regardless of my pregnancy, that I didn't know if I could speak to her again if I let her get the words out. With our two guys so close in age (6 months) we were complete as a family. Then the adoption agency called to tell us that our bmom was preganant again (same dad) and would we adopt our son's brother (I am acutally crying as I write this). The feedback from others was absurd, "if you do this will she just have more?" "It's not your responsibility" etc, etc. We have been so ridiculously lucky to have been given the opportunity to have all of these boys, bio/adopted if you have the love, it just doesn't matter.

For us, I guess we can have children, at least that's what they tell me :) My husband was adopted and we always wanted to adopt. I never felt the need to get pregnant. I don't have any bio kids and we plan to adopt all of our children internationally, we already have a daughter from Kazakhstan, where trust me, there are not enough people willing to adopt. The wait in most countries is due to govt regulations and not due to there not being enough children, even in China the percentage of children adopted is still only a small percentage of the children in orphanages, we're only talking about a few thousand children entering the US from China every year. 7,906 last year according to the state department. Anyway, I guess I'm just not sure what the debate here is about, we're all forming families one way or another. :)

Hi~I just wanted to let you know there's someone else out there in the process of adopting after having a bio son. My hubby & I got together when his bio son(1) from his first marriage was 10, and I accept him as my own. We have always had an open relationship with his mom/hubby's ex. She comes to various family reunions, etc. I don't feel threatened at all. In fact, we've listed her as one of our references.We had our bio son(2) who is now 10, when (1) was 13. We are now considering adopting another son between the ages of 6 and 9.We thought about having another bio child back when (2) was 3 or 4, but didn't proceed. We've considered adoptiong on & off for the last 5 years. Recently the topic popped back up and for whatever reason, I have this very strong desire to add a child to our family. I feel like God is out there directing me down this path, that he's already chosen the child we will be getting and that he's waiting for us.Best of luck!Tawnya

How funny, I thought crazy things like this only happened to me :woohoo: So what happened? Do you have 3, did you decide not to, or are you still waiting for #3? I have to admit. If ds's bmom wanted to place another child, we'd probably do it. I just didn't think I could handle another baby not sleeping through the night right now!:confused:

We have 2 bio boys, one is turning 3 in a few weeks, the other is 14 months old. I have an older sister who was placed for adoption in 1968, we just found her and met for the first time last month. So, adoption has always been a consideration for me. A friend of mine was pregnant and not sure what she was going to do right after my second son's birth. I offered to adopt the baby. She ended up terminating the pregnancy. I had actually contacted agency's about getting a homestudy done and a lawyer about the legals, and was pretty heartbroken when it fell thru. Dh and I decided we really wanted to adopt to add to our family, so we are moving forward. Our homestudy is approved and we are waiting for our fingerprints from immigration, and will hopefully be sending our paperwork to China in the next month...so I know where you're coming from. China works for us because we really want to add a little girl to the mix. For us, we love kids....my kids are my greatest source of joy. I love being a parent and raising them, so why not add a child to the family that needs one. I also plan on having at least one more bio and adopting one more some day down the road. :eek: Which is pretty amazing considering dh said he was done after 2, lol.

We're still in the homestudy stage, so only have 2 at this point. #1 is living on his own now so only have the 10 yr old in the house. It's a small house, so adding one more will be plenty for us (for now anyway)!When hubby & I talked in the past, it was about adopting a little girl, because there are no bio girls in his family. When we got really serious this time and started moving forward, he's set on another boy. I swear I can see his blood pressure rising just thinking about having a daughter going through puberty, dating, high school, etc. He knows he'd be way overprotective and swears a boy will be "easier". Whatever! lol