Starting adoption process next year... advice wanted

[Mamabird13]

Hi all,
I'm sorry if this is a long message!
My husband and I are starting the adoption process next year, reasons we arent starting now are: we have a birth daughter who is 27 months and we'd like her to be a little older so she understand a bit better and we are in the middle if having an extension built so house is like a building site and I'd like it all to be finished before we start the process.
My husband and I have always said we'd both love to adopt, we know it isn't easy and can be very hard but we are both dedicated to this. I had a horrific pregnancy after 2 miscarriages my pregnancy was filled with anxiety, stress and constant worry. I made myself so ill I ended up in hospital numerous times and put myself in to early labour! Pregnancy was not enjoyable for me at all, we both would love another child and know adoption is right for us. I just hope the social workers agree, do you think our reasons for wanting to adopt are good enough?
I'm so worried that we won't get accepted for our reasons.
We are doing as much research and finding out as much as we can, I have a couple of books on the way and we've been watching a bloggers videos on YouTube. We are signed up to an online information evening with one of our LA (I know it might be a bit premature but we really just want to be as prepared as we can be)
Am I right to look into local LA as well as agency?
Has anyone been rejected for silly reasons?
I know the child will have to be younger than our birth daughter and that is totally fine by us, has anyone adopted with a birth child who will be 3-4?
Sorry for all of the questions or if I'm not making much sense!
Feel free to give me advice, or tell me about your experience :)

It sounds like you're being really proactive which is good, especially at this stage! And your reasons for adopting are imo totally legit, we adopted because I didn't want to be pregnant and it was never questioned although we were still expected to discuss potential grief and I'm glad we did.

I think also it's important to spend time with yourself at this point, if there's anything you want to work on emotionally then now is the time!

I don't have experience of adopting with a birth child so can't help you there, sorry.

Also I don't think it's really common to be rejected for silly reasons but you do have to be willing to work with social workers. But our social worker is amazing so maybe we got lucky!

We are most likely starting the process next year and attended an open event last month, many other people online were also not planning on starting till 2021. The agency didn't bat an eyelid at this. We are moving right now so need to be sure that we have a house and have done any renovation work before applying.

No birth children so I can't help you there but my reasons are similar to yours, I don't feel the need to be pregnant or give birth to make a child 'mine'. It's just not a desire that I have. The reality is that our reasons are far more complex than one thing, particularly as we aren't coming to it after any infertility, but that is one element of it.

No real advice as we're at a similar stage but without DC already. We felt very reassured by the SW meeting that we were not being unreasonable to put it off until next year to finish some house renovations and get through all the postponed holidays and events from this year so we can commit to the process in 2021.

Saying that at the weekend DH pointed out that our child is already born and out there somewhere which broke my heart a little so I guess we'll see how quickly we can get the bathroom in!