For those with adoptive and biological children...

[camdensmom]

I would be most appreciative if anyone is willing to share their experiences with adoption. I am especially interested in families who have both adoptive and biological children.

We have always been open to the idea of adoption. In fact I had done a lot of research into it prior to having my son. We have a wonderful little boy who is currently 2 years and 9 months.

I have since had 2 miscarriages and am getting concerned about the increasing age gap between DS and any future children. Since we did easily conceive DS and I had an uneventful pregnancy with him my doctor sees no reason to be concerned at this point.

However, I am still very open to adoption (both domestic and international). I just have some new concerns now that we have a biological child. I am curious about how each will feel about how they came to be a part of our family if it is by different means and am cautious that one will be resentful of the other for whatever reason.

I would love to hear about your adoption experiences if you feel comfortable sharing. Thanks so much!

 

[Eyore4Ever149]

I dont personally have experience with adoption, but I work in the toddler's room in my church each week with a woman who has 3 biological children and one little boy adopted from Ethiopia or Africa I believe. They "think" he is about 17 months old- Elias, he is just a doll. His Mom said the 3 other children simply adore him and everyone sees him as an incredible gift to the family. It's so nice to see a blended family that loves the littlest so much.

 

[Kimberly Hill]

I have 3 children - 2 biological (19 and 17 year old boys) and 1 adopted from China (5 year old girl).

If there's anything specific I can answer for you I'd be happy to either here or via email.

 

[MouseFan71]

We also have 3 children, 2 biological daughters 4 and 6 and our son who is 3 from Guatemala. They are still very young so I cannot answer about how any of them may feel in the future but for now we are a big happy family. When DS first came to us at 5.5 months, it was tough for the first 18 months, he obviously had seperation and abandonment issues and needed to be reassured often. He also had some sensory and speech delays but with 2 years of speech and occupational therapy, he's doing great. We are very open with our children about the poverty situation in the world and we've explained to all of them why DS birthmother could not raise him herself. We try to teach our children not to see gender, race, religion, disabilities, etc - we're all different and we all just want to be loved and accepted. I think we would have done our family a great disservice if we had opted not to adopt, it really has been a blessing for us. Please don't think that means everyone should adopt, we are all here for different purposes, I think being a family for DS was one of ours. Good luck and I'm happy to answer questions you may have. just PM me.

 

[susykt4]

I have two friends with both biological and adopted kids. One adopted her first child because she was told she'd be unable to have biological children and then went on to have two They have an interesting situation where the oldest occasionally gets together with his biological siblings. However, he is TOTALLY a part of her family, is very much into his role of oldest brother, everyone gets along just like any biological family, etc. I'd say there's no difference between her kids relationships with each other and any average "all biological" family.

The other friend's situation was a bit different. She had one biological child who was 8 and fostered and adopted two brothers who were 7 and 6. It was a ROUGH adjustment for the bio son. It might have been easier if the adopted boys were younger or maybe if there had been only one rather than two boys who were already best friends. They are now 16, 15 and 14 and the oldest and youngest still fight like crazy (the oldest is short and smart and the youngest is tall and athletic-lots of jealousy.) She went on to have a biological daughter (now 5) and all three boys are crazy about her.

 

[ecamc]

We have two biological sons (21 and 17). Our daughter (10) is adopted from India. She came home to us when she was 6 months old and the boys were 10 and 7.
We felt complete as a family when she came home to us. We were always open to adoption, domestic or international. We are so grateful to the Lord for choosing to make her a part of our family. We make a big deal about her "coming home" day, including a special dinner out and a present.
We have never had any bonding or attachment issues with her. She definitely knows she belongs to us and she knows how she came to be in our family. Adoption is such a blessing.
I hope the best for you whatever you and your husband decide.

