AboutTerrie Expertise Hello, I am an adoptive mom, past foster parent, I also work with a support group for potential and current birth and adoptive parents. I am also very knowledgable about Open and Private adoption. As well as using a lawyer, counseling, Homestudies, Also Legal Guardianship.
Experience I am an adoptive mom, on online community leader, as well as I am the founder of an Support group for adoption, We help potential birth and adoptive parent's. Find answer's to their need. I also can refer them to appropriate resources.
Organizations United thru Adoption,Online community Leader on adoption concerning Open Adoption and Adopting an Older child.
Expert: Terrie Date: 6/15/2004 Subject: Considering both adoption and pregnancy
Question Hi, my husband and I are considering having baby, but we also would like to adopt a child. My husband worked for a while as a guardian ad litem and saw first hand kids who through no fault of their own have no real home or family, many of whom had been forced to deal with abuse or neglect.
The age range for adoption that we are interested in is from around 5 years to around 9 years. Our goal is to have two children, one by birth and one by adoption. For us as couple excited about starting our own family, this is the ideal, perfect-world scenario.
However, in building a family, we are not so much concerned with meeting our own needs as future parents as much as we are with meeting the needs of our children. What we are primarily concerned about is the relationship that will exist between our birth child and our adopted child. Is it better to adopt first before having a baby, or vice versa? My thinking is that if we adopt first, the child can adjust to living with us as parents without having to immediately deal with building a relationship with a sibling who is our son or daughter by birth.
I hope you can give me some advice on this.
Answer I would also ask around your biggest problem may be that it can take years for an older child to bond and adjust and having a birth child may make that child feel like they are not as special so much also depends on how that is presented to the child as well. Are you looking to adopt from within the usa? And if your open to those age ranges most kids that have been in the system for a number of years are usually going to come from an abusive background. So you would need to be prepared for that potential as well. I wish you the best of luck.
Terrie
