2017 potential adopters

[exercisejunkie]

Hi,

I'm beginning my adoption journey in 2017, as a potential single adopter.

Please join me and we can learn, get advice and share as we travel this journey together!

Hi, I've also been looking at adoption as a single parent for a long time. I'm 21 but I've known awhile that I can't/don't want to have a biological child and while I'm not currently able to start the process just yet I'm interested in following your journey both so I get a better idea of the process but also as someone you can talk to if you need too.

Hello, welcome and good luck! We are starting introductions this week, and they will be moving in at the start of 2017, less than a year after we sent off our application. It's going to be a year to remember!

Politics - thank you! I'm 35, this has been in my life plan for a long time now, i'm excited, aprehensive and scared all at the same time!

Crazycatlaydee - wow!! That time frame excites and terrifys me! Can you give any indication of where in the country roughly not LA you are, and assuming when you say "they" that you're matched with siblings? How old? Wishing you lots of luck and fun along the way!

We're in the Midlands, we found them through Link Maker ourselves so it has sped it up a bit. Yup, two 4 year olds, one of each!

Hi there, hope you don't mind me joining this thread...I've been lurking on this board for a while now. We're not quite at the point of applying to adopt yet but are expecting to be at some point soon. We've struggled with recurrent miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies and I feel we're coming to the end of the road trying the usual route to parenthood so we're processing that at the moment and gearing up to think about adoption. I'd be interested to follow everyone's experiences and join you guys soon once we're actively in the adoption process.

Happy new year to you all xxx

Crazycatlaydee - amazing! Excited to hear how it all goes for you.

MrsSVN - welcome, my foundation training day is second week of Jan will keep you updated! Definitely wise to process things and then contact your LA, they ask you to wait 6 months from your last MC or IVF to ensure your ready to proceed emotionally.
Wishing you luck.

Thanks exercisejunkie...a really exciting time for you! Look forward to keeping in touch and seeing how things unfold. I actually work for children's services in my LA and have quite a lot of contact professionally with fostering and adoption so I'm worried this will be a conflict of interest so may have to apply through a neighbouring authority. I'd prefer to stick to my local one if I can but not sure how the logistics of confidentiality would work.

Anyway, hope things run as smoothly as they can for you and I'm looking forward to hearing how the course goes xxx

I'm looking forwards to seeing how everyone's journey goes. I'm about to start a 3 year degree in Criminology in September (switching from politics and philosophy) and living in university accommodation and with my mum outside of term time so unfortunately all I can do right now is work on improving my health and fitness and developing life skills so when the time comes I'm prepared. I'm an auntie of 13, the seven youngest are 6 months to 7 and the older ones are 13 to 21 so I'm used to taking care of children for extended periods of time as well as juggling several kids and teens at once. Any advice on what I can do in the meantime?

Politics - defeat look at gaining some experience with children outside of your family and also with children with special needs, having a few years dedicated volunteering will look really good!
I'm actually a nanny and spent 14 years with the SEN field in specialist schools, speak to your local children's centre, or schools, they'll need to do a DBS but will love having a volunteer. Other ideas are church groups, brownies etc. Good luck .

My SW and panels loved that I'd spent time volunteering with school age kids, so had experience and empathy with the kid-who-can't-sit-still, or the kid-who-knows-no-boundaries, or the kid-no-one-likes.

Family experience is great, but possibly likely to be children that have be parented in a familial way that is familiar, whereas volunteering shows you can care for children outside your familial circle. To SWs. Think of it like a uni application- we both know you can do it, but ticking certain boxes helps prove you have those competencies.

SWs love ticky boxes. It's like a job interview, and it's reasonably easy to get the job spec.

Also spend this time reading as much as you can. I did, and I certainly went through wobbles of thinking it was too hard.

And it is hard. But LO is a bundle of fun and gorgeousness, too, and we're so happy.

My time frame was slightly longer, because I waited for a course. I went on a course in January, and was matched a year later. It goes sloooooowly, then fast fast fast!

