Adopting with birth children

[Itscurtainsforyou]

Hi there - I don't think I've posted this before, but have been thinking about it a lot, so apologies if I have.

I have a 4 year old BC and have had numerous pregnancy losses since he was born. I'm about to turn 40 and am thinking that it might be best to draw a line under trying to get pregnant (I'm not sure I can cope with the repeated stress/heartache of miscarriages etc) but I still feel that our family is not yet complete, so am looking at adoption.

I've been to an information day, which was fine, but my biggest concern is my BC. I don't want anything to negatively impact him but I think that he would really benefit from having a sibling (or more). I also hear people say that parenting AC is completely different to parenting BC and I'm struggling to get my head around that.

Can anyone share their experiences of parenting both BC and AC and help me understand?

TIA

[Italiangreyhound]

Itscurtainsforyou I am so sorry for your losses.

I am just in the middle of clearing after dinner so will pop back to say more but did not want to read and run.

We have a birth daughter and adopted son, fairly new still as adoption happened this year.

There are several threads about this so while you wait for people to reply more you may like to look at a few recent threads.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/adoptions/2163614-Thinking-of-adopting-but-having-concerns

Will be back soon!

[Itscurtainsforyou]

Thank you!

[Italiangreyhound]

I think the bottom line, Itscurtainsforyou, is that nothing is certain and with adoption things are even less certain. So no one will be able to guarantee you that nothing negative will impact your birth child. I would suggest you read all you can about the kind of children coming through the care system and think about what issues you could or could not handle.

My birth child has been both positively and negatively impacted by having a sibling, and having an adopted sibling means she was an only child for 9 years before ds arrived. So it is taking some degree of adjustment.

We ended up with a big age gap (which I heard is good between adopted and birth siblings). We also ended up with a boy, just because we thought he was right for us. And in terms of jealousy that possibly for us has made life easier, although dd is still pretty jealous.

I think it is worth thinking about whether there is any treatment that would work for you.

After failing to get pregnant with my own eggs I tried donor eggs. Two fresh and one frozen cycle. Those failed and we ended up with adoption as our only option. I had wanted to adopt since I was in my 20s so it was the best one for us and we are very happy. If your miscarriages are due to the eggs then donor egg may be an option for you if you feel it is OK to try and would have fewer 'issues' BUT adoption is a perfectly valid option too.

This thread is about adoption vs donor sperm but the idea is similar.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/adoptions/2164105-Adoption-or-IVF-with-donor-sperm

If you do decide to proceed and explore adoption the agency or county council you choose will want to know you are finished trying for another biological baby. I think that is one question to ask yourself, if you have. They may or may not ask you to use contraception when going through the process. We were not asked to do that. I am now very happy that we did not have another biological baby, although we lost one and there are many embryos who we lost as part of our treatment and I am sorry none of them came to live with us but that is how it went. To some great extent I do feel one has to overcome the sorrow of the losses and move forward with adoption when ready rather than hoping adoption will take away that sorrow, that is totally my personal opinion. There are babies out there for adoption but few come without some degree of baggage and so the loss of the baby/ies that looked like my hubby, my daughter or me would not necessarily have been 'solved' by new arrival and to expect him to make up for those losses would put too much pressure on a slightly troubled little boy. But in time I know he will more than make up for all my losses, he is so much my son already.

Good luck, feel free to ask me anything.

[sparkleswales]

Hello curtains. Mind if I join you? I'm in the same sort of position so thought I'd post. I have a gorgeous 5 year old (we made her with no problems at all and no help) and then, for reasons they can't explain, things have gone a bit pear shaped since. I've had three miscarriages and am in my late (very late, clinging on :-) thirties. We've started the adoption process because we feel battered and done with the fertility treatments we had and ground down by the miscarriages. I'm excited by it and sort of liberated by the idea of adoption (IVF, I'm not sure why, felt like this negative, life-consuming process) but my mind is whirring with worries too. Right at the heart of those worries is my little one. The worries you mention feel like they've come straight out of my head.

[Itscurtainsforyou]

Thank you both - I really appreciate your responses.
I really wish I had a crystal ball to predict how life is going to pan out

Can you tell me how parenting a AC is compared to a BC? This is a tricky thing for me to get my head around as I currently parent how I feel is best and am interested to know how I might have to adapt this if we went for adoption.

[64x32x24]

We were told over and over again that parenting an AC would be so different to parenting a BC.

Always, we were told this before we had said anything about how we parent our BC.

A lot was based on assumptions about how we parent which were way off mark. Eg we were told again and again that we wouldn't be able to use a 'naughty step' - which we have never yet used, and don't intend to, anyway.

So, depending on how you parent your BC, an AC's requirements may be for very different parenting; or, much of the same. Except for the AC it would be less about you 'choosing' this way of parenting, and more of a requirement; as nothing else may 'work'.

