Dealing with uncertainty

[Pickles2go]

I know there are no givens in any parenting, but none so much as adoption. The only certainty seems to be lots of uncertainty! And that's ok. But I did want to ask how you all deal with the developmental uncertainty that goes hand in hand with adoption in practice. Particularly where there are 'known uncertainties' such as potential hereditary conditions eg ASD. I'm only at the theoretical stage at the moment - and in theory it feels ok for me - but would appreciate the thoughts of anyone who's actually been there. Appreciate it's a very personal thing and will be different for everyone. Thank you!

Without wanting to offend anyone at all, I chose certain 'problems etc' I felt I just could not cope with and ruled those out. If you have something you are concerned you would not cope with, whatever it is, it is better to say so when you are talking to social workers.

It is a really tough balance. We want to help our DD reach her full potential, but without really knowing what that potential might be.

We don't want to have low expectations for her, but we don't want to set her up to 'fail' according to our middle class academic orientated expectations.

We don't know if she'll go to mainstream school, never mind Uni, so we watch and we wait.

However things turn out, she is loved to the ends of the earth, but is it okay for us to hope, for her sake, that she doesn't turn out to have learning disabilities? I think it's only natural.

People can say, oh that's the same as a birth child, you can never tell. But it's different when you've knowingly signed up for a certain level of odds. It feels like you've got less right to hope for 'normal' somehow.

Of course there is uncertainty with every birth child girls, I get that comment too... however as I point out (if I can be bothered) that statistically adopted children are far more likely to have any number of conditions or issues affecting learning and relationships. And generally for example you can be pretty sure that you won't get a child who is born drug dependent or has FAE if you haven't actually drunk or taken drugs whilst pregnant!

OP - you decide on paper what you can't accept, then you get matched with a child (who in my case had exactly one of things things I said I would rule out!) then you spend a long time with your fingers crossed.

My DS was born at 26 weeks at a weight of less than 1kg and was delayed until he was 4.

I went ahead with it because his medical ruled out most of the issues that come with such tiny premmies except cerebral palsy which was quite a high risk (about 20%) and learning difficulties which couldn't be assessed at age 1.

The uncertainty is difficult, you just have to try and decide which posion you like the least and rule that !