birth order

I've been thinking a lot about birth order lately.
Lily and Oli are only 14.5 months apart, so the chances of us adopting a child (or children) between our two biological kids is slim to nil. Unless we "twinned" a kid, which I don't think we would. More on that later.
Some say interrupting the birth order of your biological children when adopting additional children is a no-no.

Your first born should be your first born, they say.
But that hardly solves the problem of the youngest.
What about the second/last born?
Their birth order is thrown out the window when you adopt children younger than your existing children, and that's supposed to be the solution to the "birth order predicament"?
Did I miss something or is that the exact same scenario, just with a different biological child?

When the time comes for us to adopt, we know a couple of things for certain.
We don't want to adopt a newborn baby.
We don't want or need to parent a child from birth for them to be part of our family and very much ours.
We are open and almost excited about the idea of adopting siblings.
The ideal age range would be between 18 months and 5 years.

But we aren't sure of birth order. If we adopted siblings, would we wait until both of those children were younger than our youngest? That could take a very long time since Oli is only 3 months old. Not that we want to adopt tomorrow, but we also don't want to wait 6 years.
Would we adopt siblings who were both older than Lily and Oli? That might make things harder to integrate.
Would we adopt siblings, one who is older than Lily, and the other younger than Oli?

What do you think?
Would you adopt a child or children older than your bio kids?
Or younger? Or do you even care? Or would you "twin" a kid (adopt one the same age as one of your bio kids)?

required reading...

I seriously feel that anyone who has the deep desire to be a parent should read this book.

I'm only a couple of chapters in and it is blessing my soul greatly. 

adoption in Quebec

We've decided to start the LONG research phase of our dream to one day adopt. Knowing how long the process will be once we officially begin, the goal is to start by the end of 2012. But right now we're mainly researching our hearts out and praying a lot. What does God have for us? What is his will for our family? Will we adopt? One or two kids? What age(s)? Local or International? Regular or Bank Mixte?

This is what we know so far:

In QC, the two local forms are regular and bank mixte. 

Regular is the adoption of a newborn or infant who is born in Quebec. Because abortion is so high here (the highest rate in North America, sadly), there are very few babies available through regular adoption (read: right from the hospital, Juno style). The wait to adopt a healthy Caucasian newborn is 4-8 years. Now, we don't desire to adopt a newborn or have any preference to race, but it's still a long time.

Bank Mixte is the adoption of a child who has been apprehended from an abusive family. This is less appealing to many because the child has "baggage" in the majority of cases. Children in Bank Mixte may have been physically or sexually abused or have health problems.  The wait time is considerably less (a week weeks- 24 months), especially if you're open minded about age, race, and health. The child starts off as your foster child until they are eligible for adoptability (if their birth parents have proven unfit for a period of 6 months or more), and once that occurs in 6 months or less the adoption can be finalized. 96% of Bank Mixte adoptions have come to this point, and only 4% of children don't end up with their adoptive parents, but the risk is still there - you can have a child who is, for all intents and purposes, yours, and they may not remain so.

Both forms of local adoption begin at the local Centre Youth, where you register for one of the adoptive programs (Regular or Mixte). I'm still not sure if you can register for both.

There are also two forms of international adoption - from other countries (there are 12 countries a Quebecer can adopt from), and from other provinces (like Ontario), but I'm not sure we'd go that route.

So now we pray. And pray and pray and pray.

Resources:

http://www.adoptiveparents.ca/pq_main.shtml

http://www.adoption.gouv.qc.ca/site/home.phtml

http://www.educaloi.qc.ca/en/loi/parents/154/

adoption pains

my heart breaks for the author of this blog I just discovered.
she and her husband adopted a baby from birth (the birth mother was incarcerated), loved her for a week as their own, and then the birth father came out of the wood work nullifying the adoption. 
she was theirs and then she wasn't.

it reminds me of the uncertainties involved in adoption. it's really a step of faith, like all parenting, but even more so, in many ways.

join me in praying for the baby girl to one day be reunited with her adoptive parents or for a safe future with her seemingly negligent birth father.

pure. utter. heartbreak.

post-birth update

Just as my pregnancy, labour, and delivery of Oli was quite different than with Lily, I'm finding the same goes for after the fact. Here's some deets!

Pain following birth was substantially less this time around. Could also be by comparison to the pain during birth (that's right, my epidural didn't take and I.felt.everything. but more on that later...)

Pain peeing, passing gass, and going number 2 (you know you were wondering!) was substantially less this time too, if at all.

Post-birth contractions (brought on by nursing) were far worse this time around. And are lasting far longer (as in still goin' strong. ouch.)

Engorgement with breast milk was severe this time. Much more painful, inhibited ability to latch and nurse for days (thankful for a hospital grade pump allowing me to still offer breast milk), and lasted longer

Breast milk production so far has been higher (praise God!), especially now that I'm nursing and/or pumping every 3 hours and engorgement has subsided.

Fatigue is still a huge challenge but also easier this time. Probably because of perspective. Lily needs me and daily naps aren't promised to me, so you adapt.

Emotions are more stable too. Everything was slightly less emotional (in a good way) from labour to birth to adapting to the first week at home. We knew what to expect, we were more prepared, we'd been there before. All huge assets in parenting and in change.

Baby bump is vanishing, far quicker than last time. Not the newly added stretch marks that didn't make an appearance with Lily. I think they're here to stay. Joy. 

But my baby bump is nearly gone. Maybe since the uterine contractions are so much stronger? I've heard those contractions are why breastfeeding mothers find their bumps disappear a bit faster.

There you have it! All in all, I'm doing well. Many have asked and I appreciate that so much. We're all working together to make this transition possible but it's definitely hard. I blogged about that over at {our nest in the city} today, check it out if you like.

I'll keep this blog partly because of our desire to adopt (and thus, chart that journey just as we've done so our pregnancies), and partly because though we're 99% sure we're done having biological kids, you never know what God has in store. Thank for following along with me the second time around!

xoxo

Lily & Oli's Mama