IVF or Adoption

[Karbea]

Hello,

This is my first post on this Topic so please be kind.

DH and I have been trying for a baby for 12 months, we are older (38). WE have our first appointment at a fertility clinic next week, which will be for initially general checks (blocked tubes etc). I'm really unsure about the IVF route, and i've always thought adoption would be a lovely thing to do, to give a baby/young child a lovely life that they might not otherwise have.
I've been reading a little about the process and peoples comments and DH thinks we'd have no luck as we are white, middle-class, ok well off (2/3 lovely holidays a year), could probably afford to educate privately, i'd give up work and all ive ever wanted to be is a muumy, and my DH would be an amazing hands on father.

Honestly, do you think we'd have no chance at adoption?

I know nothing about adoption but surely you would be the perfect adopters?

IVF first with an agreement between you how many attempts you're going to have.

Adoption isn't "a lovely thing to do", its difficult and you need to be 100% committed (and a bit more again) and desperate (though I know some will disagree with me!)

I too have done both IVF and adoption and I don;t regret adopting one bit but it wasn't easy - knowing I had no choice made the difficultness(!) of it bearable.

So I'm running out the door so a bit terse....

If you are still seriously considering IVF, then you need to go that route. Adoption is very different to having a biological child, it really is. It has given me three wonderful children, but it is the single most challenging and demanding thing I have ever done and will ever do. It is hugely demanding. Of course IVF is demanding as well, but in a different way to adoption. If you are considering doing both, then again you need to go the IVF route first.

ALL children needing adoption have suffered trauma. All of them. At the very least they've been taken away from their first mothers, but most have suffered neglect and abuse. It's very very rare for a mother to choose adoption. A large amount of the babies who are removed at birth have been exposed to drugs in utero. All of these things affect the way the brain develops, and they have an effect on the child - sometimes a smaller one, sometimes a very big one. Sometimes the effect of the trauma is lifelong. So parenting them is different to parenting a biological child. I have to parent mine differently than I would parent a birth child, sometimes very differently. They are the light of my life, but they are very challenging! It's much much more than just taking in a baby.

For me, adoption is intentionally choosing to have special needs children. It isn't the experience of everyone, but it is mine.

And I would be careful about where you get your information from re. who can and cannot adopt. So many times in various places I read people saying 'oh you can't adopt if you're over 40 and white and middle class blah blah blah'. Most adopters are older. Most are white. I suspect the majority are middle class. When it comes to adopting, the most important qualities to have are things like patience, realistic expectations, the ability to be very flexible and adaptable etc, because those are things truamatised children need their parents to have. The only way to know exactly what your local authority are looking for is to ask them!

So basically, I would advise trying IVF first, although you can continue to investigate both. But to adopt you are expected to give up on trying for a baby completely, so you must be very certain that that is what you want

we did ivf first, 3 goes limit,no success. we then embarked on adoption.we started when i was 27 and adopted dd1 when i was 37,we call her our 10 year baby.nothing is quick, they usually ask if you have been trying to concieve for at least 18 months, then clomid,then other investigations.im glad we did ivf first, there would have been that niggling"what if " if we hadnt.i also have terrible thoughts of if we had we wouldnt have dd1 and 2.

If you have the cash i would go private for the investigations,will probablyb be quicker.

I would be interested in how one comes to the assumption that most adopted children have suffered abuse or neglect.

If the definition or abuse or neglect is the time they spend in care without a mother's love, or when they're stripped and put through extensive medical tests by demand of social services, then I agree.

However, no doubt an adopted child would have some issue surrounding the incredibly inhumane seemingly '1 year rule' social services put them through in foster homes.

Social services will claim that the child has or would have been neglected by birth parents.
Certainly not true always.
Sad that SS would lead an adoptive parent to believe this, when the actual forced mother/child seperation is probably the biggest abusive event.

