[Chachi]

I'm looking for words of wisdom from others who have already been through this. When and how much do you tell your child about a new sibling they may be getting?

Here is my story... we are matched with an emom who is due at the end of October and I'm not sure if/when/how much to tell my 6 year old DS. The problem is that we were matched with a emom earlier this summer who ended up parenting. Before emom gave birth, DS knew all about the baby and told all his friends at school and was just so darn excited that he was finaly going to get to be a big brother - then the world came crashing down. To this day he stills asks where his baby sister is and when is she coming home. Since that failed situation, we have just kept telling him that he WILL get to be a big brother someday. Now that we are matched again, I just don't know if or when I should tell him. It's hard enough for me to deal with some of the disappointments and craziness of the adoption process and I don't want him to have to go through that. On the other hand, it's hard not to share the excitement.

So I guess I would like to hear your stories and how you handled it. How old were your older kids and how did they deal with everything?

for sharing!

[Whirled_Peas]

Our son is 32 months. We got our baby August 10. Mom signed TPR 3 days later. Dad is an unknown and TPR won't be done until mid October.

We tell our son we are taking care of the baby. We don't use the words mom, dad, brother, sister. We've forewarned our family and friends. When I can, I tell others something like, "this is our friend. We're taking care of her."

We do this because we don't want him to think that brothers and sisters can just go away.

I've seen a lot of people tell young kids lots of details that I think are way premature. It's got to be really hard for the kids. My recommendation would be to say, at most, you've met a mom who is considering what she wants to do. IF baby comes home before TPR, tell your son you are caring for the baby while mom decides what to do.

DOn't overdo it.

Fussy baby, gotta go.

[michellef1]

Our DS1 was 8 when we adopted DS2 last year. Ours situation was a quick one, found out about baby on Tuesday, brought him home on Wednesday. We didn't tell Ds about the baby till he got home that Wednesday after school and we went to pick baby up, by that point TPR was signed. Our situation was pretty much a "sure thing" but I couldn't chance telling DS1 any sooner just in case. Plus, we live in a small town and DS has a big mouth (in the sweetest way of course, LOL), he would not have been able to keep that secret at school .
We had to do lots of whirwind shopping so I got gifts for older DS, and gave him a card that was "from his baby brother". It was so much fun watching him read it and trying to figure out what was going on. When he finally figured it out, he immediately said he was going to teach his new brother to "blow spit bubbles". That's boys for ya!
Hope things go smoothly, would love to hear what you decide to do.

[hockeywoman]

Our situation is a little different, since all our kids were part of the system. We've told them that once we go to court, they will be our kiddos forever. Then "John/Jane" (our workers (foster/adopt)) may call with another sib group whose mommy or daddy can't take care of them for a while, so we are helping out like (Previous foster parents) did for them. We also compare it to their foster siblings who aren't living with them. And they seem to understand it OK. They keep asking when we can get more kids, and would love to have a baby in the house - they even would like a big sibling since they had in their foster homes.

[HappyHopefulMommy]

I can totally relate. We had a very similar thing happen. Almost 2 years ago we were matched with an emom. She was 15 weeks pregnant when she chose us. We did not tell our bio daugther (who was 6) until the emom actually went to the agency and told them her plan. Since we had 5 months we wanted her to be part of getting ready and she was SO excited to finally be a big sister. When emom gave birth, she chose to parent. When I got the phone call all I could think about was how ward it would be to tell Abby (our bio daugther). She cried really hard for like 10 minutes and was so mad. For about a year she would randomly tell me she was mad at the emom, she said she would be mad at her until we got kids. I swore I would never tell her again until it was for sure. We ended up switching to fost/adopt and 1 year and 3 months after that failed placement we were selected for a sib set of 3. TPR was done and appeal period was past and they had been out of birth home for 3 years. We got the phone call on a Wed. morning and we would be meeting them the next day. I was so excited, I ended up telling Abby before calling my DH at work. But if we were still doing infant domestic I have no idea what I would do. I think I would not tell her until baby was born. I just saw how hurt she was and could not do that to her again. And then I would be very careful what I said if TPR was not signed. And for our DD it probably would have been easier to hear "you are getting a brother/sister today" than to hear it will be in 2 months. That would be so exciting for her. Good luck and go with your heart.