[Cristi727]

Here is our situation. My husband and I just adopted our boys, age 4 and 10. They were orginally foster children but we were given the option to adopt 1 1/2 years into placement. Altogether the process was over three years of courtroom battling and waiting for appeal decesions. We are now an official family, as of November 29th.
A couple days ago the boys approached my husband and I and said they were ready to add another child to our family. We have been very open with them about wanting to add to our family at some point in time, but have always met with some form of resistance from them. We just figured when the time is right we will know. I however thought that we would take more than a month off from the system.
Should we wait longer and just be a family without the invasion of social workers, lawyers, etc? Or should we dive in right now, while the boys are use to having social workers around and it doesn't seem uncommen.
What have other families done? How long in between adoption and new placements have others waited?

[vegaschristina]

Less than a month after our adoption was finalized, we got a call from the SW saying that our daughter's bio-brother was entering the system, so for us it wasn't very long at all!

Good luck with your family!

[texastanya]

First of all, congratulations!

Our agency requires a 3 month wait after finalization of adoption. Now if we had other foster-to-adopt children already in the home at that time, I'm sure that would have been waived.

We are nearing the end of our 3 month break, and I have to say, I'm really glad we did it. We've had these kiddos in our home for 21 months, so it's not like they were new personalities to adjust to. However, it has given us time to gel as a family, take a couple of trips without notifying everyone in the Johnson County CPS office, and generally just enjoy each other.

I think you should do whatever you feel is right for your family. If you think it would be easier on your boys to do it now, go for it. If you think they would benefit from a little low-stress, family-bonding time, you could put it off for a couple of months.

Whatever your decision, I wish you the best.

[Yash]

My son's adoption was finalized on 8/1 after a 19 month and 2 day process. I turned in my adoption application to my agency in Sept. I updated all my paperwork by Oct. I met with the matcher SW from my agency the week of Thanksgiving, she told me I would probably hear from her sometime next year as my agency was just matching families whose applications were submitted in May/June. I figured this meant around Easter time I would get a call. Wrong! I got a call last week about a 3-year-old girl. I said no since I'm looking to keep birth order and my son is not yet 2. So I think I'm next up on my agency's list for a family looking to adopt a single infant girl of any race. All year, I've had this thought that I would have a baby in my arms to celebrate Christmas with my son and I. Maybe I will. We'll see.

I turned in my application so quickly after finalization because I want my son and sibling to be close in age. And I knew if he got too old and too independent the idea of starting all over again would have lost all of its appeal on me. Even now, I'm thinking can I do 2AM feedings again? It's so nice to have a toddler who sleeps through the night.

Yash

[Cristi727]

I wanted to thank those that answered. My husband and I will be praying for Gods will to be done and in His time.

I will keep everyone updated once we have a decesion, or go to the next steps...