Hi, don´t worry about IVF but you might have to go that far. We tried for 3 years and been through tests and they put us on IUI which is I believe 3 cycle hormone injections and if that doesn´t work then they would put you on IUI. I fell pregnant on the 2. cycle and it felt great so you might not have to go through the whole process. Iĺl keep my fingers crossed for you xx

Dear all thank you for your thoughts.
We are going privately for further tests, so early days in that process.
I guess I didn't mean "nice thing to do" quite like that, but to give a home to someone who really needs a chance.
Thank you x

mamamoonmim - I haven't been lead to believe anything, my kids can remember what happened to them. ALL the profiles I have ever seen of waiting children, are kids who have likewise been neglected or abused

mama - I can only say that I make that assumption based on the cases I have known personally. The abuse hasn't been difficult to spot because there has been plenty of physical evidence - cigarette burns, malnutrition, video evidence of baby/child being thrown against a wall (these were all separate cases not the same child) and children old enough to tell the story themselves, also sadly sexualised behaviour in very very young children who were sexually abused. The trauma of separation from birth parents and possible multiple foster carers subsequently is an additional problem rather than the situation being one source of trauma which can neatly be placed at the door of social services. In one case I know of the issue was not actually with the birth mother actively abusing (although there was a degree of neglect) but with her allowing her boyfriend to physically and sexually abuse her children. She was unable to keep her children safe and ultimately they were removed after many attempts to resolve it.

I'm sure there must be cases where this is not so but I haven't come across them personally. I have no axe to grind on this, my son was voluntarily relinquished on the day he was born and was not neglected or abused, but I do know a large group of adopters and know the children personally. My son does show issues from separation from birth parents and subsequent lack of continuity of carers and lack of one to one care but on the whole his issues so far haven't been as traumatic as those of his friends who stayed with birth parents longer and were neglected and/or abused longer. I think on average those children who have been neglected and/or abused by birth parents in addition to having the trauma of separation and subsequent care do show it more in their behaviours than those relinquished and only dealing with the separation and care issues.

Big caveat - obviously there are children who buck the trend - those who have suffered terrible abuse who seem to pull through with little outward issues and those who were relinquished very very young who suffer more problmes but I suspect that this is down to the personality type of the child. I would still maintain that, on average, neglect and abuse by birth paretns of adopted children is more rather than less common and that it does impact their behaviour more seriously the longer they are left in that situation.

I agree that being separated form a birth parent could be seen as a form of 'abuse'. However, this separation will happen for a reason and I dont think that reason should be forgotten or devalued. There are tons of opinions relating to alleged 'intentions' of sw and I dont think it always seems to work in the best interests of the child and of course, sometimes wrong decisions can be made but that can be said about all sorts of things - a doctors misdiagnosis resulting in surgery, a poor teacher who fails to detect a child's SEN so support is not put in place etc etc etc.

We are looking to adopt and this is a choice we have made, we are able to conceive and have a bio child, we want to adopt our second. I think, as said a 'nice thing to do' is possibly not the best way to put it but in truth, it is a child's escape from a world of changing homes etc. Many children have had a very chaotic and unpredictable start to their life, some are not adopted quick enough and then they reach the age that they are hard to place, others might move between foster homes before being adopted. In that sense, anyone who is able to provide a permanent home and loving family is in effect 'doing a nice thing' I just think that you need to be fully aware that it is so much more than that and is a very difficult process (both to become approved and then once a child comes to live with you) so wanting to do something nice isn't really enough to make this kind of decision. I would read up on the effects of abuse, neglect, separation, multiple carers etc and then think again about if that is something you want to do. There is nothing wrong with doing this research whilst undergoing IVF, just make sure that if you do decide on adoption, you stop everything else and become 100% committed to the route you have chosen

Good luck

Karbea - sorry I didn't mean that as snippily as it came out ("nice thing to do comment"). But I really do want to stress that the reality of adoption is really really not anyhing like a nice thing to do - its hard and messy and traumatic for all concerned and you will always have a child that will partly always "belong" to someone else.

When people go into adoption (I'm sure I was no different though its hard now to think back to the early days of applying) they generally envisage a young child with some manageable issues being given a second chance in their generally lovely family. But the childrne whoreally need the second chance are those who are of school age with challenging behaviours that many of us just can't imagine having to deal with. The truth is as someone I think has already said is that there are more parents ready to take on children under two than there are childrne in that category.

We all love our children and none of us (I think!) would change our children for any others but adopters can be rather brutally honest about the implications and challenges of adoption.

Personally the one thing that surprised me which is probably going to sound a bit demented is that I had no idea how upset I was going to feel once I had bonded for the loss that my son has suffered and that I can't fix. You start your paretning journey with the knowledge that your child has a profound loss that you can do nothing about. I found that very hard to deal with.

