Who has adopted in recent years?

[Anonymous]

Experiencing secondary infertility and want to give our child a sibling before he gets any older. I’ve read that international adoptions have declined quite a lot in recent years, and I know adopting a newborn domestically isn’t easy either. We’re open to foster care, but are limited to babies and young toddlers as our other child is not 3 yet and need to be realistic about our ability to keep him safe from abused children who may act out. We’re open to any race, but only mild special needs where the child can live a fairly “normal” life (like cleft palate, birthmarks, HIV, etc). How realistic is it to adopt a child 2 or under these days meeting those criteria. I’m not sure we’re even eligible to adopt internationally because I briefly saw a counselor and took a low dose of an SSRI for anxiety last year- I’ve heard some countries won’t allow any mental health history, even very mild like that?

[Anonymous]

You will never know if the child will have special needs or not till later on. Birthmarks are not SN. You need be open to everything. We didn't know my child had SN till much later.

Do not adopt to give your child a sibling. You want a second child and a sibling for your child.

Some people adopt easily, some it takes years and sometimes it never happens. It can be very expensive. Mild anxiety is fine depending on where.

[Anonymous]

Any child you adopt will have to deal with the fact that his or her parents could not/chose not to/were not allowed to parent. Many will have experienced traumas before or after leaving their parents' care. Coming to a new country, a new culture, or a new family in itself can be hard. Add this to the fact that addiction and mental health/intellectual disabilities can be one of the reasons kids go into foster parents or their parents choose adoption.

You don't know how resilient a kid you'll get, what tendencies they'll inherit, what they were exposed to, or how they'll feel about being adopted. Many feelings and conditions don't happen until puberty or later.

There is no stock of healthy non-traumatized babies and toddlers: not for private domestic adoption, international adoption, or adoption from foster care (where there are almost no legally free young children at all--so you either need to foster with the plan that the child will return to biological relatives, or adopt a child with severe special needs or a large sibling group. One possible exception may be if you are Native American and can accept children through ICWA).

[Anonymous]

I am profoundly fortunate. I still cannot believe it, almost 5 years later. As a single woman in my mid 40-s, I waited less than 2 year to adopt s healthy newborn girl. While my experience is not the norm, it can happen. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

PP here. The "not knowing" part can also be true for bio kids.

[Anonymous]

That was supposed to be less than 1 year!

[Anonymous]

We adopted from within extended family and the baby was 100% healthy and she became super unwell and we spent three years going to doctors and therapists.

[Anonymous]

Depending on the reason for your secondary infertility, we found it easier, more certain, and less expensive to use donor eggs. If you can get pregnant but just dont have good egg quality, you could explore that. You can also do embryo adoption which is often even less expensive than donor eggs.

[Anonymous]

Adoption is a nightmare with so few available. Probably best to concentrate on the one you have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Depending on the reason for your secondary infertility, we found it easier, more certain, and less expensive to use donor eggs. If you can get pregnant but just dont have good egg quality, you could explore that. You can also do embryo adoption which is often even less expensive than donor eggs.

We did this after trying adoption and only seeing older children with serious medical issues

[Anonymous]

OP wanting to clarify a few points-

1. Our motivation to adopt is that we want to add more children to our family. The “wanting a sibling for our child” thing is regarding timing, not our underlying motivation.

2. We realize all kids avaialable for adoption have already have suffered the trauma of the loss of their birth family. But from what I’ve seen through the numerous adoptions I’m familiar with firsthand (these were all 5-10+ years ago, which is why I want to hear more recent experiences), there is a huge spectrum of health and emotional concerns and I want to know where we can realistically draw the line but still have a good chance of a fairly reasonable timeline. Almost all of the adoptive families we know adopted healthy infants domestically or from China or Vietnam. Two adopted children who were classified as “special needs” (one had a large birthmark, one has scars from a fire) and are happy, healthy, and living “normal” lives now as teens. One family adopted supposedly healthy children from Russia who had severe attachment disorder and FASD. They children will never be able to live independently and they dealt with scary, violent behavior toward their biological children. I’m trying to be realistic about what our family can take on upfront.

3. Of course we know there are no guarantees with any child, biological or adopted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Depending on the reason for your secondary infertility, we found it easier, more certain, and less expensive to use donor eggs. If you can get pregnant but just dont have good egg quality, you could explore that. You can also do embryo adoption which is often even less expensive than donor eggs.

These things are not options for us for Medical and other reasons I won’t go into here.

[Anonymous]

OP, we adopted from China in '10 and '14. Both our children were born with cleft lip and palate. We went through the Barker Foundation. You could always call Barker and ask to speak with Tina and ask her which needs she is seeing the most of these days. They also have a monthly information session for free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP here. The "not knowing" part can also be true for bio kids.

Yes, but just the fact of being adopted puts a kid more at risk for all sorts of mental health issues.

Also, consider that someone putting their child for adoption may well have issues--certainly any parent whose child is taken by CPS.

On the whole, an adopted child is just more at risk--it doesn't mean don't adopt, but go in prepared to have therapy (and possibly more) at some point.

(I say this from extensive reading related to a parent's experience as an adoptee.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am profoundly fortunate. I still cannot believe it, almost 5 years later. As a single woman in my mid 40-s, I waited less than 2 year to adopt s healthy newborn girl. While my experience is not the norm, it can happen. Good luck!

Yes, you brag all the time about it. We have had plenty of friends who after years gave up. It took us 3 times that long. It can happen but usually if you are willing to wait or sped $60-80K.