I'm worried that I'll wont be able to adopt as I've have high functioning autism as well as mild face blindness, ADHD, Specific Learning difficulties and mild OCD (I'm currently on medication for this to prevent it getting worse with the stress of university but my doctor says that once I've been off medication for 6 months with no re-occurrence he can remove OCD as a current condition) but I consistently watch 2 to 9 kids/teens at a time 3 of the younger ones have ASD and two of those are also visually impaired. I help with homework, help with revision and exam prep and uni applications with the older teens, cook meals, change nappies, take them out, bath the babies and put them to bed and tidy up before I go to bed or go home. I've also got a qualification in health and social care and can perform first aide in multiple situations on people aged 1 and over. If I had my own home and had been cleared of OCD today I'd start the process within the next year.

The only way you'll find out is to enquire. Would autism not be helpful in parenting an autistic child? After, all, it's often got a high degree of heritability, so autistic parents must parent autistic kids all the time!

Good luck to all.

Is it OK if I join? My circumstances are really different to most but to be honest adoption has always been of real interest to me.

Anyway, as it is I've raised my stepson since he was 2 and his biological mother has given me permission to adopt him. Dh and I are very excited but understand that even though biological parents consent to the adoption, the court still needs to agree that it it's dss' best interests.

I already have parental responsibility for dss and he is now 12 and very excited that I could legally become his mum after so many years of calling me that.

Anyway, I hope it's ok if I join this thread...?

Cannot - of course, all welcome! How exciting for your family.

My LA are asking us all to consider foster to adopt, it's more child centred and means the child comes to an adopter rather than a foster carer then adopter, it's generally younger children and is a plan put in place if adoption is highly likely, -all well and good and I like how child centred it is, but what if a relative pops up at the last min and wants the child. It also involves facilitating contact during the time it takes for court proceedings to take place. All a lot to think about really.

Hi, we were recently approved to adopt a child between 0-5. Hopefully 2017 will be the year to start our family

Can I ask how the approval works in general? How do they decide what age your approved for and if your approved for sibling groups or children with disabilities?

We discussed with our social worker what we had to offer and what our capabilities would be in regards to level of care we could offer and our current family dynamics. Our form F was then mainly detailing past experiences, current lifestyles and what we have to offer. By the time you go to panel you'll know the specifics of who your looking to be approved for, the panel is full of experts who then decide if they think the combination will be beneficial to the child/children and also to yourself. Worst case scenario for them is for the adoption to break down.

The whole process is really in depth, it took us 11 months from noting interest, attending course to finally being handed the application form. It then took 8 months of numerous courses, 2hr meeting every 2 weeks for 7 months before going to panel.

Hi, we are about to make an initial enquiry with our LA to adopt. This is something that has been on and off the cards for a long time (it's not the first time I've posted on here) but for various reasons the timing was never right. A few weeks ago DH decided the time is now as right as it's ever going to be and that we should get the ball rolling after Christmas. We already have a 7 year old birth child and there are medical reasons why we are unwilling to have more birth children but we very much feel that we would like more children. It would be lovely to chat to people who are going/have gone through the process as we do this.

Welcome to newbies!

Choco- great to have people at varying stages on this thread! Good luck with everything.

Earthy- welcome, that's exactly why I started this thread! I really hope we can all use it to talk, ask questions and support each other through this!

Mind if I join you all?

Have been TTC for a year but my DH has an extremely low count so our chances are slim to none. Have been agonising over the last few weeks ask to whether we go for private IVF next year or look to adopt, and it looks like we've made a decision to adopt!

My motivation behind this is that our chances with IVF are still pretty slim and and what point do we draw the line and say no more? And would we then look to adopt? And would we then feel that adopting is a second choice and our adopted child wasn't special enough? I don't want adoption to be a means to an end, I want it to be a decision we have actively made- so we have!