Karbea, yes I do think you stand a chance with adoption - of adopting a child or children aged 1-3, rather than a baby. That may be the right thing for you. But I agree with the others: if you have any doubt, try fertility treatment first. You won't be too old to adopt in a couple of years (I adopted a 10 month old baby at the age of 46).

We're not trying to put you off - I love my adopted daughter so much, I'm so proud of her - but adoption is a hard road and it can take a long time. If you want to get pregnant, you need to give it your best shot. If it doesn't work out, you can still apply to adopt. Use the waiting time to research adoption and keep chatting to us here - we're a fabulous group but quite a small one and we always like visitors, whether or not they're going to stay

mamamoonmim - I'm hesitating about responding to you, because I know what you have been through is traumatic. But you must know that most adopted children HAVE experienced neglect or abuse, and it's not fair to them or to the parents on this thread to pretend otherwise. My own daughter has never lived with her birth family and so was not neglected. But she was born addicted to drugs and with possible fetal alcohol syndrome and it will be many years before we will know how that may have damaged her. She screamed in agony for seven weeks, and nobody in her birth family visited her. She has siblings, who were raised within the birth family, and honestly what those children have been through haunts me. Frankly, that is far more typical of adoption today than your own experience. I am very, very sorry for what you have gone through - and I am sure other women have been through it too - but that doesn't make it typical.

And another vote here for Kew's last point. I feel so happy that dd is part of our family, and so sad at what brought her here.

I'm sorry.
I'm just a bit defensive, incase things are asumed about birth mothers by default.
I also know SS are perfectly capable of making things up or exagerating, although, admittedly they probably 'usually' wouldn't. (have to have some faith in humankind)

I'm very sorry for those children who have really been neglected.
I'm glad those kids have found loving parents now.

It's really nice to read how much you all care about your adoptive children.

I understand why you are defensive Mamamoonmim by response was really to your question about why people assume that birth paretns are neglectful or abusive. I was sayng that it was in my personal experience of the child (not any reports from social services) in question. Cigarette burns are a bit of a give-away and don't really need any additional information from social services. Sadly in that particular instance the child was repeatedly returned to birth parents until he was finally removed at 3. In that case the adoptive paretns were not given any information by SS as to his background.

SS are more open with adoptive parents now but not across the board. I still know of cases where adoptive parents have not been told all of the facts prior to placement and have discovered later the extent of the abuse... in fact when significant problems started and external professionals were called in.

I didn't go down the IVF route as when it came down to it we wanted a family rather than our own children at any cost. We reached that decision when discussing IVF rather than when considering IVF versus adoption.

It took us 3 years to discuss adoption because I think we needed that time to get used to and accept that we would not produce our own and grieve for the one we lost.

I'm not sure if that helps you.

I belive that all adopted children are traumatised and have suffered abuse and/or nehlect. Either with their birth family and /or in the care system. Soem of the most disturbed children i know suffered most at the hands of Ss.

I belive that even a newborn relinquised volunatrily at birth ( a very rare situation) will suffer from being seperated from his/her mother. And from the stress the mother will have been under during the prgenancy.

Often its not the " fault" of the birth mother. She may be mentally ill, have learning difficulties or be an addict. Her partner may also be ill or be violent. I dont judge most birth parenst, i dont know how i woudl have been if i had lived their lives and made their choices

Its terribel that a baby or child is removed. But soemtimes its the lesser of the two evils for teh child.

That why i dont think that adoption is a wonderful things. What woudl be wonderful is for each child to be born into a family who could love and care properly for him/her. But sadly we dont live in that perfect world. And we adoptive parenst are notvpart of the problem, we are part of teh solution.

A friend of mine adopted three children. They're all lovely but one of them has been quite disturbed even though he was a baby when he was removed. He's now 7 and isn't in mainstream education any longer. He was two when he went to live with my friend and spent hours every night for three years screaming. And I mean hours and I mean every night. Not usual baby or toddler wails and screams but the nightmare screaming of someone being tortured.

He's a lot better now but noway near what you would think of a "normal" child.

Though in fairness the other two aren't like this and you could have a baby of your own who is like this. But I think it's something to think about.

We have two adopted children. One came to us 14 hours after birth(as a fostered child), the other, a full sibling, came to us at two and a half, after having been in the care system for two years. There is a huge difference in their development, socially, emotionally and educationally. Social services need to take note. The earlier a child is placed, the more chance they have of surviving the trauma of separation intact.... and the higher the chance of the adoption succeeding.