Adopting a 4-5 year old girl?

~Tonia~ · 11-10-2003, 01:09 PM

Hi everyone. My DH & I are considering adoption. We still want a baby of our own, but would also like to adopt a 4 - 5 year old girl. How easy is it to adopt a child this age? I'm so new at this - what should our 1st step be? We don't want to take the foster parent route. Any information is appreciated.

Lisa2008 · 11-10-2003, 08:41 PM

contact your local child and family services, they should be able to point you in the right direction. good luck, let us know how it goes.

try some general web searches, for adoption.

~Lisa~ · 11-11-2003, 03:55 AM

This is a tough question, but I'm sure it would be easier than adopting a infant as their is many waiting children out there. I'm trying to help.

Check this out. Maybe you could contact some of these people listed and that would give you a start!

http://www.childwelfare.com/Director...0Directory.htm

MaryS · 11-11-2003, 10:13 AM

Check with your local social service agency.
I will tell you that you may be asked to be more open on the age that you are willing to adopt. My DH and I originally said a child between age 0-5 and we were told that our wait could be up to a couple of years because everyone wants a young child, we decided to open our hearts to older children and are now in the process of adopting 3 brothers, age 4, 9 and 11- we just got our homestudy completed in august and we got matched about 6 weeks later so it has been really quick. If you are willing to take sibling groups your wait may also be shorter.
Best wishes to you and your DH as you start your journey thru adoption.

Mary

Lisa2008 · 11-12-2003, 08:33 PM

while you are waiting, its not a bad idea to start reading. i love reading so i did all i could. one really good one is "Adopting the hurt child" " Adopting the hurt child " is also a good one. Reading really helped me feel like i was doing something towards the adoption, the social worker also liked it when the home study was done.

rachelmichellek · 11-15-2003, 05:56 PM

After checking all the resources in the sticky post at the beginning of this forum, start researching books on adoption and calling around. You may need to specify up front to all your agencies that you don't want to do foster-adopt, just adopt, and make sure that their program is right for you. (But probably you will have to do the foster parent classes anyways because the child would legally be a foster kid of yours until the adoption finalizes, anyway- even if it's an adoptive placement, not a fostering placement.) I'm looking for the same type of arrangement you are, straight to pre-adoption placement status, and I have to get the foster parent certification and all that.

I didn't get to see where you are from but I am with an agency near me called Every Child Inc and they're super. Oh- you're in WV... but I'm not sure where your city is. I am in Pittsburgh!