Adopting without Birth children

[MrsM2509]

We are currently in the middle of prep groups and have our been allocated a social worker who we meet tomorrow for the first time.

We don't have any birth children, and as far as we know, there are no medical reasons why we can't. We have always, since we started dating and had the "do u want kids discussion" spoken about how we would like to adopt one day. We have been married a few years now, and although we haven't "tried" to get pregnant, we haven't tried not to. We have decided that we feel now is the right time to adopt ( we looked into it two years ago but hubby was due to go to afghan, he's out the forces now).

Anyway, I know a lot of people say you should have birth children first. To us, we want children, whether that's adopted or birth. We don't feel a longing for a newborn, or for our child/rento share our DNA. I have always said I would never want to go down the ivf route, or even be assessed for fertility issues, I know for some this is the right choice but I just don't feel I would like to go through that, if it's meant to happen I'm sure it would.

I just wondered if anyone else had been in the same position as me?

Are we likely to be told to go off and have birth children then rethink adoption?

I know this May sound strange to some people but I actually think id be more upset at being turned away for adoption, than I would if I was told I couldn't have birth children.

I hope this makes sense, sometimes things sound good in my head until I write them down!

I think you just have to be honest with the SW and then see why happens. No other advice really. Good luck.

I think the main concern they will have would be ..... What would you do IF during the Adoption Process you fall pregnant? If you really want to adopt and this is the right time, I would be taking steps to prevent pregnancy.

We will absolutely be preventing pregnancy, I already have made an appointment with the doctor to start a form of contraception

We do have a birth son but no reason to suspect we couldn't have any more, so in kind of a similar situation. In our prep course, in fact, the majority of people were 'adopters by choice'. I suspect the majority of adopters are still people who struggle with infertility, be it primary or secondary infertility. But the 'adopters by choice' are not so small a minority.
We were asked why. The key reason for wanting to adopt is wanting a child, but adopting by choice kind of needs an extra, additional reason. You want a child (tick) so why do you choose to adopt, over having a birth child (which is probably easier both regarding the process of getting there, and regarding the actual parenting later on). Why go the 'hard' way to achieving your goal?
If you know your reasons, you should be fine. None of the agencies we talked to had a problem with our reasons. In fact, several explicitly said that ours are perfectly valid reasons for wanting to adopt.

For what it's worth, we had considered adopting before we had our DS, but were afraid of 'jumping in the deep side'. So we tried for a BC first, and had DS. Now that we know that we are ok with the 'easy' parenting, we are more confident regarding a more challenging kind of parenting.

I think you will have to recognise and accept (and convince SW) that if you adopt first you may never have birth children.

• depending on your age, once the adoption has gone through and the child is settled your fertility may have declined
• your child may have needs such that it would be hard to bring a demanding baby into the mix

I do know at least one couple who adopted and had birth child later, so it is possible.

Thanks guys. Yes we're not fussed about having birth children. If we did decide to do so later it would only be if our adopted child would be fine with it, but tone honest we have spoken about adopting again in future if we wanted more. We already have accepted that adopting could mean no birth children and we are totally fine with that, I just hope sw believe us.

Thanks for the help guys

Meita that's interesting about your prep group! At ours we are the only couple who have not gone through ivf, which kind of makes me feel guilty. Their stories all sound utterly heartbreaking.

MrsM, at our group there was only one couple coming from IVF. The others all had birth children. Accordingly lots of the talk tended to turn to 'when our child was x years old they did y' or 'when our kids do x we do y for disciplining them' and I felt very sorry for them, it must have been so hard, after going through IVF and then deciding to go for adoption, to then be confronted with lots of couples who have kids already and are adopting by choice.
Sadly we couldn't really totally avoid talking about our children, I don't think it would have made a good impression! But I did feel really sad for this couple and sometimes cringed when others related anecdotes from their children a bit over-enthusiastically.

Similar to Meita, we had a birth son before we adopted, and although I had a couple of miscarriages I suspect if we had really really tried for a second birth child it would have happened eventually. But we had always talked about adoption and DH was adamant about not going down the assisted conception route (and I made the first call to an adoption agency when DS was 6 weeks old!).

We were the only couple at our prep group who had a child, but one chap had adult children from his first marriage. I wonder if the dynamics are shifting and there are more adopters with birth children than before?

Anyway, back to the thread... Meita sets out some of the thinking you need to do and to persuade an agency. The best thing to do is pick up the phone and have a chat with one or two.

Meita that is interestig (and rather sad) that you had only one couple with no kids on your group.

Our was a better split, about ten couples and of this group only a quarter had kids.

Those us with kids did limit what we said about kids at the prep group, I know I did a bit because I was aware almost eveyone in the group was coming from fertility treatment and so it was kind of sensitive. I also felt, personally, really we were there to learn about the children and the process, that's how I felt.

But when we got to the parenting course the dynamics were similar, although some different people, and again only about a quarter with birth kids. In this situation those of us with birth kids did speak up more about real life experiences, especially to do with things like discipline, sticker charts etc and it felt right to do so.

I think our prep group was pretty full on and I was not sure I had much to say about DD at it! But the parenting course was more relaxed and generally more a sort of sharing time rather than us being presented with stuff.

What was very nice was one lady who had no children yet was very keen to talk about my dd and discuss stuff and it seemed to help her to talk things through so I was happy to.

It sounds silly but if I were the only couple with no children I would have felt pretty uncomfortable in the group and I think the organisers should have thought of that! But maybe they did and the dynamics changed.

I am subfertile and looked into adopting after 3 years ttc, 1 m/c, 1 ectopic... the Doctors were pretty sure I could get pregnant though.The social worker had no problems with us starting the adoption process as long as I used contraception once we began. I was pregnant the next month, but had my prescription for the pill to begin the next one.

In some ways, it might be easier for them if you don't have children as you will be able to parent completely around adoptee and not worry about fairness to other children, iyswim.

armsandtheman I think it is probably easier adopting if you do not have birth children (although birth children can bring some benefits to the situation and may be a plus for some children being adopted).

I think Local Authorities (and I would imagine the same for Voluntary Agencies) welcome adopters with birth children and those without. The issue for those who have children is probably how will everyone (including the birth children) cope and for those who do not have children there are probably different issues.

If prospective adopters have tried to conceive and not been able to, or not been able to have a baby, then have they come to terms with all of that and are they able to move on and parent a child through adoption.

For people who have not tried to have birth children I guess the LA want to know that the couple or individual has faced that and thought it all through and is comfortable with not having birth children or possibly having the chance to have them later but that may be difficult or not appropriate.

I think MrsM2509 that you will just need to convince the social worker that you have thought it all through (together) and are both happy to go ahead with adoption knowing you may not be able to have birth children or it may not be a good idea to have them in the future.

Good luck.

We were in the same position. No birth children of our own and never actively tried to get pregnant.

We were pushed really hard at panel to ensure we had really thought this through. Our social worker was quizzed hard at panel on this point. Even though adoption is our first choice, we found it was quite unusual in our prep group and it did lead to some questions.

We were asked about contraception too and have 100% committed to ensuring I do not get pregnant. I now understand why this is so important. Our son needs our total focus.

never wanted birth children. no fertility issues. No man either, but did have the offer of a ahem donation and turned it down. No problem at all with ss and they didn't ask me to spend hours contemplating why I'd chosen that course. I explained why. They said ok. We moved on. AD came home a year later.