[Prettyboicris]

I know that many women have their peferences when it comes to the age and gender of their child for various reason. I was wondering for prospective fathers what preferences do you guys have? Do you just go with what your wife/ partner wants or do you guys negotiate and come to some middle ground?

[Bunnygirl]

I don't know whether I'm qualified to reply, since I'm an adoptive mother, but here goes. My husband & I adopted a one year old boy last spring, while waiting for our China adoption to progress (now at a wait of 2.5 years with no end in sight). We'd originally wanted to adopt a baby girl and then, perhaps, a boy. I was able to convince my husband to adopt a boy first (we adopted our son from Vietnam, which didn't allow parents to specify a gender for a first child meaning that we knew we'd get a boy because the orphanages had a surplus of boys) with the assumption that we'd eventually get a daughter. Now, we're exploring options for a 2nd child and my husband is very much set on adopting a baby girl, without any special needs, the younger the better while I'm willing to be more flexible. I'd prefer a baby girl too but I'd be willing to accept a boy or an older toddler, or a child with some special needs (or some combination of the three).

[jaenelle]

My DH and I were totally in agreement on our first adoption... girl (although we weren't allowed to specify, and would have been thrilled with a boy as well), newborn, healthy.

Exactly what we got.

Now I think DH wants another girl, while I'd rather leave it open, or possibly even specify a preference for a boy. Both of us aren't interested in the newborn stage again, but still likely want to maintain birth order which means we'll stay pretty young with our requests, unless we happen to find an older child that would be a really good fit.

[Prettyboicris]

My wife wanted a girl and I wanted a boy for our first adoption so we decided to make it fair and be open to both and see where that leads us. Statistically we will be more likely to get a boy since there are more boys in the system but you never now. I will be happy either way. My wife wanted to be open to a newborn to 2 years old I was willing to be open to a child 10 or younger. We decided on being open to children 5 and younger. If we happen to come across a child in a photolisting between 5 and 10 years old we will be open that that child as an individual and take it from there. But right now we are just waiting for the darn to ring.

[sbaglio]

We were open to either gender, and wanted a newborn. We plan on having a large family, so we'll see what happens in the future.

[LeighM]

My husband alway wanted a daughter. We had two bio sons but I was unable to any more children. Our daughter is his everything. I have to remind him that his little girl will grow up to be a teenager and he is setting the ground work now for behavior. Took a while but he now get's it. She is still Daddy's little girl.

[Barksum]

We have one bio Dd and were unable to have more bio children. We were open to either gender, with possibly a bit of a lean toward a girl. Dh never had any particular longing for either gender, specifically. Just wanted to have more kids. We did discuss adopting a girl, but when it came down to it we weren't adamant about it.

As we read through the little biographies of the waiting children we found that gender wasn't our first consideration at all, so it kind of took a back burner throughout the whole adoption process. In the end we adopted four times and were matched with 3 boys and 1 girl. This wasn't so much by design as just how things worked out.