Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I think pp is right. An agency is not focused on finding parents, but finding babies and doing the placements. If there is something in the background that the adoptive parents should know, they have no legal obligation to necessarily disclose.Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
I think those who adopt perfectly healthy infants with biological parents who are perfectly healthy with no mental health issues is actually rare. Most people are not going to describe the health background of the biological parents and they may never mentioned their adopted child's issues to prevent judgement.
Do you have any basis or source for this statement? Or do you just know a couple of adopted children who have physical or mental health issues? B/c I know plenty of seemingly-healthy people who have had biological kids who end up having problems too. It's not always something obviously hereditary. Sometimes it's just luck of the draw no matter how you come by your children.
Likewise they will disclose on some selected pieces of information on the prospective parents to potential birth mothers, so it works both ways.
OP here. So you're saying that if we work with an agency and they have relevant information about the child's health history, we are not legally entitled to know it? Can any BTDT parents tell me if this is true? I'm frankly finding it a bit hard to believe. But then again I've never done this.
Anonymous wrote:I think pp is right. An agency is not focused on finding parents, but finding babies and doing the placements. If there is something in the background that the adoptive parents should know, they have no legal obligation to necessarily disclose.Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
I think those who adopt perfectly healthy infants with biological parents who are perfectly healthy with no mental health issues is actually rare. Most people are not going to describe the health background of the biological parents and they may never mentioned their adopted child's issues to prevent judgement.
Do you have any basis or source for this statement? Or do you just know a couple of adopted children who have physical or mental health issues? B/c I know plenty of seemingly-healthy people who have had biological kids who end up having problems too. It's not always something obviously hereditary. Sometimes it's just luck of the draw no matter how you come by your children.
Likewise they will disclose on some selected pieces of information on the prospective parents to potential birth mothers, so it works both ways.
Anonymous wrote:One thing I'd like you to consider is having the adopted child being the only one in the family of a different race. We have 5 children, two of whom are adopted, and both are hispanic. We specifically wanted the second adopted child to "match" the first so they would each have someone who looked like them (a little bit) in the family. They're already different by virtue of being adopted.
The other thing I'd like you to consider is that many medical issues are chronic as long as the child stays in their foster/orphanage environment. Once their water supply changes or they're not sharing close quarters with other children, what medical documents say on paper is a permanent medical condition may diminish or disappear entirely. Our son, for example, was presented as having severe respiratory issues that require lengthy and frequent hospitalization. Because we knew we were having other children, we didn't want one parent to be stuck in a hospital multiple times a year, so he was - on paper - not a good fit for our family. However upon closer inspection, he simply had untreated asthma. He went from spending close to a month in the hospital 4-7 times a year to taking daily asthma treatments, to now having a few inhalers around the house, which he needs less than once a month.
Lastly, we adopted an "older" child, who was only 3. We hear older child and think like 11 or something. But even a 3 year old is considered "older." Please consider the preschooler set.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I wish you had not mentioned money, it really sounds like you are out to purchase. What is your medical condition? Is it related to mental health, or someting cronic like ms or aids? I also think you are starting to be on the older side, not that that is a problem, but combined with the health issue. And of course the speed in which you started talking about money. You are also very specific about getting an infant
they are getting to be on the "older side"??? that's hilarious. I know people who have adopted children through their 40s and who are great parents.
OP - you should go for it. If you are open to race and gender - I think you will be fine.
This can be a valid argument. We are an older couple. We ended up using a surrogate because we were in our late 40's at the time we were considering adoption. Several agencies we talked to said they would eliminate any couples with one partner 50 or older. We knew that if we didn't match the first time or if a match fell through and we had to match a second time that my spouse would age out and we could be eliminated. We thought that if we aged out, we might have to give up on having a family which we didn't want to face. We opted for surrogacy and had our twins born when my spouse was 50. We could easily have aged out. But we have a happy and healthy family.
Really, if you are in your late 40's, adoption may or may not be the right option for you, but you'll have to know which agencies will still consider you a candidate.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I wish you had not mentioned money, it really sounds like you are out to purchase. What is your medical condition? Is it related to mental health, or someting cronic like ms or aids? I also think you are starting to be on the older side, not that that is a problem, but combined with the health issue. And of course the speed in which you started talking about money. You are also very specific about getting an infant
they are getting to be on the "older side"??? that's hilarious. I know people who have adopted children through their 40s and who are great parents.
OP - you should go for it. If you are open to race and gender - I think you will be fine.
This can be a valid argument. We are an older couple. We ended up using a surrogate because we were in our late 40's at the time we were considering adoption. Several agencies we talked to said they would eliminate any couples with one partner 50 or older. We knew that if we didn't match the first time or if a match fell through and we had to match a second time that my spouse would age out and we could be eliminated. We thought that if we aged out, we might have to give up on having a family which we didn't want to face. We opted for surrogacy and had our twins born when my spouse was 50. We could easily have aged out. But we have a happy and healthy family.
Really, if you are in your late 40's, adoption may or may not be the right option for you, but you'll have to know which agencies will still consider you a candidate.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I wish you had not mentioned money, it really sounds like you are out to purchase. What is your medical condition? Is it related to mental health, or someting cronic like ms or aids? I also think you are starting to be on the older side, not that that is a problem, but combined with the health issue. And of course the speed in which you started talking about money. You are also very specific about getting an infant
they are getting to be on the "older side"??? that's hilarious. I know people who have adopted children through their 40s and who are great parents.
OP - you should go for it. If you are open to race and gender - I think you will be fine.
Anonymous wrote:I wish you had not mentioned money, it really sounds like you are out to purchase. What is your medical condition? Is it related to mental health, or someting cronic like ms or aids? I also think you are starting to be on the older side, not that that is a problem, but combined with the health issue. And of course the speed in which you started talking about money. You are also very specific about getting an infant
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:OP, you really need to go to this expo, which is in 2 weeks:
http://freddiemacfoundation.org/expo/
When we were considering adoption, this was a fantastic treasure trove of information, almost too much to handle, but there were all sorts of agencies, both public and private, who performed just about any type of adoption, there were excellent workshops, including an amazing one by the aforementioned Peter Wiernicki, who is an amazing encyclopedia of adoption information. We ended up not adopting, but going with a surrogate (we are bad candidates for adoption), but this gave us the information we needed to get started with adoptions if that had been the right path for us.
It's unfortunate that it's only 4 hours. Get there as early as you can to make sure you make the most of the information.
PP posted the 2011 link. This year the adoption expo is on December 1.