In deciding whether to take your children with you, consider the safety of the place to which you are traveling and the availability of aid in any emergency that may occur. Friends of mine initially planned to take their daughters on their trip to pick up their son. This was a region that required one parent to make an initial visit several weeks before both parents traveled for the actual adoption. When the father made the initial visit he was startled at the absolute lack of adequate medical facilities in the remote region and decided he was not at all … Continue reading →

I believe some types of adoption that would have been fine for us if we’d been adopting our first child are not fine for us now that we have other children. My last blogs have talked about birth order and spacing and safety issues. Here I will speak about emotional issues. Adoption can be a roller coaster of emotions, for your children as well as for you. The issues I will address here are: permanence issues and fears, and medical issues. I personally would not accept a legal-risk foster-adopt placement now that I have children. In a domestic infant adoption … Continue reading →

When you already have children, your adoption decisions will have to take them into account as well. In my last blog I mentioned the effect that spacing of children and adopting out of birth order can have on your family. This blog continues the discussion of things to think about when planning for second or subsequent children. When you consider age and special needs of the child you can adopt, and when you consider the referral of a specific child, you must consider your responsibility to the children you already have. First, you must consider safety. A child who has … Continue reading →