adopting out of birth order

[Anonymous]

Has anyone had experience adopting out of birth order?

We have a biological son (7) and earlier this were approved to adopt a child from foster care. We have been taking our time, not wanting to rush in to things and have now started getting curious about what it would be to adopt a teenager. It just seems wrong that there are so many aging out of the system. There are a few that have been presented to us (their cases, not the kids themselves) and I see potential...good with younger kids, no history of being violent or abusive to others, comfortable with family pets, etc. I would love to hear others' experiences, if there are any to share. Thank you in advance!

[Anonymous]

I adopted out of birth order but it was a technicality - he was a family member and literally could not recall ever living in any other house or with any other mother figure but me.

We didn't even tell the younger kids.

[Anonymous]

We didn't , but we have friends (from high school) who did. I will share a bit of their story, because they aren't local, and there's no way they are on this board.

They lived on the east coast with three young daughters. Maybe age 3, 5, 7? They adopted two teenaged girls who were sisters from California. I think don't think they had really met before they made the decision. They went from addressing needs of younger kids to frequent meetings with the principal of the high school.

Maybe it was the tone of the dad who is a writer and wrote the Christmas letter each year (which always was waaaay TMI), but he didn't show a lof of affection for the older girls in his writing. Maybe he thought he was being funny.

After a couple of years, the girls weren't mentioned in the Christmas letter. A couple of years later, he shared that they lived in Michigan now with relatives (relatives of their birth family), and that he was now a grandpa. It looked like (based on Facebook posts) the adoptive parents visited them infrequently.

The couple ended up getting divorced, and I can't imagine what their younger daughters went through. Gaining sisters who ultimately left them...

All this to say that it could be more complicated that you could imagine.

[Anonymous]

New poster with a different anecdote. I grew up knowing a family with a single child. When he was in elementary school, they adopted a girl a few years older. I know they loved her and tried to make things work, but in the end she left the family.