Again, every adopted child is different; general assumptions that are frequently true and lead to this need for certain ways of parenting are that the child will have

• very low self-esteem
  
• a confused sense of cause and effect/being able to influence things
  
• insecure attachment (at least initially but may endure)
  

On this basis, parenting strategies that work on behaviour management principles usually don't work. So e.g. sticker charts rewarding good behaviour, might have zero effect and on the contrary, just further cement a child's bad self-image. E.g. traditional sleep training might just compound a child's attachment issues. Also, strategies that work with isolation (naughty step, certain time-out variations) can be counterproductive. Etc.

So you may have no choice but to use parenting strategies that are based on strengthening attachments, on dealing with underlying emotions rather than with behaviour, and similar.

Depending on your specific AC, there may be further issues (e.g. sexual abuse) that call for certain parenting strategies or make certain strategies inappropriate (e.g. co-sleeping).

Hope this helps!

[FamiliesShareGerms]

I'm marking my place, as it were, to remind me to post something substantive when I get a moment

[Itscurtainsforyou]

Thank you 64 that's really helpful - and makes so much more sense that "typical" parenting may not be effective (& cause more problems).

[Italiangreyhound]

Itscurtainsforyou it is too early for me to say what is different really! DS has only been home about 4 months. To be honest for us dd is quite 'quicky' has dyslexia and is quite a handful at times. So to us ds seems relatively easily by comparison at the moment. All this can change greatly, I am sure.

I think there is a lot of uncertainty with parenting an adopted child. I am watching to see what others will say.

[WeLoveLego]

Hi OP,
It's so far so good for us. We have BC (aged 5), BC (aged 3) and AC (aged 1). AC has been with us nearly five months, so yes, still early days in the grand scheme but I can't say there's been any 'negative impact' on BCs as yet. I think that introducing any sibling, adopted or biological brings out questions of 'how might this negetively impact my exisiting child/ren'. We actually found ourselves asking whether we were 'doing the right thing' more often when pregnant with BC2, rather than when in the adoption process for child 3, as having multiple children was such a step into the unknown for us at that point in time.
By contrast, when our AC came along we were very chilled, as we felt like really experienced parents (of that age child); we'd coped with sibling jealousy before, we'd seen that BC1 and BC2 are polar opposites (despite being biological siblings), and so AC was just simply child 3 for us, no great expectations of our DC3 'rocking the boat' based on being adopted, just expectations of family dynamics possibly changing for a bit, because that's part of the course.
hmm...I don't think I'm helping with your quandry any here, so I'll move on to your request for experiences of the differences between parenting both BC and AC.
When AC reaches milestones for the first time, such as saying 'mummy' and walking I feel extra proud.
When AC gets a bruise or bash from tripping over, or a virus- a cold or stomach bug etc, maybe I worry just a little bit more than with BCs, simply because I'm still not sure how great ACs immune system is compared to my BCs, as I didn't 'make' DC3's immunity...if you catch my drift.
I find that when the BCs fight with each other or are affectionate to each other, friends and extended family don't tend to comment, but when BCs kiss and cuddle AC, and occasionally snatch DC3's toys, friends and family pass comment...(I think this is still because AC is fairly new, but time will tell on that).
...I'm wracking my brains to think of other differences...
One poster mentioned discipline techniques being different for AC. Yes, I agree that it will be detrimental to use 'time out' etc for AC, but then BC2 is much more sensitive than BC1 so we've found we use different discipline techniques accordingly anyway. BC2 would scream in despair given a 'time out' so we just wouldn't do that, whereas BC1 really does respond well to 'time out' techniques, needing time to calm down from a rage.

Our expereince (so far...I appreciate that we're not 'experienced adopters' yet and we've only got very young children) is that there are more similarities than differences between parenting AC and BC. Feelings of love, adoration, frustration, curiosity, irritation...day to day parenting feelings, all the same. The need for routine (or some semblence of a routine at least), feeding, toileting, encourgaing and stimulating opportuinities for play, setting rules, maintaining a safe environment- all the same.
I really do apprecaite and listen to, on these boards, what adoptive parents with older children have to say on the 'differences' issue, as I'm sure further down the line differences in our family dynamic might be more pronounced, they're just really not here in any anxiety causing way at the moment.
Going back to the 'negative impact' on BC point again, what about the huge positives? The adoption process has encouraged us to be very open and honest with our BC about emotions, and we've learnt a lot about the way we parent, we've read up on child development issues (such as attachment) that I'd never heard of (that's definatley helped us understand BC1 a bit more). The adoption process has given us this amazing insight into the warmth, resilience, and thoughtfulness of our BC; they welcomed and accepted their adopted sibling with bundles of enthusiasm, excitement and a bit of apprehension. It was an amazing experience and I can't wait to talk about it with all the children when they're older.

I appreciate that our family dynamics will be ever changing, but just to share with you our current state of play: BC1 and BC2 are best friends (who squabble); BC1 and AC have a fun, loud and affectionate relationship involving endless games of chase (BC1 dotes on AC); BC2 and AC (just 21 months apart in age) were slightly jealous of each other for about ten days during initial placement; now they are very calm and contented play companions and share a love of dress up.

Best of luck with any decisions about potential adopted or biological children that you might make in the future.