Birth order.

There has been quite a bit of discussion about the age of the child we will eventually adopt. A domestic agency or private adoptions means, broadly speaking, that we would be adopting an infant. An international adoption, broadly speaking, means we would be adopting an older baby - say under 18 months of age (most of the stories I read seem to indicate that you are united with your child before they reach one year old, but that can vary). Project Wait No Longer is specific to older children who are free and clear to adopt and waiting in foster care. These are (generally speaking) kids who are between 6 and 17 years old and either have no living parents or whose parental rights have already been terminated by the government.

There are, of course, exceptions to these generic age groupings. Occasionally you will finding children younger than 6 in the Wait No Longer group as part of a sibling group. Similarly with International adoptions, some countries, like Ethiopia, have more sibling groups to place, so you will find stories of people who adopted, say an 18 month old and a three year old pair of siblings, or a 6 year old and a 10 year old. Something along those lines.

Adoption is such an emotionally charged issue, but one thing we heard early on, at Catholic Charities, that really stuck with me was this: Well adjusted, happy people don't relinquish their children for adoption. I mean, I think everyone recognizes that on some level before starting this process, but hearing it out loud and digesting it for a moment was a revelation to me. These children aren't coming from a happy circumstance, and there are ramifications to that. You can certainly minimize those things - adopting an infant is, arguably, "easier" by some measurement rubric than adopting a 5 year old who has been exposed to varying degrees of traumatic circumstances.

One of the great things about going through an agency is all of the support you receive along the way. They have (occasionally mandatory) training classes, parenting classes, counseling sessions, meetings with other parents in a similar stage or situation, and myriad other resources that you didn't know you needed until, well, you need them. The other thing we have learned is that, in the case where a family is adopting multiple times, or already has children in the home, the agency prefers to place children in birth order. Essentially, this means that if you have a 5 year old, you aren't, typically speaking, going to bring in a 7 year old after that. Your next adoption would be a child who was under 5 years of age. And most agencies like to see a minimum age gap between children, say a year or 18 months. There are always exceptions, naturally. Each family and each adoption circumstance is different so there are no hard and fast rules in terms of welcoming a child into your home. There are hard and fast legal rules, make no mistake! But the rest of it seems to be firm guidelines that are reviewed for the minute details of your particular case.

There is a lot of emphasis placed on providing the best match between families. You aren't doing anyone any favors by adopting the one who "needs" it most, rather than the one that will fit in best with your family. There are hundreds, if not thousands of stories out there of parents who had to rescind the adoption ("give back" the child) because of severe issues. The most famous, recently, being the woman who sent her son back to Russia with a note pinned to his chest. I don't want to pass judgment on this woman or this story. My personal opinion is that it was an extreme reaction - to say the least - but I don't know what other factors prompted this action. At the very least it should serve as a warning to use reputable, Hague accredited adoption agencies and countries (Russia is not Hague signatory as far as I know) and to practice due diligence. Do the appropriate research, find out as much as possible about potential medical complications, and above all else, be honest with yourself about what your limits are.

There are inherent risks to adopting. You have no idea if your child is going to grow up to be the next president or is going to succumb to drug addictions. That isn't even really the issue though. The issue is that we have the illusion that if we birth a child ourselves, we have ultimate say in how they will turn out, when, in fact, nothing can be further from the truth. Without getting too deep into the nature vs. nurture argument, I think that it's a bit of both. Is it 50/50? 70/30? Who knows? There is risk in parenting in general, and adoption is not necessarily more or less risky than biological offspring. But if you avail yourself of the resources available to you as an adoptive parent, you will have a much easier time of it in the long run.

I want to stress that while not everything is unicorns and rainbows, the majority of stories I have heard have been nothing but joyous on both ends. I know adopters and adoptees and have spent way more time than is probably healthy on adoption forums and websites reading stories of adoption. Sometimes it's heartbreaking, sometimes it's difficult, sometimes it's fun and joy, but I think, in almost all cases, it's extremely rewarding. The adoptions gone bad are the ones that make the most scandalous headlines and the most salacious gossip, so everyone knows a friend of a friend who had to "give back" their child. I'm sure it happens. But we feel like, whichever path we choose, we will be as best prepared for the outcome as is possible, through a combination of honest discussions about what we feel we can handle, discussions with our agency and social worker about the best match for our circumstances and just plain, old fashioned research.