[Petmomma]

Hello All!

I have been reading these forums for several days now. There is a wealth of information here and I appreciate each poster/comment made. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences.

A little about me. I am 42, been married to my DH who is 37 for almost 6 years (nov 09). We tried to have a child after our first year of marriage, on our own with some surgical intervention, etc for almost 2 years but no luck. The issues were mine (my husband still says my eggs carried flame throwers) but I have severe Endo. Anywho, he has a son, now 9, from a previous relationship. He does not live with us. He's about 5 hours away. I love him but we had a very rough start. He was 3 when we met and I found it very hard to deal with a child that young. However, once he hit about 6 yrs of age is when I really started to bond (after 3 years) with him and we are great now. I was married before and had a step-daughter and step-son. SD was no problem but SS had anger issues from his Dad's divorce. I am no longer in contact with either.

I have some issues with depression and am easily controlled on medication. I have had my own issues to deal with regarding an abusive, alcoholic, physically abusive father. At 42, I finally feel like I have a pretty good grip on my life and what I want.

We have been considering adoption for several years now and are ready to take a step farther and begin making contacts. My questions are these. Will my background cause a problem? Also, I know, without a doubt, that I want older children. How is adopting according to birth order when the one child we have already is only here once or twice a month? We fully expect, as step-son gets older, that he might end up living with us to be with his Dad. I would imagine this might be a few years, maybe 3 or so. We asked him if he could have any brother he chose, would he want older/younger. He said older but also maybe the same age. He said he is lonely. His mom has remarried but has not plans to have any further children. My husband's concern is for his son's potential jealousy, not just at having to share us, but also that this child would live with us but he wouldn't, as of yet.

Of course, I would have to have full backgrounds on any potential child so we wouldn't worry with them being a danger to our child or abuses to pets. We have several and also foster pets for our local humane society.

I think that will get me started but I might ask more as things progress. I hope that's ok.