How do you know?

As you’ve seen, I’ve been struggling with certain issues concerning my second child.  Gender, race, health, age, etc.  Two of these aren’t really tough issues.  While I want a daughter, I’d be just as happy with another son (possibly happier, as I suspect Oscar would prefer a brother), so gender isn’t really plaguing my mind. Race, again, isn’t so much an issue, in that I don’t care about the color of his/her skin or where s/he is from.  It might be easier as the kids grow up, though, if they had been born in areas of the world that are closer together (e.g., Vietnam and say, Thailand?).  Aside from that, I’m interested in all sorts of different cultures, so geography isn’t a problem.

What I’m struggling with are age and health (or really just medical condition).  More specifically, do I really need my next child to be an infant or toddler, and can I parent an HIV positive child?  Perhaps oddly, the second question seems easier for me to answer.  I think I can raise a child with HIV.  With the advances drug companies have made in meds, the prognosis for HIV+ children is fantastic.  It’s considered to be a manageable, chronic condition and not a deadly disease anymore.  I think I also have the temperament required to deal with the multiple visits to specialists per year and not over-reacting to every sneeze or cough.  Not to be dismissive of the severity of HIV at all, of course, but I do think it’s something that can be dealt with.

My current struggle revolves around birth order and the age of my second child.  I think I’m ok with the concept of altering birth order (i.e., adopting a second child who is older than Oscar).  I just don’t know whether I can deal with having a school-age child right now.  I’m pretty accustomed now to being the mom of a toddler.  I like it; I love the babbling, the funny walking, the tantrums where he stomps his feet, the silly dancing, his goofy way of focusing on everything and then breaking out in a great big smile.  All of it. I like that most of our life takes place in our house, with breaks for outings and playdates.  That all changes with an older child, right?

Say, if I were to adopt a six-year old, how would our lives change?  She would be old enough to start school, although she wouldn’t speak English yet.  I know that emotionally she would be younger than a six-year old who had spent her life with her family and had not been institutionalized, so that would be a consideration. I guess we’d have a tutor to help with language / school.  I suppose she would be involved in some sort of activities (ballet, soccer, what have you).  Is this where things get difficult as a single mom? The logistics alone of all this already have me concerned.

I wish there were a book that could walk me through this.  There are all of these great parenting books that tell you what to expect with a newborn.  There are others that tell you what an infant/toddler should be doing, so you can (and I did) extrapolate from them what you’ll be doing as a new mom to an eight-month old.  The great thing is that after you kind of master the age when you get them, you grow with them and can anticipate what is coming next.  What worries me is making this leap from a two-year old (realistically, Oscar will be a year older when the next adoption is finalized) to a six-year old. Have any of you done this?Am I crazy for considering this, or should this be left to the pros – the experienced parents out there who have already raised kindergardeners?

August 9, 2008 Posted by Oscar and Etta's mom | Adoption, Red Letters Campaign - Adoption Journal | Adoption, birth order, gender selection, HIV, older children, Parenting, race | 2 Comments