Question about Fostering/adopting
I am not sure this is the right place for this question but I think people who are step parents and/or adoptive parents are the ones I want to pose this question to...
DH and I have been dealing with infertility since we got married. we each have one child from a previous marriage. we very badly want to have a child together to raise together. recently we've been considering fostering or adopting. Ideally we'd like a baby but obviously fostering, you'd usually get an older child. anyway my question is this -- if i had a hard time at first with his difficult child (my stepson) and feel that I wont ever love him like my own, do you think I would also feel that way with adopting? I guess I am trying to see if the two things are related and maybe Im just not cut out for it. Theres differences obviously: it would be a child who comes to us together, not with a history with just one of us, there will be no Ex drama associated with it (believe me, his ex has brought SO MUCH!!!) and we will each have equal say in the child and the raising of it.
i dont want to jump into something thatll be awful and I dont want to be stupid. I guess im just trying to look at it from all angles and really question myself ... like if i cant handle my stepson (I can handle him now but i only have him in small doses till summer), how can i adopt?
any thoughts are welcome, thanks!
If you adopt, the child will
If you adopt, the child will be yours. You and your husband will be the only parents. None of the issue that arises in step families will come into play. No juggling holidays, vacation concerns, undermining...
I've also thought about adopting due to secondary fertility issues.
our motivation is that we
our motivation is that we want a child to love and make a difference to their lives. we want to share that totally together. its not glue anything like that. we just love each other very much and want to bring a child up together. I also dont see it as a sign, and honestly i think its a terrible idea to think that nobody should adopt if they are doing it because of infertility. i have a good loving home and two people extremely wanting and willing to be parents to a child together in addition to the two we already have. its also very ignorant to generalize that because we have both had children, we can have children...medically speaking we are infertile at this point. and yes i've been to specialists for a while now. We havent been able to conceive for the past almost 2 years, and there comes a point where you have to stop trying because its just so hard emotionally.
the fostering stuff does worry me a bit and I am not sure we would actually do it but we are looking at all our options.
thanks for the input everyone!