How does the adoption process work?

Realistic Adoption Expectations?

• I'd love feedback from people who have adopted, been adopted, or worked in the field. My husband and I are 26 and 27 and have been married 6 years. We both work full time, I'm a kindergarten teacher and he works at a correctional facility. We have put off having children because we were married young, we weren't ready, and we weren't settled. We have lived in our own home now for almost 2 years, and live very close to both his family and mine. We have a strong relationship, although my husband was abused my his stepfather when he was young and still struggles with those feelings of not being wanted. We have talked about adoption for a long time, and knew we would always want to adopt a child. Our reasoning is that there are so many children out there with no families, we could make a difference. We aren't expecting to "save" a child, but to provide it with a stable, loving home. We are looking into fost adopt, but we do have specific ideas in our adoption. Because I would need to continue to work, and love what I do, we would need to adopt a child who is at least 2 years old. However, I really want a young child, so I think 4 would be our age limit, which I know really limits our choices. We could not financially or time wise be able to care for a severely challenged child, either physically or emotionally - and because we live in a small town with limited medical resources. So we could adopt a child with learning disabilities, speech or hearing impairments and I would feel comfortable since I work with children dealing with this daily in my class. I don't know if these are realistic expectations of a fost adopt - or if most children needing to be adopted this way do have severe needs and do require a lot of care and attention. Are we way off track? Will a couple as young as us even have a chance at being placed with a child? I hope this makes sense - I just don't want to get into this process with a completely skewed idea and be unable to find a child that we can adequately provide for.

• Answer:

  OK here is the LONG answer...you will probably not like everything that I have to say.Just being real. *To start with I am adopted,have adopted and have worked in the field. *You are NOT too young to adopt (stability is far more important than age) * I commend you and your husband for considering adoption *I'm glad that you enjoy your job however you state that you need to adopt a child over 2 years old.Why is that? For Day care reasons?? *most young children waiting to be adopted to have special needs.Often times a child w/o special needs is in the "system" due to the parents problems ie: jail,drugs etc. These children are put into the foster care program while Mom and /or dad try to "get it together".This can mean lots of visits from bio parents.This can be (read: is) very stressful for both you and child.It was difficult for us to bond (parent type bonding) when we knew that the child could be "given " back to the parents (my heart has been ripped out more than once this way) *Once again you are to be commended for being willing to deal with learning disabilities BUT honestly do you want to do your work at home every night too? *By age 4 (your limit) many habits have already been formed..this is good and bad. ( I was age 5 at my adoption ) I bonded very well BUT did deal with abandonment issues for years; I remembered my birth parents * The abuse sustained by your husband will come up in both foster od adoption .Its "workable" if he has taken steps to get counseling (even if he doesn't think it is necessary) He needs to "prove" that he will not has this problem towards his kids (NO it is not fair ,,we just have to go by stastistics) * as far as your statement "We could not financially or time wise be able to care for a severely challenged child." Never say never.A bio child or an adopted child could at any time have an injury resulting in this problem.(I'm sure there is evidece of this in your own class) You need to go into parenting knowing that there are no guarantees. *********** I hope this info was helpful.I wish you both the best as you make this very important decesion and weigh all the options!