Hi Emzz - I haven't experienced your specific situation either, but I have experienced bringing fostered children into our home alongside my adopted LO. I would second the view that a decent age gap is often easier on everybody. It was a bit more complex in our case as with my oldest LO being adopted, he had significant needs of his own. What we found was that he was happy if I fostered much younger children whose needs did not overlap much with his own needs, but became extremely unsettled if I fostered children who were slightly nearer to his own age - walking, talking, expressing opinions, sitting at the table with him, touching his toys, etc. etc. I always found it easier if the children in my home were not 'competing' for the same type of attention. It was fine if one needed to be bottle fed and one needed to play, but if both needed to play, it got more tricky. What Donatella said is also really important - a lot of children who have experienced trauma and adverse childhood experiences will need significant support throughout their childhoods. There may be lots of meetings, assessments, paperwork, diagnoses, etc. It can be very time consuming, and that can be hard on the other child too. It is lovely to think of two children close in age, growing up as best friends and playmates, but, unfortunately, it doesn't always work out that way. Much of it will boil down to the personalities, developmental progress and particular needs of both of the children.
Having said all of that, if you are only at the beginning of thinking about it, then you should factor in that you would be unlikely to reach the end of the approvals process in under a year, and then there is the elastic time frame of matching after that. It may be that if you started the process in about 6 months, by the time it was all finished, your birth child would be around 3, and you could consider a child under one. However, that's quite a restrictive age range and might make matching a longer and more difficult process.
