[PabloandCarlosMama]

Every situation is different. I'm a single woman who adopted two older brothers (then 7 and 11) from Guatemala last year. They spent most of their lives in an orphanage and foster care. My children would have aged out of the orphanage upon turning 16, and things wouldn't have good for either one of them.

Just as infants bring challenges, so do older children. I would encourage you to research attachment issues and the effects of orphanage life on children. If you can get networked with an adoption support group for parents in your community, that could help you determine whether adopting an older child is the right decision.

My children have done a lot of grieving over the lives that they left behind in Guatemala. We have kept in touch with friends and foster families. They have been homesick, and it is traumatic for children (or anyone) to be uprooted and placed in a different country, language with a stranger who they are supposed to call "mom." That, along with the issues of abuse and neglect that they may have suffered (bad things can happen in good orphanages), takes a lot of work to deal with. They say they are glad to be here and in our family, and I believe that we are meant to be together.

You mentioned your concerns about daycare with a baby, etc. Before I adopted, I had a similar thought process. Make sure that you have a good support system and access to childcare even with school age children. Also, older children do regress to get the nurturing and care that they missed as babies. I have gotten to do a lot of baby-type activities with them like rocking and bottlefeeding, playing peek a boo. I watched two very self-sufficient "little men" from the orphanage regress to where I'd be tying their shoes, and brushing their teeth for them. It's all part of the bonding and attachment process, and I had read and heard about it, but experiencing it has been surreal, strange, and wonderful. I never thought I was a "baby" type of person, but my boys have awakened that love in my heart.

Best of luck to you.