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Hi there, I am a 44-year old single female seeking to adopt internationally from Haiti. I have just completed my home study, and as my preferred age I indicated 3-6 years old. I was asked to extend the age range a bit to include younger or older children in order to increase my changes that a match be found. Given my age, I prefer not to extend the age of the children to include babies. Regarding taking in older children, I was wondering if there are any adoptive parents on this forum who have adopted elementary school age children internationally and are willing to share their experiences. How fast has the language acquisition been at this age? Have your children had a a lot of difficulties catching up in school? Any behavioral challenges? Another question is one or two kids: I am tending towards two, because I would like for my children to have a sibling relationship (the children would be biological siblings). I see several advantages to that: children can play with and entertain one another, they would share a common history, they would not be the only black person in the family. I myself benefitted a lot from growing up with a sibling. The downside is the bigger financial commitment, and also the question, can I handle two of them at the same time as a single mom? Also, I would be grateful for any experiences anybody can share. Finally, the question of gender: I would love to raise a boy(s). I have been a tomboy myself and I really enjoy the rough and tumble activities. As a martial artist, I have interacted a lot with young boys. I am aware that male role models would be needed, and I do have men in my life and would make sure to choose activities where the boys can learn from adult men, such as boy scouts. With two, a boy and a girl would have also been nice, but then I don't want the boy to feel like the odd one out in this fatherless household. Then I'd rather be the odd one out myself. I also think two of the same gender might make logistics for activities a bit easier (as they are more likely to have similar interests). None of this has raised any issues with the adoption agency, but again I'd like to hear some experiences from people so to get a better idea of what I am getting myself into. Looking forward to hearing from you!
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