[CaliforniaJenn]

This may be a bit premature, but my husband and I are considering adopting our next child. We (26 and 29) and have a biological daughter who is just 4 months old, and I have some questions about our situation.

One of the reasons we are considering adoption is because we would like to provide a good home and family for a child that might not otherwise have one. To be honest, I do not think we are up to the task of specifically adopting a special-needs or older child, but we are confident we are up to the challenge of adopting a child of a different race from ourselves, and loving him or her just as much as we love our biological daughter. Another reason we are considering adoption is because I had a very rough time with childbirth, and if there are children out there that are in need of parents, I see no reason to possibly go through that again when I am confident that I could love an adopted child equally.

We hear about how there are huge waiting lists for the adoption of healthy infants in this country, so adopting in this country seems to defeat the purpose. I worry about whether it is "selfish" to adopt when we are perfectly fertile when there are so many infertile couples pining away for a child. I would *think* there are a greater abundance of healthy infants in other countries, but honestly I have yet to see any statistics supporting this. Does anyone know this information?

I am also curious to hear from anyone who has both adopted and biological children, and how that affects sibling relationships. While my husband and I are confident we could love and welcome an adopted child equally, what about our daughter? Will she react to having a brother or sister that looks different from her? What about the adopted child? Will he/she ever develop resentment that for the biological child? I havn't read anything about these family dynamics, and I think they are important questions. One of the reasons I am looking into this so soon, is because if we decide to do it, we'd like our daughter to still be young when we do it, as it is my theory anyways that some of these dynamics will be less dramatic if the adopted child is introduced into the family while she is very young.