Complete newbie considering adoption as integrated family natural/adopted children

[ag123]

Hi everyone,
Completely new to this section so please excuse any faux pas's.

Dh and I are late twenties with a 2 year old ds. We have always talked about having a big family and having a real sense of community in our own home.

I am a primary school (early years) teacher and dh is a solicitor who works in the city. A few years ago I had a looked after child in my class and was really affected by the experience. I found it so hard how this wonderful child just so desperately needed a mummy to love him and I have thought about him often ever since.

Dh and I have often talked about being foster carers in later life but I have recently (probably further prompted by the c4 documentary) started to think about whether we should consider adoption. I am in no rush to have another natural dc...I definitely would like to at some point in the future but didn't particularly enjoy the pregnancy/ birth/ newborn stage.

I feel we have so much to offer a child but I know absolutely nothing about the process/ timescale/ whether it is possible to adopt a child to become part of an integrated family of natural and adopted children. I realise this kind of set-up (if it is possible) would provide a good share of challenges but I feel my background as an early years teacher as well as my own personal characteristics could probably not be much more suitable.

If anyone could provide any insights at all it would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Hello and welcome!

A few thoughts: if you feel you are very likely to want a second birth child, I would suggest doing that first and then considering adoption. Not to put you off but some looked after children as I'm sure you know, have significant needs and really need to be the youngest - or you might find that the needs of your adopted child precluded having another birth child, and feel resentful.

I think there's plenty of people on here with birth and adopted children and it works fine, but not sure if an adopted child in the middle would be the best mix.

Think about ages: they usually like a 2 year gap minimum between children and babies aren't usually much under 1, so probably they won't want to see you until DC is at least 3. May be another reason for doing all the birth children you want first.

I think early years teaching may be a great experience, and maybe you might think about adopting a child of 2/3/4 - many people specify 0-2 but we had a very successful adoption of a LO in the 2-4 age range who was harder to place because over the magic 2 yrs.

Good luck and do ask away!

There are certainly families out there who have birth children and then go on to adopt, and there are also families who have adopted and then go on to have birth children. Your assessing agency would probably want to talk to you about contraception; they don't want to put time into assessing you just to then be told 'sorry, we're not adopting after all, we're having another birth child instead'. Nor do they want to place a child with you who then becomes 'displaced' soon after joining your family, by a new birth child. So pretty much they will want you to agree not to have another birth child for a couple of years or so after placing a child with you.
Your DS being 2yo, many if not most agencies will probably tell you to give it some time, come back in a year or two. Though you might find one willing to start assessment already. Be aware however that most likely they won't let you adopt a child who is older than your DS, so if you go ahead now, you will be restricted to very young babies (usually they want the adopted child to be min. 2 years younger than any existing children in the family).
Re Timescales, the approval process is supposed to be no longer than 6 months nowadays, however it takes some time to get it started initially, and then from approval to placement can be as long or short as a piece of string (anything between weeks and years).
Fostering however, you can do no matter how old your DS is, and you would usually have children placed with you who were either at least a few years older than your DS, or a few years younger, but not normally the same age. My personal opinion is that fostering is a great thing to do, and though there has been a real push recently for more adoptions/assessing more prospective adopters and such, it is sadly also the case that there are never enough foster carers anywhere.
I'd say give it a good think - both fostering and adoption.

I agree with the others, particularly the advice to have your birth children first. I'd also suggest an early chat with your local adoption agency (or indeed a number of them - you don't have to limit yourself to one) about the options. Get them to send you info on adoption and fostering and you can start mulling it in your own time.

I have a birth child and an adopted child (four years younger) and so far - three years in - it is working very well for us. Our two certainly love each other and we are a very happy family.

ag123 good luck, it sounds a great idea and I think the others have all made very valid points.

Do read up as much as you can about all aspects of adoption.

It is probably worth saying that the term 'natural' as opposed to adopted is not what most people would say, they would say birth, birth child, birth parent etc. The opposite of natural is unnatural.

