[XyloGal]

My questions is, to those of you who have adopted children as well as biological children, what are your experiences regarding the order in which they came into your lives.

My husband and I plan to start a family in 3 to 5 years, and are seriously considering adoption. We would also like to have at least one biological child (we have not tried, but have no reason, knock on wood, to believe that we'll have any trouble conceiving).

I'm curious to know if anyone would recommend adopting first or having a biological child first, for someone like me who would like to do both.

This may be a sensitive subject for some, but I'd like to be realistic about this process. I'm curious to know if there is any kind of "stigma" attached to parents who choose to both adopt and have a biological child...as in, will people see that as being selfish, to want a biological child if we're able? Or selfish to adopt when we're capable of conceiving on our own?

[ourdreamcametru]

We have two bio boys who were 14 and 10 when we adopted our daughter who we got at birth. I don't know that there is a particular order you should adopt in and I don't think it really matters. Our kids were older so we didn't have any problems with them adjusting to having a sister who was adopted, they just understood. I think it depends which happens to come your way first, if your heart is leading you to adopt now then I would persue that and have a bio later. We did a domestic simi open US adoption which literly fell in our laps but I don't think we would have been able to save up the money for an international adoption once we had two bio kids to support. Just follow your heart.

[SchmennaLeigh]

My daughter's family had three boys (from J's previous marriage) that he has custody of, my birthdaughter and then a biological child conceived of an unexpected available IVF treatment.

[alwaysus]

My husband and I have had 5 bio kids we then adopted 2, both from birth. I don't think it matters what order you do it in. We did get the " you have had kids, let somone else adopt" thing, we chose to ignore it. I actually had one of my "friends" ask me point blank to let them adopt our youngest.( he wasn't born yet) The kids all love eachother just like 'blood' siblings. There have never been any problems in that regard. They all love eachother and don't give a rats behind about the biological aspect.
I can tell you that as far as my husband and I are concerned, there is no difference in the quality/type/amount/ferocity of love that we have for the kids that we gave birth to and the kids we adopted. They are all just simply our kids.
Good Luck,

[XyloGal]

Thanks for the feedback so far. I am not so concerned about how my husband and I will feel about adopted kids vs. bio kids, but more about how adopted children may feel about their parents giving birth to a bio child, and explaining to them that this is not the same way that they came into our lives.

While it wouldn't matter to me either way - our child is our child, adopted or not - but does anyone have any experience with how the adopted kids feel about it?

I think the more common route is for people to have bio children and then adopt, it seems that bio children readily accept and love an adopted child just as they would a bio brother or sister.

But I'm more curious to know if there are families who have done it the other way around (adopted first). Any advice or experiences to share??

[karaleah]

We have 2 children, oldest is adopted, youngest is not. I think it would have been easier to have had our birth child first because pregnancy really wiped me out, whereas with our a-daughter, she was formula fed, I wasn't freaking EXHAUSTED when we brought her home, etc. so it was easier. Anyway, my older dd definitely got the short end of the stick when her little sis was born.

Our girls are very close in age though and both needed lots of hands on parenting, so if they were farther apart (like 2 or more years) it probably wouldn't make much of a difference.

I have NO IDEA how to make sure our adopted daughter doesn't feel "less than" her sister. We're just figuring it out as we go along, praying that our love for her will be enough to cover over whatever mistakes we make.

Good luck...
Shari

[ValerieP]

Karaleah! I am in the same boat as you! We are adopting a daughter and am now pregnant (after 8 years of trying). they will be 13 months apart age-wise... My whole family needs to make them BOTH feel special about who they are... Any advice?

[XyloGal]

Thank you all for your very honest responses. I think this is a great discussion and I look forward to reading more of your personal experiences!

[traceyk]

We have two biological teens and went through a few years os unsucessful infertility treatments. Now we have our beautiful baby girl that we adopted from birth.

[mom2justynsarah]

My son was conceived first, through a miracle IVF cycle. Six years later we were miraculously led to our daughter. She was brought into our lives through domestic infant open adoption.

It has been a great experience. I wish I could adopt one more child. But my hubby would divorce me for sure. lol.

