There's a conversation going on right now on the FRUA boards about how long people waited before adopting a second time. In other words, how are people spacing their children? And why are they making those decisions about spacing?

With Russian adoption you can only be so precise in terms of spacing your children. You can specify a range of ages (like - up to 15 months, between 3 and 4, youngest child possible, etc.) but the higher the range you specify, the more varied age of child you might get. Then there are things like delays due to reaccreditation, court, holidays, etc. etc. Add to that the possibility of turning down a referral and you can see that it's impossible to be specific in how your children are spaced.

My boys are 3 years, 2 months apart. This is about what we wanted when we adopted Little J, although when Big J was 2 we had started trying to have a second baby, figuring the closer together our children would be in ages, the better. Now, I'm not so sure. If we adopt again I think a wider spacing might be better, especially since I don't want Little J and his needs to get lost in the shuffle.

Being open to a wider spacing also will allow us to wait a while before adopting again. That seems self-evident, I guess, but I'm thinking that if we want our children to be, say, 5 years apart, and we're interested in a child under 3 years old, then we could really wait until Little J is 6 before starting the process a second time. That gives me time to thoroughly convince my husband (see my Reluctant Spouse posts on my Hoping to Adopt blog) and will give us time to save up some money. I will also have a couple more years to mull over the idea of having another child. Maybe in a year or two I'll come to feel my family is complete.

Well, probably not. But my point is that there's no rush. That's the beauty of adoption.

Next post: the pros and cons of spacing close vs. spacing further apart.