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I'm sure this is the upteenth post with the question in the title, and I'm not sure if I should be posting in a different forum, so pardon me if i'm in the wrong place.
My husband and I are older parents of a 3.5 year old (she arrived via gestational surrogacy after years of infertility). We are now, late in the game, thinking about the possibility of adoption. But given our ages (40s) it isn't practical or do-able for us to adopt a child if we have to wait much longer than a year, and we would only be interested in adopting a healthy newborn. I would love to give our daughter a sibling (and have a strong preference for having another girl) but am ready to accept being a one child family, too, if that's what's in the cards.
Can anyone give me a sense of the reality of the situation. We are open to any ethnicity, and from my preliminary research it seems as though registering with an agency in TX or Fl or CA might be a good avenue to try for adopting a Hispanic baby. We live in CT though.
Thanks so much for reading!
katherine
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We used a consulting agency who linked us to multiple agencies. While we were open to all races, we preferred full AA or biracial/AA. Our fast match was because DH is AA and Peanut's mom wanted at least one parent to be AA. We went consulting agency route because we knew it would widen the pool we'd be shown to...And hopefully decrease our wait. I was 41 and DH was 39 when Peanut came home.
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As others have said, no one can guarantee your wait time. Agencies will give you an estimate, but it is just that - an estimate. I ended up waiting twice as long as my agency estimated. I was open to any race, substance exposure, moderate medical issues... really most things. I did end up adopting a healthy newborn, but I had the opportunity to be shown more often based on my openness to other issues. Generally (though certainly not always) people who have more limitations end up waiting longer. I don't want to discourage you from adopting, but you definitely want to consider first whether you are really committed to that 1 year time frame. What would you do if you had been waiting a year and were not yet matched? Other things can also take longer. My homestudy was not completed until almost 5 months after I chose the agency; although that is longer than normal, because the social worker left and they needed to schedule me with someone else, things like that can happen. Adoption, even before getting matched, can be very expensive as well as emotionally draining, so if you would give up after a year if you were not matched, you may not want to invest the time or emotion in the process.
Thank you for taking the time to reply! I appreciate that. I'm getting a better sense of what it would take to adopt and how much time and energy I'd have to invest, so thank you for that. I'm not sure I have it in me, to be honest. I love my daughter more than anything and would love to give her a sibling but I do feel as if my age is a big barrier for lots of reasons. I have thought about revisiting surrogacy but we'd have to go the traditional surrogacy route (as opposed to gestational surrogacy) which is a lot riskier.
Anyway, thank you very much for your input!
Katherine
I would suggest you contact [URL="http://www.rainbowsendadoption.com/"][/URL] who we are working with, and they have very quick matches, esp. if you're open to other ethnicities besides Caucasian. But if you're serious about adopting, you should get a home study rolling since that can take a while. PM me for more information.
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Waiting_on_God
I would suggest you contact [URL="http://www.rainbowsendadoption.com/"][/URL] who we are working with, and they have very quick matches, esp. if you're open to other ethnicities besides Caucasian. But if you're serious about adopting, you should get a home study rolling since that can take a while. PM me for more information.
You might also consider fostering if you think you can handle having to give a baby back. I think you are a little tight on hoping for a year with a private adoption. What would you do after a year? Just walk away? Hold out for another year? I do think it can be done if you are open to all ethnicities, generally open to some sort of post adoption contact (at least through letters) and your budget is large enough.
In all honesty, I think your budget is probably the single biggest factor in how long your wait will be. If you have a high budget you will be able to be shown on many situations that people who have a lower budget cannot even consider.
We are were 45 and 46 and parents of 5 kids when we adopted. Those are both big factors going against us...but we had 3 matches in less than a year (the first two didn't work out for various reasons), but from start to finish it was 11 months from when we started our homestudy to when we brought home our daughter.
We didn't sign with just one agency...we used multiple agencies and referral services and our 3 matches actually came from 3 different agencies.
It's possible, if you are willing to do the work and you have a budget that allows you the flexibility to work with different agencies.
Best of luck!!!
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You can see our timeline in my signature. No agency can guarantee a fast match, but we had a very short wait. Our budget was not THAT large in comparison to a lot of people, but we were open to any race and some substances (but our son was not exposed to any). Our agency told us that would make our wait much shorter, and it did even though the substance abuse wasn't an issue with J's b-parents. Our agency almost always has available adoption situations which they aren't able to match with their current PAPs usually due to substance issues or very high budgets. So, a high budget can help too.
I am single and adopted internationally when I was 51. My daughter was 18.5 months old at the time, and is 16 years old now. Frankly, I have not felt that parenting at my age has been particularly difficult. Yes, I've had less sleep, less time for myself, and less money than I would have had if I hadn't adopted, but frankly, those things pale beside the joy I've had in parenting my daughter.
I know that, domestically, many birthmothers do not choose older couples, as the couiples may be as old as their GRANDparents. Still, it is not impossible to find a birthmother who is open to an older couple, especially if you do a private adoption. So even if it takes more than a year to complete an adoption, I would say, "Go for it!"
Sharon
As one of those 'old folks', I actually think I'm better at this parent bit now then I was when we had our first. I was 23 when my son was born, 26 and 29 for my daughters. And 48 when my youngest son came into our lives. I don't bounce off the floor as fast as I used to, but I sure do appreciate the parenting more this time. I kind of took it for granted with my first three.What folks say about wait time is very true. We actually started the process to adopt from China in 2006. Our little guy from Liberia dropped into our lives in 2008 and somewhat to our surprise we got the referral for our China Doll about a month ago. We'd kind of forgotten about it, but there is no way we aren't going to do what we can to make it happen.
Guppy35
Our little guy from Liberia dropped into our lives in 2008 and somewhat to our surprise we got the referral for our China Doll about a month ago.
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Hello,
I chair an aid agency Save the Children. For those who desire to adopt a child or a baby regardless of race, please email me at francistetegan@yahoo.fr
We ensure rapid adoption while respecting the laws.
Thank you for contacting us via email for more information
