Thinking seriously about adoption to complete our family but so many questions

[NotSayingImBatman]

I have two young DSs, eldest has just turned 3 and youngest is 9mo but someone is definitely still missing in our family.

DH and I are keen to adopt and wondered if any kind MNers could answer a few questions.

We wouldn't be doing it for a few years, ideally when DS2 is about 4 but he will just be starting school (although he does go to nursery so is used to long days and being away from me). Is there an "ideal" time frame when considering these things? Would we be better to wait a year or do it earlier?

If either DS were to declare they didn't want another sibling, how seriously would the SW take this? Kids are contrary little buggers and don't often like the idea of change, even if they're okay when it happens. After all, we wouldn't let them veto us having another birth child.

How long does the whole process take?

I've suffered from PND after both DSs, would this count against me?

I'm sure I'll think of more questions, but those seem the most pressing.

[Kewcumber]

I would say 4 years is about as close to ideal as you'll get so that sounds fine. Also youngest BC settled into school already sounds good to me.

Eldest would be 6/7 by then I guess? They what they say will be taken into account but I doubt they could scupper an adoption solely by saying no. SW will be more interested in seeing how you handle their objections I suspect.

Whole process takes about as long as a piece of string! I would say 1-3 years from application to matching, but who knows what that will be like in 4 years time.

PND is also not a deal breaker - you may be more prone to PAD and the SW will want GP to comment on medical about how you coped. They will look at how you handled it then and talk to you about how you would handle PAD if it occurred - there is some indication that PAD is actually more common than PND so it certainly would need to be addressed.

And you will need a spare room but they may accept your two older children sharing and the adoptive child in their own room.

[Devora]

Absolutely and exactly what kew said. Also, the SW will talk to your children and assess their needs. But they understand that small children do say and do the strangest things.... [still recovering from what happened the day SW interviewed dd1 ]

[NotSayingImBatman]

We have four bedrooms so that's not an issue, plenty of space to go around!

I imagine my GP would be supportive, I've always sought help asap and never required any more involvement than an AD prescription.

Please tell me what your DD1 did Devora...

[Domino51]

When we enquired about six years ago we were told that we had to wait until our youngest was 4, and then we would not consider placing a child with us that was older than 2. They - at that time - liked a minimum of two years between the youngest child and the adopted child.

[drspouse]

We have also been told a minimum of 2 years, this is standard. Circumstances dictated that the gap between ours is not much more than this and personally I would have liked a bigger gap!

It's a huge shock for a young child even if they have been told, I think because there is no baby bump to make things real and you cannot tell them for certain till the new child is just about to move in (we couldn't really tell DS we were adopting again because he wouldn't really have understood, but even for older DCs who understand the concept, it's such a woolly length of time that they are probably not sure it's ever going to happen.)