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?

Hi Karbea.

We were in a similar position to you.We are a white professional couple .

We chose adoption and didn't try IVF. [tried a course of clomid and when that didn't work applied to adopt]

We had no problems being approved for up to 2 children 0-5 years. In the end we adopted a 7 year old girl. She is now 16 and doing fantastically well socially and academically.

We chose an older child as we had more of an idea about how she was coping. She was resilient and doing well at school despite her background. We felt she was less of a 'risk' than a younger child with developmental uncertainty[which the vast majority of children up for adoption have].

It hasn't always been easy and i do feel like i have missed out on her early years but i have no regrets.

Our outlook over the whole process was that we could be happy without children and that if the right child for us didn't come along then we wouldn't adopt. That sounds selfish but i do think it has worked out well for us and our dd.

Interestingly we were the only couple interested in adopting our dd [due to her age], yet there were couples queuing up to take the babies /toddlers with developmental uncertainty-so everyone is different in terms of their priorities.

Hope this helps!

That's very interesting, mycatunderstandsme. I think it's true that potential adopters tend to assume that the younger the child, the lower the risk of problems. And in one way that's true. But, as you say, with an older child you start off much more fully aware of their situation, their needs, and what kind of parenting they will require.

Really nice to hear your dd is doing so well

I'm feeling a bit soppy about adoption tonight. My daughter (just 2) fell asleep while holding onto my forearm, stroking it while murmuring "Lovely arm, lovely arm" and giving it little butterfly kisses. I love her so much I could pop.

Aww hester that's lovely. Those times are something I have never experienced with my DD which I do feel sad about but hopefully I will have her company for the forseeable future.

My DD has a half sibling who was 2 at the time of her adoption. We would have loved to adopt them both at the same time but he went to live with relatives[not related to my DD]. He had no apparent difficulties, developing well etc at that age. Now he has a severe disability and will never be able to live independently. This is very sad for my DD who still sees him but can't form a relationship with him as he has little communication.

We often think about how different our lives would have been had we adopted him-though we hope we would have coped as best we could.

SS suggested to us when we adopted DD that we could adopt a younger child later. We chose not to because of the risk of spoiling what we had-a happy family life.

I am extremely proud of my DD. I don't think she realises how well she has done despite her early experiences. Her last school report described her as extremely intelligent and able to take up any career path she wished- unbelievable really for a child adopted later in life. This I think is down to her-she eagerly takes up any opportunity offered to her and we saw this in her at 7. We really didn't have a clue about how to parent and just did the best we could which I am sure was not always right! I have always had high expectations of her[even when her primary school didn't] but this would not be appropriate for every adopted child.

I know a lot more now than I did when I adopted her but one of the important aspects I believe was that she lived with an aunt between the ages of 0-3 which gave her some stability at an important stage in her development.

mycat I know there can be some very successful school age adoptions and in many countries toddler and upwards adoptions are more common for exatly the reason you say - that problmes will have become so much more apparant. In my DS's case he had a very ropey medical prognosis and I did spend the first 3 years with one or other part of my anatomy crossed!

Unfortunately in this country later adoption generally either means longer with a neglectful/abusive home life or longer to be messed up by a variety of foster care.

I'm sure you're right, having a stable home for the first 3 years probably was very influential for her.

Karbea - I've tried several pathways to parenthood myself. Only you can know what's best for you, I've nearly done it all - and I don't regret any step we made along the way. You will be a mum in one way or another - there is loads of support here for anything you may choose.

We started with the traditional route and after a couple of years looked into adoption of a waiting child (we are in Hawaii). Many of the attachment disorders and abuse and neglect were explained to us and we were educated on how to help a child with these issues. Frankly, it scared us a bit (but I think that's partly the intent - to shock people into what the reality is) so we reconsidered and then tried IUI and IVF. Shortly after our last failed attempt at IVF, I became severely ill and was hospitalized for several weeks, 3 weeks of that time in an induced coma. When I woke up, I was just thankful to be alive, and thankful that I wasn't pregnant at the time (because what I went through may have caused harm the baby).

Also, when I woke up I realized more than ever that family is the most important thing in this world.

I needed 8 months or so to recover, but as soon as I did, I started thinking about adoption again. It sounds as if in the UK voluntary reliquishment is not very common. I'd say in the US it isn't very common either, however it does happen. We joined local and mainland agencies, put together our paperwork, profile and homestudy and were considered by birth parents looking to place their children.

We've been selected by the b-parents and are currently awaiting the birth - any day now. Ours will be an open adoption, we have met both b-parents and are in email, text and phone contact with the b-mother and we plan on having visits with the b-mother if that is what she would like. No adoption is perfect, but adoption can make a positive difference in multiple lives.

I feel like a should make a disclaimer like *results not typical, but when I was going through the waiting child class, a mother in the class told me about her awesome experience with infant adoption - and it turns out that I may end up in a very similar story.