Is you DH on board? We first approached the local authority when our DD was just under 2 and we had to wait a while but things have changed a bit and they may take people with younger children, but I do really recommend what the others have said about having your birth children before starting down the adoption route.

Hi again everyone

Thank you for your replies and sorry about the natural/birth thing. I see now how 'birth' is a much nicer term.

I do see the logic in having birth children first as the needs of an adopted child might well be greater. The query I have with regard to this is, since I am still only late twenties and therefore likely to have possibly another ten years (God willing!) of fertility, and since I absolutely still feel in no hurry to go through the whole pregnancy thing again, would it not work to adopt in the interim? I suppose what I see in my head is, birth child, adopted child, birth child, adopted child...each with enough of a gap to be able to devote enough time to each child when they are young...

Thoughts...?

I see others have posted most of what I was going to say, but in response to your last Q about whether it would work to alternate, I think it could, but equally - or more likely - would not. I say this because it is likely that an adopted child will have a range of needs that need to be met that preclude either a big family or a few younger siblings. These needs are often not apparent when they are young, so you need to think what you would do if you adopted a child which meant that it was a seriously bad idea to have any more children at all. If your biological clock is still ticking, I think you'd be better off facing another birth child before adoption.

But do speak to a couple of agencies and see what they say. We have a birth son and an adopted daughter (4.5 years between them) and it has worked brilliantly for us. Happy to answer any questions!

also, regarding timeframes: say you'd want to adopt a 3-5 year old (you said you weren't too interested re the baby phase). Your DS would need to be at least 2 years older, so 7 or older. That's 5 years from now - who knows how you will feel about having another birth child in 5 years? That is a long time from now. Also it is a long time to wait for your dream of a busy family life with lots of children.
We were in a similar situation, with the exception of being probably around 10 years older; our choice was not 'adopt now, have 2nd birth child later or have 2nd birth child now, adopt later' but simply speaking, have another birth child or not. We decided 'not'.
When we first considered adoption, we were thinking in terms of an 'older' child, definitely not a baby. Then we had DS and we thought exactly that, that we would wait until he was 6 or 7 and then look at adopting in the 3-5y range. We kept reading and tried to gather as much information as possible; that's how we realised that it seems that the older the children are, the more important a large age gap is (IMO). People on forums, here but mostly on AdoptionUK, seemed certain that adopting a child after having a BC was a massive risk and only really seemed to work if you had an age gap of at least 4 years, preferably more. We read some harrowing stories where people felt their decision to adopt had completely destroyed their existing child's life, and turned their own on its head, and they regretted it. So we started to see ourselves waiting until DS was at least 9ish, to look at adopting a maybe 5yo. But that was too long a wait for us. Like you, we dreamt of the hustle and bustle of a busy family life with definitely more than one child - we didn't want to remain a one-child-family for so many more years (also, you wait and then you find you aren't approved… then what?) So we looked into fostering to fill the gap - and as you used to words 'in the interim' that reminded me. I think fostering would have been the only way that would have worked for us, to wait so many years before adopting. So it is something I would definitely recommend for you to think about and perhaps look into in more detail - who knows, it might be just the thing for you!

Our own story took a different turn: On looking into fostering, we discovered 'concurrent planning' and for various reasons we think it might be exactly right for us. So now (DS is 3.5) we are in the midst of the approval process and in a 180 degrees about turn, are actually looking at maybe having the youngest of the young, a baby placed straight from birth or soon after, in a concurrency placement (where you foster the baby during the time that SWs explore if baby can go home to birth mum or is to be adopted, and if the latter turns out to be the case, the concurrency carers go on to adopt the baby rather than the baby having to move (again) to a new home and new set of parents).

In any case, good luck with your thinking and decision making!

Oh ok, that 'concurrent planning' sounds interesting. It's definitely not that I wouldn't want to adopt a baby. I think that would be my ideal in fact (though I know it is also many others' ideal and not often logistically possible so a lot harder). It's more the pregnancy and birth I'm not desperate to do again any time soon (after a terrible traumatic labour with ds, I have a slight fear of dying!) And then it was more the caring for a newborn when still so ill myself

So would it then be possible with regard to the age gaps, if I was to adopt a younger child?