 

[DisneyTigers]

We have 3 biological children ages 8, 5, and 3. We adopted a little boy from Russia last summer who turned 2 yesterday! IMHO, adoption is a wonderful way to build your family...for us it has been a phenomenal experience and our children have learned so much through it. Our adopted son fits perfectly into our family, and already we couldn't imagine life without him around.

If you have any questions at all, I'd be happy to speak with you if you'd like to pm me with your email address.

 

[LoriMomx5]

We have 4 biological sons and an adopted daughter. She came home at 1 month old through domestic adoption. We had an infertilty problem and on our last effort with our specialist ended up with twins by invitro. We had another son 12 months later without any treatment! We also had a fourth son and revisited adoption for our duaghter as we had started the process before we had our twins. Our daughter was waiting for us! We had her in our home 10 days after requesting information from our agency on domestic minority adoption. Her adoption was meant to be because everything went smoothly and quickly. Best of luck with your decision. Lori

 

[Sandy22]

I have 3 children, two of whom are adopted. I don't foresee any resentment issues in the future. We're like any other family and the kids act just like any other sibling group.

 

[disneydreamin-gang]

We have 5 children. Three born under my heart and 2 born in my heart. The first 3 were 10, 13, and 17 when we adopted the little ones. They were 4 months and 3 when they came to live with us. We were foster parents and fell in love with these two. There is no resentment or any issues with any of them. The little ones are simply adored by everyone. Our adopted children have medical problems but are manageable with meds.
But if I had to do it over I would adopt international. Working with childrens services is a pain. As each of the children went back to birth parents several times before we were allowed to adopt them. It was heart wrenching to say the least.

We also have good friends who have adopted internationally. They have 8 birth and 3 adopted. The first 2 are from Hatti, and the baby is from Liberia. And again the adopted children are just a part of the family as the other children even though they are different colors of skin. If you could not see the color of their skin you would never know.

 

[ALittleDisneyFan]

Madeline is our first and only child - she was adopted from Guatemala. We were matched with her at 9 days old and unfortunately she did not come home until she was 16 months. Fortunately, we have no attachment issues to date.

International Adoption is extremely difficult - emotionally! Our lives just seemed to stop when our adoption started going bad. My recommendation is that you get onto the Adoption Agency Research Group on yahoo and make sure you are not signing with a horrible agency. We will never forget the emotional abuse we endured from our agency.

 

[Mom2JPL]

We have 3 children, oldest was adopted from China (she was our only planned child, lol!) and the younger 2 are bio (whoopsie, we didn't think we could have bio kids!). They are 4, 3 and almost 18 months. I have to say, our eldest was meant to be a big sister! Her younger brother and sister just adore her, and she adores them! She is our joy and made us a family; I truly believe without her we wouldn't have our other 2! The kids all know she is from China, and it really doesn't seem to be an issue right now. They all know they're special and a blessing to us.

 

[hoosiergirl7]

We had one shot at becoming parents through pregnancy but I miscarried at 13 weeks. We knew that we'd have to adopt if we wanted more children after the 1 pregnancy anyhow.

Well our DS was born 4 yrs ago and placed with us via adoption. We are currently waiting for a daughter from China and hope that we might even be able to adopt again in the future.

We know plenty of people who have both adopted and biological children and there never have been attachment issues, etc with any of them. They don't love their biological children more than their adopted ones. My Dh even has a biological brother and an adopted sister. I've never seen my SIL as anything other than my Dh's sister. And my Dh and his brother never once saw her as their adopted sister even though they knew she was. It was as though their parents had given birth to her just the same way they had to to them.

 

[Aliceacc]

My son arrived from Korea in January 1999. Six months later I was pregnant with my older daughter; 3 years after that with my younger. (This after trying to get pregnant for 9 years and one miscarriage prior to adopting.)

I believe in my heart that God wanted us to be Brian's parents; not just the parents of some child, but of this one in particular.

There is absolutely no difference in how I feel about any of my 3 kids. At any given moment I want to strangle one and kiss another, but the child of the moment changes all the time.