Obviously still early days yet but we are looking into fostering to adopt. DH has a 7 year old DD so will look in the New Year to start introducing her to the concept of adoption and seeing how she feels about it (although I'm 99% certain she is going to love the idea).

I'm so excited and also a little bit scared!!

Amazing! Kellyboo, making that decision is the first step. I decided for certain at the end of October and it's been something i'be wanted to do for about 10 years. I contacted my LA who had a social worker call me back. They then invited me to an open evening which was three weeks ago where I filled in my expression of interest and a week later got a letter inviting me on the foundation day on the 12th Jan. In the meantime I'm reading from the recommended list (ordered books from the library before the Xmas break and have read read read over the break) and begun doing financial plans, savings plans and spreadsheets , spare room sorting plans!

That is so exciting exercise!

There is an open evening in two weeks that we are going to attend just to get a bit more information before we get the ball rolling - which may be in a few months time depending on how DSD feels and after discussing it with our employers to see how in theory we could go about it!

I'm slightly concerned that the sooner we talk to DSD about it, the sooner she may mention it to her mum - I'm not sure if we should discuss it with her mum first? She has a 1 year old and is expecting us to announce a pregnancy any day now, so I don't think she will be against us adopting, but I don't know if she will try to turn the situation into an adopted sibling not being as 'real' as her half-sibling. So it's going to be a bumpy road ahead!

Kellyboo - keep in mind that as a step child is involved the social workers will want to speak to her and likely her mother too, this was mentioned at the open evening,
I'm really nervous about foundation day, I really hope there's other single adopters there who I connect with, it kind of hit me that I won't do the whole "NCT group" thing,,i'd like a group of friends in similar situation to connect with.
I think I'm prob being silly tho, I work as a nanny and my town has tons of mum and baby groups and although I tell people if they ask or comment on my charge that "oh I'm her nanny not mum" I often get comments like oh wow I thought she was yours! She's nearly 3 but I started when she was 10 months and treat her as I would my own child, give cuddles and she sits on my knee, would be a bit weird if I didn't!
I'm a bit of an over thinker...can you all tell!!

Kelly-boo our SW interviewed my dh ex-wife and his son and daughter to find out what kind of dad he was. They are aware that sometimes the exes can be bitter and troublesome, I think the only people that could prevent it happening would be the kids (if they had horror stories of dad's parenting). I wouldn't worry too much, SW ask what you think their response may be like and they can also refuse to be interviewed. They decided against interviewing my ex due to his personal circumstances. We didn't tell anyone until after prep groups and handing in the official application form, by then we were 100% sure it was the road for us. This gave everyone 6 months notice before being interviewed and in that time we updated them on everything we were learning like different backgrounds, possible issues, age ranges, parenting techniques like funnelling, attunement and attachment. I think it helped prepare our parents, siblings, friends and kids for their interviews.

EXERCISEJUNKIE our social worker put us in touch with other potential adopters at similar stages and also people who had adopted kids similar to what we wanted approved for. SW are keen to help you network with people in similar situations and it'll help them to demonstrate that you know what challenges you have ahead of you and you have a willingness to learn etc. There's so many courses beyond the prep group chances are you'll meet a few folk. We were told by our SW that there's also adoption days ran by the LA so adopted families can meet up and mingle and the kids see that they're not alone in their journey and help normalise adoption for them.

Had a brief chat with DSD this morning as to what adoption is, and how it's a really positive thing to do for a child, and she thought it was fantastic. I would have no issue with her being interviewed by SW.

With the ex - she has made things difficult in the past but things are quite chilled right now and everyone seems to have moved on. DH has DSD 50% of the time, and his ex is happy for me to have sorted my work hours to do two afternoon school runs a week, and maintenance is paid on time every week. She may not necessarily like me all that much but I'm not sure there's much she can say about us not being suitable to adopt, especially when she has encouraged me to take on greater parenting responsibilities of her DD. So fingers crossed! I think after we have attended the open evening and have made a decision, we will talk to the ex about it then.