My son took to his sister immediately. It makes no difference to him that she didn't grow in my belly. As far as he's concerned, she's his sister. He loves her to death!!!!! Of course my daughter just adores her big brother. She loves, loves, loves him!

Boy do I love my kids

I do have 2 friends (well I am no longer friends with the first one) who adopted first and then had bio children. I am going to be brutally honest here.

One of them treats her bio daughter significantly better than her adopted daughter. Her daughters are 9 months apart (she got pregnant when her 1st daughter was adopted).

She trys to hide it. But if your sensitive to things, you can clearly see she favors her bio daughter. SHAME on her!

The other one got pregnant when her adopted daughter was 8 months old. She is due next month with another girl. I hope & pray she doesn't treat either of them differently.

I would hope that MOST people treat BOTH children with the same love, guidance, affection & respect. If not, I shake my finger at you. Shame on you.

[Happy123]

My adopted son, age 6, recently asked me if my bio daughter was adopted too. I realize that he is still young, but I hope that he never feels like I love him or his two siblings any less than my bio daughters.

Happy123

[karaleah]

Originally Posted by ValerieP

Karaleah! I am in the same boat as you! We are adopting a daughter and am now pregnant (after 8 years of trying). they will be 13 months apart age-wise... My whole family needs to make them BOTH feel special about who they are... Any advice?

OK, things I wish I'd known/done with youngest DD...
(keeping in mind that what made things *so difficult* was my exhaustion and feeling overwhelmed)....

If you breastfeed your birthchild, insist that your DH take over nightfeedings with botlles of EBM or formula. It will save your sanity.

Also, read the Baby Whisperer book. If I could hit the rewind button, I'd use her advice in a heartbeat. She's tender and respectful to both babies and their moms.

I chose to listen to a different parenting expert and following that style of parenting has left me exhausted, overwhelmed and without any sense of identity apart from what I do for my kids... meanwhile, I have a toddler who cannot sleep more than 1.5 hrs at a time, cannot self-soothe and has MASSIVE separation anxiety, among other things. All very, very difficult issues to resolve. I've visited many websites dedicated to this type of parenting (including the mother ship website) and all I get is guilt and "just suck it up." (not those words, but pretty much the meaning) It would have been easier and far kinder to DD had I chosen a different philosophy to follow.

Had I encouraged independant sleep and some self-soothing for my littlest DD I would have also had more time for myself AND (just as important) my older DD.

Congrats on your babies

Shari

[kretzklan]

I have a bio son who was step-parent adopted by DH at the age of 4. We decided to adopt and finally completed an IA last November. We adopted a 7 (now 8) year old boy and a 6 (now 7) year old girl. Bio son is now 9. So, we have 7, 8 and 9...
Our children are old enough to understand what has happened (obviously). R, our oldest, has struggled with the transition. C and D have such a common bond - both being from Russia...both being adopted...both having their lives changed overnight. Their bond was/is hard to overcome for R. Because he has struggled quite a bit, I find myself "helping him out" more than I normally would. Someone above said there should be no favoritism...but in the beginning - I'm still getting to know my new children...there is simply no easy answer.
Now, do any of my children see a difference? No...
I'm getting off topic. Our new babies know that they did not grow in my belly. They have jealousy. They see baby pictures of R and they ask why they don't have any. They see pictures of the three of us before they joined our family and there is sadness. We try to address it in a matter of fact way - we went around the world to find you - how special you are...
But, they do need to be allowed to grieve...not alone.
I don't know if I'm remotely addressing your questions...so I'll stop talking and talking...

[ValerieP]

Karaleigh... Thanks for your information! I will go to our local library on the way home from work and get the Baby Whisperer book... a co-worker said that it also comes with a quick DVD! Thanks!

[BrandyHagz]

I think how your adopted child will feel in comparison to your biological child will depend entirely on how you treat them both and how you deal with adoption issues as they come up between the children.

There are positive stories and negative stories all over the site regarding this.

One of the things you may face is your relatives/friends treating the adopted child different from the biological child. How you deal with that will affect the way your child will feel.

You’ll also need to devote more effort to knowing what the dynamic is between the children…sadly, children can be cruel and siblings aren’t an exception to that.