[Archive]

Originally Posted By Kim

My husband and I started considering adoption over a year and a half ago. Because we have a 5 year old bio daughter and a 16 yo bio son living at home currently, we were looking to adopt a little girl between the ages of 3 and 8. After talking to a lot of local agencies we were convinced to enter the foster care system. So we applied for a foster license and have gone through more than a year of classes and counseling regaurding fostering a child. We have had our license for more than 6 months but we have yet to get a foster child (apparently our county's foster system is just not {thankfully} getting a lot of children in.). Our family is a yours, mine and ours situation. My husband has his 16 year old son from a previous marriage. I have a 23 year old son (away at college) from a previous marriage and we have our 5 year old daughter. I am very excited at the prospect of having another little girl for a sibling for our daughter as well as our sons. I continually am checking the internet and all sites I can find to try to find a little girl available for adoption but am getting very discouraged in my search. I have even begun to look at international adoption because it seems that in the United States there don't seem to be ANY caucasian little girls between the ages of 3 and 8, who are realatively healthy needing homes. While this may sound crass or selfish to some, my husband and I believe we must FIRST take into consideration the health and welfare of the children we already have. This means that we feel that we cannot put our children's needs second to our desire to parent another child. We feel that adding another child to the mix of our family would greatly enhance our lives and those of our current children's but not if it puts our children's health (mental or physical) at risk. Is there anyone else out there feeling the same frustration in trying to find a child to adopt? Does anyone out there have any advice on finding a child either domestically or internationally?