An example: Brian had a high fever as a reaction to his MMR vaccine. When it became time for Julia to get hers, I asked the pediatrician to wait until I was due to be on vacation. I told him that I assumed that these reactions ran in families, and therefore Julia was more at risk than the sibling of someone who hadn't had a problem.

He just stood there smiling, waiting for me to remember that Brian is adopted.

I wrote on another thread about how we celebrate Brian's Gotcha Day each January 12. He gets to choose the restaurant and we talk about how he became part of our family. It's a celebration not of him, but of family.

If you're considering international adoption, take a look at www.new-beginnings.org While NB may not be licensed in your state, you can get a good idea of the cost, timelines, and requirements for each of the programs they run. They may also be able to refer you to a reputable local agency. Unlike one of the posters above, I couldn't believe how incredibly easy it was to adopt Brian. Time consuming, yes. Expensive, yes. But every month or so we would get a new packet of paperwork, send it in, and get a new one a few weeks later.

Look into it today. You don't have to make any sort of committment or even let the agency know you're interested. But take a look. If you're as lucky as we are, it will be the single most wonderful decision of your married life.

I've got to tell you also: during the years I was a SAHM, I did volunteer work at JFK. I would greet infant Korean adoptees at the gate, take them from their escorts while the escorts cleared Customs, and bring the infants to meet their new families. (Korea is one of the few countries that doesn't require the family to travel.) I must admit, I seldom left the terminal dry eyed.

Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Best wishes!
Alice

 

[katerkat]

I don't have any advice because I'm on the same side as the OP - we have one bio child and we'd like to adopt some more (1 or 2) before Russ is five or so. Part of me wants to adopt siblings because then they would be biologically related to someone (like Russ is to us), but then I worry that the siblings wouldn't meld well with Russ. We hope that trying to do it before Russ is five will make the blending easier.

 

[Lucky'sMom]

We also have both biological, I like the term "homemade" children, and adopted children. We were a happy, content family with 3 children, ages 6, 8 and 10. Our church had been sponsoring an orphanage in Russia for about 4 years, and we had a 13 year old boy who was our "sponsor child". We exchanged letters, pictures, etc. for years and my heart just keep falling in love with this boy. When we found out he had an older brother, we began exchanging letters with him, too. Well...to make a long story short...I went on the church mission trip to their orphanage in Nov. '06...we filed the paperwork to adopt them in Dec. '06, and they arrived in America on Oct.6, 2007! So my 3 bio kids got 2 older brothers. Talk about jumping right in to the teenage years-they are now 14 and 15. It has been absolutely wonderful, and they (and we) have adjusted very well. We just knew it was God's will for our lives (and theirs) and believe that God has a plan for them here in America. I absolutely love them all, and would do anything for them. One of them is a little more "annoying" at times than the other, but aren't all our kids that way I am SO EXCITED to take them to Disney this June. I just can't wait to see their faces...I'm sure they've never even imagined a place so wonderful! I think if your heart is open to adoption and has been for a while, then it was probably meant to be. I felt the "adoption bug" for years and years before adopting. Best wishes to you and your family as you think about and may begin this miraculous journey!

 

[disneymomto5]

I have four biological sons and one Russian princess. There is no difference in how they feel about each other and I'm happy to talk with you about any aspect of the adoption off line if you like. Our adoption was long and not very smooth, but in the end we got the daughter God mean't us to have.

 

[camdensmom]

Just a quick post before I make dinner, but I was so touched by all of you who were willing to share your personal stories with me that I wanted to take a minute and say, "thanks!" I'm so glad to hear so many of you have had such wonderful experiences growing your families and am very grateful that you took the time to reply to my post!

 

[jazzmine]

I have an adopted sister and I was born biologically to my parents. If you have any specific questions from the child's POV - I can share my experience.

 

[DawnM]

We have 2 bio and 1 adopted. It took a little adjustment, but we are thrilled with all 3 of our children and love them deeply.

Dawn