I'm an adoptive parent, AMA

[Biggreentennisball]

ive got 2 children, adopted as toddlers, and now entering the dreaded teenage years. AMA

Maybe they don’t want you to be asked anything

Were your children adopted at the same time? Are they biological siblings?

You hear a lot of stories of adopted children having emotional issues. Did yours? What sort of support did they need?

Did you find it easy to bond with them initially?

Were you allowed to change their names?

risks fair point. But if I can help anybody going through the process, or even help raise awareness of the struggles adoptive families face, I'm more than happy to share my story

lapsing yes, full siblings, and both arrived together

How long was the adoptive process, can you shed any light? I imagine it's intrusive and frustrating. Were children selected and suggested to you? Did you rule out disabilities and or challenging behaviours? If you do choose the latter what kind of support is available? Just a few questions but have many more !

Elliss in all honesty? It wasn't the instant 'rush' you hear birth parents talk about. It was more of a fierce sense of protection initially, and the bonding slowly grew. It didn't take long though, I'll never forget the amazing feelings of pride when the youngest took their first steps, or said their first words (only 10 months old at placement, so we had lots of 'firsts'

dance yes, they have some emotional problems. The oldest has some learning and social issues, and the youngest can be quite aggressive on occasion. We've had limited support from SS, but school are amazing. They have worked really hard to understand and support the kids, and the oldest (yr 8) is finally, for the first time ever, starting to make good progress

dance yes we were allowed to change names. We chose to tweak them a littlle, but now change them entirely

moomin we were very lucky, the process was only around 18 months from initial enquiry to placement. It was very intrusive, they really do turn your life inside out and upside down, but our SW was lovely, and made it as painless as possible. Part of the procession is to fill in a 'checklist' saying what type of disabilities etc you would consider. Sounds awful, but it helps the social workers build up your profile, and match you to the right children. Yes, the kids were kind of selected for us. Our SW and their SW decided our profiles matched, and then sent us the details. We agreed & that kicked off the matching process. The kids came home 5 months later 😀

You sound lovely, they're very lucky to have you

Were they adopted domestically or internationally.
If internationally, do you make an effort to keep them in touch with their birth culture?

What have been the most difficult parts of the process?

Aw thank you, that's really kind. Can you please repeat that to my eldest, who's just had the mega of all strops, because we said it was time to turn the Xbox off. Apparently I'm the worst mum in the world, and all their mates are allowed Xbox time until at least midnight. Yeah, ok kiddo 🙄

Do your DC have attachment disorder? It seems so prevalent in adopted children and is so tricky to help them through.

cherry it was domestic, same culture

namechange the actually process itself was quite easy. I think the only difficult part was the waiting between matching and placement, it was quite frustrating. By far, the hardest thing overall is getting their needs met at school. It's taken ages for school to finally listen to us and realise that we're dealing with more than just a 'naughty' kid. Fingers crossed, we are making progress now!

fabulously yes they do. The oldest is much more affected, and I agree, it is very tricky to deal with. More so because it's not so common outside the adoption world, and isn't very well understood.

Do they know they are adopted?If not, do you plan to tell them and how and when?

If so how and when did you tell them?
Do they have any contact with their birth family? Or any interest in them/finding them?
How will you feel if they do try to track them down?
It might sound very self-centred but 'competing' with the birth family is one reason I'm iffy about adopting, and the dreaded "you can't tell me what to do you're not my 'real' mum".

Would you mind me asking if you have biological children, and what were the reasons you chose to adopt? Was is always something you wanted to do? I've wanted to foster for as long as I knew it was a thing.

rafkils yes they have always known. We never actually sat them down and told them, it's just something we've always been very open about, and they know they can ask us anything at any time. they have their life story books, which tells them all about their birth family, but they show very little interest in them at the moment. in all honesty, I don't know how I'll feel if that ever changes. We'll always be their mum & dad, whatever happens.

We don't have biological children. We had many (many!!) years of fertility treatment and losses before we decided to adopt. Hubby called it plan b, I prefer to think of it as fate 🙂. We never considered fostering, we just wanted to be a family, and needed to know it would be permanent. For our sins though, we are thinking about fostering in a few years when the kids are a bit older.

Thanks for sharing your experiences OP, it's incredibly interesting and insightful. As someone who's reached the end of the road with fertility treatment (with my own body) we're facing surrogacy, adoption, or coming to terms with life without children, may I ask how you found the transition from trying for a birth child & deciding to stop treatment / TTC and embarking on the adoption process?

Thank you for taking the time to reply OP. I do think that knowing all along is better in some ways, especially for the child (no shocking revelations, or noticing differences and wondering) but harder for the parents. But it is probably something which is also situation/individuals involved dependant too.

I sort of feel like with fostering you aren't competing for the role of Mum but just as an adult caregiver but realise the "you aren't my mum" thing can still apply but as a foster carer you aren't their parent so wouldn't hurt (as much) as if I was their Mum but just not genetically, IYSWIM... If that makes any sense. Before I had that realisation I did want to adopt, now not so sure.

How important do you think it is for children to be matched with adoptive families of the same ethnicity/ culture/ religion of the birth family?

Do you think the thresholds for taking children into care and having them adopted are correct? Or should we be intervening sooner?

What emotions do you feel towards your childrens' birth parents?

banana I'm sorry to hear of you situation, it really is incredibly hard. Somebody once said to me that if not becoming parents wasn't an option, then we would find a way. And so will you, you will get there. We decided to stop treatment when we discovered that I had a condition which meant I would struggle to carry to term. Our close friends had fostered for years, and that swayed us towards adoption. The transition just seemed to happen, it was obviously meant to be 😀

rafkils thank you, that's exactly what we wanted to do. Make it just part of our family and no big deal. We didn't want to sit them down when they were older and give them a big shock. I get what you're saying about fostering. It gives you a degree of separation, and less open to the hurtful comments from angry teens! But for our sins, we never actually considered fostering, we just wanted to be mum & dad. I hope I never have to compete with birth mum for my childrens affections. I've not yet had the 'You're not my real mum' thrown at me, but I expect it will hurt like hell if/when it happens.

hopelessley great questions 🙂. The first ones a tough one to answer. I don't personally think it's that important, but I'm sure many would probably disagree. There are so many other things to consider when getting a good match, I really don't thing ethnicity, culture and religion should be top of the list. that probs doesn't make much sense, but I know what I'm trying to say 😀

I sometimes think we could act sooner to protect vulnerable kids. Our oldest was only young when they were removed from birth family, but the damage had already been done. If SS had intervened sooner, I'm sure we wouldn't be dealing with half the emotional angst they have now.

I've got a mixture of emotions towards birth family. Pity they couldn't cope enough to keep their kids, anger they caused so much damage, gratitude they gave me the chance to become a mum, guilt I'm getting so much pleasure and happiness because of their misfortunes. And probably every emotion in between, depending on the mood of the day 😀