[MagensDad]

My wife and I need a little advice. We are adoptive parents to a wonderful 2 yr old, that we adopted in April 2002. We feel that she was a miracle for us, and we would love to find a brother or sister for our little whirlwind but we are unsure where to go now that our agency has called and said "No new adoptions and they don't see this changing anytime soon" (We live in RI and this is a local agency that we are dealing with)

We started our adoption journey with the state DCYF program, after a year of waiting with them with nothing occuring we started to consider looking into other agencies. We started an interview process with about 20 agencies to determine the best one for us and quite frankly one that had the birthparents best interest in mind. After having two adoptive friends both indepently suggest one agency, we chose to call them. To make a long story short, we were a perfect fit for a child they were trying to place at that exact moment. Our little miracle was in our hands less than one week later. It has been a wonderful two years since, and we are hopeful that we can find a sibling for Magen.

Here is the issue; (Sorry it has taken so long but I feel that it is important for you to know a little bit about us.) We have now been waiting over a year with the same agency, and they recently called to say not much has been happening. My wife and I both feel that agency has turned it's attentions to foster care, a very admirable position but .... well, what do we do now? Start to search for another agency? We are thinking of posting our profile on parentprofile.com; We do have an issue that I'm afraid would severly hamper our attractiveness and that is age, Dad is 37 and Mom is 46. BTW - Mom is stay at home mom, and looks/acts like a young 30yr old. No one believes her when she tells her age.. I'm truely a blessed man anyway, back to my questions ... Do bmom's really look there? Open or Closed - this is a tough one, we really tried to get Magen's parents to have an open adoption but they didn't want to do it, so it is closed. We prefer open for the second child but we are unsure about the potential problems between the two children. Is it ok to say that we are open to either? We don't want to sound insincere and dishonest.
Any thoughts and comments would be greatly appreciated. I guess part of me is scared to do anything as we felt that it was fate that brought Magen to us the first time and we are really hopeful it will happen again.. that is we would catch lighting in a bottle again....

[tobeafamily]

First, congratulations on your daughter who is the same age as my son Ryan, also born April 2002.

Have you thought about networking on your own in additon to your agency searching? We did this and found it quite successful. If you'd like our list of 'tips' please just PM and we'll send them.

As to your ages, I think that's less a factor for some than you'd think. DH is now 48, I'm 37. He's 2 years older than bgranddad and 1 year younger than bgrandma and both of us are quite easily old enough to have been parents to Ryan's bparents. I personally got called 'grandma' more times than I care to mention in the hospital when he was born. It didn't bother his bfamily in the slightest, they thought it was funny.

As to your question about different openness in adoptions, can't help you there as we have only one son whose adoption is fully open.

HTH,

Regina, AMom to Ryan Joshua Thomas

[megsmom]

Hi-
We too have adopted a daughter in 2000 and now hope to adopt a 2nd time- have you tried any networking on your own?
or a web site?
There a many adoption sites that pbmom look at to find paparents that you can link your site too- but there is a thread in this forum for just that those ideas-
This one is more for birth parents so I'll keep this short-
I've learned recently that you can't be too set on what you want in an adoption- open,closed, visits, none, etc. as you have to think about how the birth parents feel and they don't know how they will feel after the baby is born or a year after either- so keep an open mind on these things.
Its great you want to have an open adoption- that's what I feel is best for the child and everyone else involved! And as far as your ages all birth parents are looking for somthing different so there may be some that want a couple in that age group! I have good frineds who are almost excatly your ages that just adopted!
Anyway feel free to pm me for ideas etc. or check out the thread on networking-
Take care-