large families/ adoption ?

I think it depends on the social worker. When we became fost/adopt parents we already had 5 kids. Our homestudy worker loved us, but was pretty honest about the fact that some workers would not place with us based on the size of our family. Luckily, our first baby's sw really wanted an intact family with a stay at home mom (not that easy to come by...believe it or not). So we were blessed with child #6. Even though she thrived, and we received glowing reports, we were still told outright by more than one sw that we had "too many children" and that they couldn't possibly be getting enough attention. (This was said over the phone...by people who had never met us.) One sw even choose a single mom with 3 other children over us! Anyway...Our beautiful baby #7 has delays, is visually (and probably hearing) impared. Both our babies were "hard to place" but she was REALLY hard to place. We still had to meet with her sw to explain ourselves. He actually asked me if I had "Baby Fever". Now he is our biggest fan. Anyway, that's just my experience in the foster care system. Private and international adoption is different, I'm sure. BTW...I actually call my kids by their names...not numbers. Although sometimes I think it would be easier to say "#2, #3, #5...clean your rooms!" instead of trying not to call them by the names of their siblings, cousins, or family pets. Hope that helps. lela

I have same type of question. We have 3 birth (grown and gone-doing fine), 4 adopted (all boys from age 15-7) and would love to adopt 2 little girls. (dh and I are 44). Have heard some remarks from SW that our family would not be concidered since we have 4 at home. We have an extra bedroom, we have lots of love, we homeschool and I'm a stay at home mom. Just wondering if there are any legal limits or just unwritten SW rule? Thanks!:love:

I think there are legal limits, but they have more to do with having enough bedrooms and not having too many non ambulatory children per care giver. You guys sound like you'd be fine. Good luck! lela

I traveled to China in Jan to bring home our 2nd daughter and 6th child. The CCAA, china adoption folks, rules are "No more than 4 minor children in the home" we had 5. But they will look at families on a case by csae basis for their waiting children's program. One of the big factors is exceeding their minimum financial requirements, which we did thanks to dh AF retirement and current job. I too am a stay at home mom, so that helps and our oldest son was 16, and would be ready to be "launched" soon. I think it depends on the agency/sw you're with and how willing they are to advocate for you. The agency we adopted our first daughter thru would not consider us for China, especially an out of birth order adoption. Our 2 youngest are younger than the daughrer we just adopted. The agency we ended up using, didn't exactly advocate for us, infact I'd never recommend them to my worst enemy, but they did have our daughters file so there we were and here we are almost a yr later. I know of families who have 6 and 7 minor children in the home who are adopting thru CHina. Our first daughter was from Korea and we were told that to get a large family waiver we would have to accept a child with significant special needs, but we needed to be realistic about what we could and could not handle with 5 other children in the home, so we didn't pursue that avenue. There are countries, Ethiopia is one, that do not have a a requirement on the number of children in the home. SOme days I would like "Just one more, and then there are the days when I come to my senses and say "What, are you nuts???" Goodluck, Shelley

Its funny Shelley, I say the same thing.....just one more. The other day I was thinking how nice it might be to have a baby boy in the house. I MUST be crazy!

what is with us mothers of large families? i will always want 'just one more'!

It feels so good to have found other people who are as "crazy" as we are and want more children. We helped raise our nieces and have "adopted" (not legally-just emotionally) their 5 children as our grandbabies. They come one or two at a time several times a week, so it's not like I'm bored. But oh my heart yearns for 2 more daughters. If the Lord sends another son, that will be just fine too. It would just be fun to get the baby dolls and barbies out of the attic. Thank you for the encouragement!

We have/had 4 bios when we got our foster liscens.We will finalize our adoption on 4 of our foster children Thursday!!:banana: And our 5th next year.I also want more (not just one)we have submitted our homestudy for a sib group of 3 we will see.As for cw well most are fine with our family beacuse they know us and see how our family works.Good Luck!

Maybe we are all missing the gene that lets you know when you have enough chaos in your life. Scientists should study us. lela

Maybe instead of studying us they should study case workers who think because they couldn't do it that no one should be able too. Do I sound a tad bitter:darth: It really is a pain to continually have to prove yourself when you tell them you are not yet done growing your family. I have eleven and painfully await number twelve:fish: Tricia

I agree to submit to testing, provided they guarantee me a weekend at a spa, no children, all food, beverages and services INCLUDED!!!! hahahahaha Shelley

There are legal limits, at least in our state- you can only have 8 children in the home at once ( through adoption anyway, i know many families with more bio kids than that). We also were only approved to adopt 2 children, I'm not sure why - when we could have up to 8 total in the home? Maybe because we're first time foster/adopting? It does seem to me that there's an "unwritten" rule, or bias, if you will.. against larger families. jmho!

There can be predjudice against the large family looking to adopt, but there are also alot of avenues to adopt. If one doesn't work, try another! I believe that if there is a strong desire to adopt, God will open the right doors to make the desire a reality. We have 2 bios, and have adopted six babies within a three year span. We have adopted internationally, as well as domestically. Our homestudy sw thinks we are crazy, and isn't completely sold on large families. Still, she gladly does our paperwork, while encouraging and supporting us! Most of our adoptions were because we were called by an agency, or someone, who heard about our family. We still receive calls with opportunities to adopt. For the past year, I have passed these situations on to others and have enjoyed watching their families grow. When it is God's time for us to grow our family, we will begin the process again. There are legal limits, but there are also waivers both for fostercare and international adoption. I guess it really depends on the state you reside in.

sorry if this is a double post. i posted once already and i think it went into cyberspace! i was just thinking about how we must be missing that gene that say enough is enough. my DH certainly thinks i need my head examined. but he eventually comes on board when i have this feeling that someone is missing from our dinner table. our SW thought our family was great and said a new baby would be lucky to be welcomed into our family. the our emom picked us because of our big family. she thought it would be neat for her baby to grow up with us. the funny thing is we couldnt get approved for fostering because we had too many children already, but we can adopt? go figure!

I'm glad to see I'm not the only mom who is considering adoption and already has several bio kids. We have 4 bio kids, ages 7mo-5yrs, and we are considering baby #5. I had C-sections for all of them (not by choice!) and I know I need a little recovery time between pregnancies. We have loved having them back to back (it's so much easier!) and thought this next one could be adopted. I'm worried about what people will think. Sounds superficial, but I know it will happen and I would like advice on how to deal. How have you all dealt with it?