LGBT adoptees who adopt.

[Carapepi77]

My female partner and I are in the process of adopting and hoping for a little girl between ages 3 + 6. My partner has her birth parents and I was adopted. I'm interested in others in a similar position and how you presented your reasons for wanting to adopt to social worker. We are not interested in ft and never have been I'm almost 40 and my partner almost 50.
I have heard that some people have been told they can't adopt because they were adopted and doing it only because they feel they have to give something back and not because they can't have children.

We are two men so had less options but it's okay to say that finances is a reason, spending money on various fertility ventures isn't for everyone. We also both have fathers who brought us up but are biological so we understand that family is through love not blood. I don't think it's going to be asked of you in honesty

I don't think the fact that you are adopted will matter in the sense you think. If anything it will be a positive thing as you will have an excellent understanding of the child and how confused they may feel growing up with little knowledge of their birth family and the issues surrounding their identity.
Choosing not to do fertility treatment would not go against you either. We chose not to go down that route because A, we couldn't afford it and B. I hate the idea of injecting myself with hormones are going to such lengths to create a child when there are so many children in need of a loving home. (I will note that we have a birth child and if we hadn't had a child of our own then maybe we would have felt differently about fT.)

Hi Carapepi77 welcome and god luck.

I am not gay but I am an adopter.

Don't worry too much about all this, being adopted will not stop you adopting and all you need to explain is why you want to be a parent and why this route feels right for you, IMHO.

However, the social worker will want to see you've worked through any 'issues' related to your own adoption to ensure that when a child is placed you will not have concerns etc or issues related to your own adoption which you will need to resolve while the child is in your care.

I was almost 50 when we adopted and had had a lot of fertility treatment, it is costly, especially if you need to use a donor (we tried with donor eggs due to my age), we have a birth dd and knew what our fertility issues were and had come to the end of energy and money for fertility treatment. Adoption was totally right for us, it was not second best and has been a really great thing for our family. But, for whatever reason, I did want to try fertility treatment first.

Not everyone wants to go for fertility treatment, social workers should be able to understand that.

However, IMHO, another thing the social workers will want to know is that you have 'come to terms' with not having your own biological or genetic child. This is, again, to ensure these things do not raise issues for you once your child is placed.

Everything done is about ensuring the match and placement will 'work', the child will integrate into your family and have a happy and peaceful life after a difficult start.

So try and see the whole process about being able to ensure you will be able to parent well and not to do with anything else.

There have been a number of lesbian adopters on here, single and in couples - and hopefully some may be able to come and say more about the process. Those I've heard speaking about it here seem to have felt they were treated very fairly and well.

The only gay male couple I know in real life have now adopted two quite young children and seem to have done well, so hopefully all will be well for you two.

Good luck.

Hi Carapepi my wife and I are in a similar position to you and your dp. We are a same sex couple and my dw is an adoptee. We are not yet approved but the fact that my dw is from an adoptive family has been seen as a really positive thing by our sw.
As is the case with every adopter our reasons for choosing adoption have been questioned. For us we felt as though we didn't want an unequal biological relationship to our child, and neither of us have felt a strong desire to be pregnant or have a child that is biologically ours. For my dw because she had such a positive experience in her own adoption she always felt that she would like to have a family in the same way. Our sw has been keen to make sure that my dw has come to terms with any negative feelings she has surrounding her own adoption before me move forward in the adoption process. For example she was thinking about obtaining her adoption file and our sw advised that she take the time to do that before we were accepted into stage one. I think they just want to make sure that us adopting doesn't trigger any difficult emotions for my dw that she hasn't properly dealt with.