Dont know whether we have a chance or not?!

[mummyjones123]

Hello,
Iv been reading all these boards for a while now but havent been brave enough to post till now. Me and my hb have 2 ds who are currently 4 and 2- we are thinking about starting the adoption process for a girl next year when my youngest turns 3 so that although we would be limited to a child of 0-1 and would probably have a long wait-we would be able to adopt am I right? Or will all agencies refuse us as it is such a narrow gap? Ive tried emailing our local LA but there email address keeps failing and I feel like if I ring when we wouldnt be able to start the process till 2016 earliest then they wont be able to give me an answer-please help?! I really want to adopt and give a child a better life as does my husband, he is a primary teacher and Im a nursery nurse so we have experiencw of children from a wide range of backgrounds and just want to help! X

WOULD TRY large city LA such as Manchester and the likes, Fostering too Adopt may be suitable for you. see lots of Adoption information at www.first4Adoption.org.uk
Good Luck

Ring round a few agencies - they will be quite used to people asking general questions who aren't quite ready to start the process yet in terms of timing. They may have different preferred age gaps, or be interested in different things, and an initial chat may help you get a feel for who you'd like to work with.

As you say, the age of your youngest will be an issue in terms of an appropriate age gap. It may mean you wait longer for a match not just because you would be very limited in the age child that could be placed with you (my LA is only assessing adopters willing to look at children age 3-6 at the moment), but also because your two birth children's needs will be carefully considered, and the complex impact on your birth children and adopted child. A child placed with you would need to be deemed to be likely to thrive in your particular family dynamic. It will be perfect for some, and not for others, but it's just worth bearing in mind.

Can I ask why you say adopt a girl - as opposed to a child? All the people I know who have adopted have been happy to be matched with either according to best fit. I am hoping it's not because you think a girl will be a lovely girly girl etc

Thank you for the helpful advice :) I would like a girl to balance our family out that is all, I am under no illusion that boys and girls do not fit into stereotype boxes...but am also aware that a sw would want to discuss this. We live in east yorkshire so will contact them, have already been looking on all the websites x

We were advised to adopt a child of the opposite gender to our birth child. We have a birth dd. At first I was very against this because I was quite set on having another girl (for lots and lots of reasons, some posibly valid and some utterly silly! Like thinking I would know what a girl was like as I had had one before!! Yes, stupid idea from me!)

In the end we adopted the child who was right for our family, which happened to be a boy.

I would generally feel now that it is best to with the child who is right for your family, and to be approved for either boy or girl.

I would definitely contact them now. We started the process when our bs was 2.5 and were approved 3 months after he turned 3. Our LA likes there to be a two yr age gap so initially we could have been matched with a child aged 0-15 months. Since then 8 months have passed with no match so we could now go up to 23 months for the AC and this age range will continue to increase as time passes. I would caution you to expect a long wait. We also thought that adoption would be a great way to extend our family and that we would be doing a good thing, but there are no children that age in our LA (not that far geographically from you) and the children on the national register/Adoption link have as many as 70 families enquiring after each of them. I have had the impression that already having a young bc puts you at a disadvantage- most SWs seem to view it as an undesirable complication, although our own SW has been v positive about us being experienced parents. If you want to pm me for more info I'd be happy to help. Good luck with your enquiries...

We have recently been approved through an East Yorkshire LA so feel free to pm for more info.

We are approved for 0-2 and we are struggling to find a match so I believe 0-1 would be even more difficult.

Call a few agencies, they will be more than happy to have an informal chat with you and answer any queries you have.

Almostapril... In my experience it's quite common to request a specific gender, we didn't, but I know 3 couples from my prep group that were all approved for boys as they felt this was their preference

OP - if you feel that a girl is the best fit for your family your sw will investigate this with you and be more than happy I would have thought...

I agree with bbery re gender. We really wanted a son - although did occasionally look at a female profile - because there are 14 grand daughters, 2 great granddaughters in both our families and no sons. And we got one.

MummyJones - I do think you may well be in for a long wait for a child that young though. So be prepared it could take quite a while after matching...maybe a couple of years.

I just wondered why you had not considered a birth child to complete your family? If you have no fertility issues that might be the surer way to ensuring you have another child. There really are very few young, with no significant needs children out there. Unless of course you are prepared to adopt a child with SEN.

Good luck.

I think as others have already said there is nothing there that "should" stop you. However there are many many more adooters now and some are waiting well in excess of a year for a match so agencies are either not recruiting adooters at all in some cases or restricting applications in some way. You may well get an agency to take you on but I would say you are looking for an almost impossible match in a girl under 1 unless you are prepared to take on a child with significant health issues. It's not that there aren't under 1 girls looking to be placed its just their social worker will be looking for the best family for their child and there will be a lot of "competition" for a match like that. With 2 bc I think you would gave to be outstanding to be considered above others with maybe 1 or no bc.
I agree with the advice of ringing round and asking the questions though as they really are the only ones who can tell you how it will be. The other thing to keep in mind is things change constantly. At the moment there are a huge number of adopters waiting, at the moment there are a tiny amount of under 1's that have placement orders. Both these things can and probably will change its just a question of when.
With our LA, when we applied they had a shortage of adopters looking for pre school children with a large number of very young children waiting as a result. That is completely flipped on its head 12 months later so area and timing will also have an effect.

Thanks everyone for the help :) I know that we could have another biological child but we would like to offer a loving home to a child who has not had a good start. Hopefully things will have changed by next year and more children that need to be adopted will be available sooner but Im prepared to wait. We would consider a child with some physical disabilities as long as we felt we could meet that childs needs and that of our two bc. Thank you all :)

As you are choosing not to have another biological child they will want to explore why you have chosen adoption to complete your family and be sure you will not be bringing any more biological children into your family. You're obviously 100% certain on this but make sure you've explored/talked about all the reasons why, so you are able to give these reasons to a SW. This will be explored thoroughly in your assessment but if you make a phone call for some info they may ask you a couple of initial questions and 'we want to help' will need to be backed up by why this is so important to you. Just a tip to have the answers to that ready in case :) (...as I'm rubbish when put on the spot! )

You do have a chance and having young existing children was seen as very advantageous by our SW. We have three children, two BS age 5 and 3, one AD now 2. No time to write too much as I'm currently playing shop with the two youngest ( if I have to by another plastic egg I'll go mad!), but we started the training when youngest BS was under two. We were linked to our daughter 6 weeks after approval ( but that was just before all the changes due to this legal bS case).
Something I stress to the many people I come in to contact with who have young Bc and want to adopt, as it really isn't that uncommon anymore , is think about exactly how many children you would like/ can cope with etc. why? Because your young Ac, depending on circumstance of course, has a likelihood of having future biological siblings and you'll then likely to get a call from Sw to ask you if you're interested. We happen to be happy and open to the idea of adopting again, and we were from the outset. my advise would be to think carefully about future possibility of taking siblings prior to starting the process, I can see it being a real moral, financial etc quandary if youre presented with this situation having not thought about it. The training and prep certainly didn't cover it. Hope that helps.