In a perfect world, how many children would you like to have? This question can factor into the type of adoption you want to pursue. The adoption process takes a long time, no matter which route you pursue, but some avenues take longer than others do.

If you are already in your forties and want to adopt four children who are close together in age, you might want to consider adopting a sibling group out of foster care or adopting several children at the same time internationally rather than waiting to be matched with four successive expecting mothers. By the time you complete the process to adopt the fourth baby, you might decide that you are too old to start over with a newborn.

Some couples who adopt internationally choose to adopt more than one child at a time. If you know that you want a boy and girl about a year apart in age, it can be less expensive to adopt two children during the same trip. If you wait to adopt one child and then go back for a second, it might be harder to work out the age-spread for which you were hoping. Also, if you adopt one at a time, you will have to work out childcare for your first when you go back to adopt your second.

I always wanted two children who would be spaced two to three years apart. I signed up with an agency when my son turned one year old, but we were not invited to do our home study until my son was already three. By the time we completed the home study and were waiting to be matched with an expecting mother, my son was approaching his fourth birthday, and I was not getting any younger. By the time we would have adopted another baby, my son would have been four or five years old. We ultimately decided to stop at one child because, by this point, the age spread was going to be so far apart, and I was finally living a life without toting around a diaper bag.

I never would have chosen to raise an only child, but that is what I am doing today. I have made peace with my decision, but this did come after grieving the loss of the family that I had originally envisioned. Because the adoption process is so lengthy, you will want to factor in the method that will bring you the number of children in the time frame for which you are hoping. Otherwise, you might find yourself losing options as you and your first child grow older.

Related Topics:

• Hoping to Adopt a Sibling: Changing Your Mind



• Hoping to Adopting a Sibling: Birth Order



• Artificial twinning - pros and cons

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