Adoption

formerlyGDaisy09 · February 2015

noffgurl said:

noffgurl said:

I know you say to take a few years, and I know you mean that well financially. It's just hard for me and him to think of waiting that much longer. It's been years. I want my kids to be able to have their cousins around the same age (I didn't, they were in their twenties when I was growing up), I want so much to be a mom and there is always some reason why we can't. I don't want to be thirty (my mom was 36 my dad was 40 and everyone thought they were my grandparents) when we finally have kids. Other people have oops all the time and make it all work out and it's just not fair. I know I am whining now, I'm sorry, it's just so frustrating to have something so close and yet so far.

I totally get that there is never a right time to have children, however there are not so good times, and potentially really bad times. H and I are still trying to dig out from our student loans, however our budget at least puts us square in the positive every month and we don't have any credit card debt. There is still a part of me that questions if we are financially ready to start a family.

My SIL's financial picture reminds me a lot of your story. She and her H have both been in and out of work, made some ba choices when they were young (which included several "oops babies"). I watch my SIL struggle on a daily/weekly/monthly baisis to handle motherhood that she was thrown into without any planning. 10 years later she still struggles for footing, we get desparate calls when her kids have a snow day or one of them is sick, because her missing a day of work means that they will be short when they have to pay their bills.

Just a year or two extra for she and her H to figure out how to survive as the two of them, and to get on top of their finances probably would have better prepared them and their financial life wouldn't teeter in the balance everytime there was snow in the forecast. But you can't go back once you make that committment. Now they struggle to find housing they can afford for their family of 5, they generally end-up moving once or twice a year. Knowing what she could have done differently, I can't help but ask you to seriously consider if this is something you and your H can handle.

Plug some child care numbers into your budget, look at what special formulas cost, what would it look like if you lost some of your income because you may have to stay home a few days a month? what about clothes for a child? what if your child needs special medical care? I think you said there are lots of animals in your home, what if the child is allergic? what if the child has food allergies? what if you adopt this child and then get pregnant?
Your question on the animal allergies bugs me, food allergies too, how does this have any relevance to being ready or planning for adoption? I certainly cannot be the only person to have pets before babies. Obviously the needs of the child come first and we will make whatever accommodations necessary.

I was thinking about it from an expense point. hepa filters, allergy testing, etc. My brother is allergic to cats and dogs, my parents didn't get rid of our pets, but they did have to strip all the carpets out of the house, spend money on allergy-friendly bedding, air filters, inhalers, and they had to air condition the house because he was also allergic to mold, so they had to do what they could to keep it from growing. It was an expensive endevor to make it so my brother wouldn't have allergy/asthma attacks all the time. Like @Xstatic3333 said, formula for children with allergies can be expensive.

noffgurl · February 2015

Ok, thank you for clarifying, my mind went in a different direction. Thank you all for the info, most I knew to take into account.

Adoption

Re: Adoption

Choose Another Board

Search Boards