Concurrent planning isn't for everyone though! It comes with it's own difficulties and risks, particularly if you have a BC already (how is your DS going to be able to deal with the very possible scenario where a baby 'sibling' he has grown to love and has become attached to, goes back to live with their BM and you never see the child again?) and is quite new for most LAs, so not much experience around, which may lead to problematic situations. I would read up on it carefully before even approaching a SW about it. IMO (but not experience - we're not there yet) you need the attitude of a foster carer willing to consider adoption, for it to go right, rather than of an adopter willing to do whatever it takes to get a baby.

We started getting in touch with agencies when DS was 2.10 and ended up signing up for assessment when he was 3.3. Quite a few LAs declined to process us further due to his age. Others would have accepted us. We met a couple whose youngest had just turned 2, who were in the final stages of approval - it is possible. But very rare. As long as your DS is still so very young, concurrent planning is pretty much the only way to achieve the necessary age difference; however, not every baby is suitable for a CP placement, and to date there are very few of them happening, so you might end up waiting a long time for a suitable match (and then perhaps going the 'traditional' adoption route anyway, your DS being 4 by then and you being able to adopt a 2yo for example).

ag123 I am very sorry you had such a difficult experience of pregnancy and birth the first time and it does appear to have put you off the experience any time soon.

Is there a likely possibility of this experience being repeated?

One of my friends had a very bad birth experience and then had very bad PND. The second time around she had a planned C-section, which worked better for her. I would never advocate a C-section unnecessarily (it is major surgery) but as my friend had a very had birth experience and the most serious kind of PND it worked well for her.

I had quite a negative experience of birth and was ill for a short while after my C-section. The hospital offered a counselling service where I was able with a midwife to access and read (or rather have the midwife explain to me) my birth notes. This did help me to process any sadness about my experience of being ill after my daughter's birth. I was only in hospital for about 11 days but as most people came and went within a day or two I did feel quiet strange being in the hospital so long and in the end almost felt scared to leave it! (All is fine now and DD is 9.)

I don't feel anyone should be pushed into having a baby before they are ready but I wonder if you have considered how you will cope with a pregnancy and birth when you have not just one birth child at home but also a child you have adopted into your family as well.

I think you may find that social workers would be very unsure about your idea to alternate between birth and adopted children. Personally, I think the thinking is often that it is best for the adopted child/ren to be the youngest in the family.

Also if you adopted after your birth children and did want to adopt two you could adopt a sibling group. There are (of course) pluses and minuses with however you choose to do things but if you adopted two children from a family group together they would have the same birth parents and the same 'back story' which might in some ways make parenting two adopted children easier, and easier to integrate into the family with two existing birth children. This is just my Personal opinion and is not based on any research, just a feeling.

Please genuine adopters (I am approved but not yet an adopter) please come on and tell me if I am talking waffle!

All best wishes , ag123.

Thank you Italiangreyhound , you've pretty much hit the nail on the head there, and your comment about coping with my first birth child and an adopted child while dealing with a second pregnancy and birth has made me really stop and think.

I will definitely still seriously consider fostering/ adoption/ concurrent planning (thanks for mentioning that Meita I think that is something I might be particularly interested in the future) but I do see how it makes sense to have an adopted child as the youngest, and it would also leave options open for a sibling group as well.

I'm still in no rush to have another birth child, but hopefully I still have lots of time left to be a new mummy to a new birth child/ren and adopted child/ren and hopefully I will still be able to have the big family I've always wanted through a combination of birth and adopted children but in the order that makes most sense.

Thanks everyone! xxx

I saw the c4 documentary! Tears all over :(
I would definitely say to look into adoption if you're really interested. You seem very responsible :)
And if you don't fancy another pregnancy, then what better way to have another child than giving one a home?

All the best for the future! Xx