[ddhuab]

I really admire people who expand their families through waiting children -- in fact, I would really like to do this one day. But many of these children are older than two years old. In fact, the ones I have seen in my state, on the photolisting, are all over six years old. I am afraid of dealing with issues of the hurt child - attachment disorders, physical and sexual abuse, etc. While I could see myself dealing with these kind of issues, I don't think I have the emotional stamina to deal with this yet. I do think we would be interested in taking in a waiting child in about ten years from now.... but I want to be a mom NOW!

And we really want to go through the baby stuff... and after waiting so long, and having NO children, I don't think I could handle taking care of an infant for months and then having it returned to the birthfamily. this is also why we are considering international over domestic infant adoption. We are looking at countries that seem to have good foster programs for orphans/abandoned children (Korea, China, Guatemala). There are pros and cons both ways, but it does seem certain with international adoption that when you bring your baby/toddler home, he or she is probably going to stay with you.

I would love to be able to have a child still have contact with his/her birthfamily, which would be possible if we adopt domestically, but that, too, is complicated if the child has experienced neglect or abuse at the hands of the bparents.

Those are just some of the random thoughts running through my mind. We are still trying to decide what to do, and we are not planning on calling the social worker until May, so we have a little more time to iron out what to do for child #1. We are mostly leaning toward contracting with a small local agency for domestic adoption.

D.