Archived Post 2011 - Could it be that easy?

I heard about a little girl yesterday, a little girl who needs a family, I am thinking we could be her family (I know your all shocked to read that), the thing is I do not know if I am up to the challenge.
We want more kids, we want to adopt again but we are struggling against a system that is not really ready to place kids in families that have younger children through adoption. It is crazy though because in one breath everyone says they need experienced parents for these kids and yet the best way to find experienced parents is to find people who have successfully parented kids like that in the past - which usually means they have kids in the home.

This little girl though, she will need a lot of love and patience and support because oh my goodness she has a had a rough start. All kids need all of those things but when you are parenting kids from trauma there needs to be more of it and I am not sure that I will have enough of all those things for her.

You see adding children to our family would be a challenge for all of us, we would all need to shift and change and grow but I would end up doing most of it. That is not a bad thing, it not something I want change, it just is our reality, that is how our family works. P has job and I am home,  it's the choice we made.

This little girl, she needs a really great family, she needs a family who gets her, who will love her unconditionally in spite of her many challenging behaviours. She needs people who are going to be there for the long haul and there is a huge part of me that thinks we could be that family, but there is also a part of me that thinks it might be to much. That being said, if I knew before we adopted the boys, what I know now about they needed I would of thought it was more than we could handle as well.

Does my expereince parenting children who have survived significant trauma make me more apprehensive about adopting again? Yes. Does that make me a better a parent? I think so.
The other piece of this puzzle is that this little girl  and I share a common history and on deeply emotional level I get it, I get it in a way that other people will not ever get it. Does that make me the right person to be her mother though - I wish I knew that.

You know like that big read easy button from that stationery store, could I just push that and be done with it.

Yeah I know there is no easy button, just wishing there was.

Since I don't have one I am packing a cooler and heading to the lake for a day of fun with some friends cause there are 0nly 12 more days till school is back