Birth mother pregnant again. Don't know what to do.

[Rainatnight]

Apologies, this is long. Please feel free to fast forward to the actual questions at the end.

DD is two and a bit, was placed nearly 18 months ago. Doing really well, we love her enormously and she is amazing.

I'd always assumed I'd have two kids, and up till recently really hankered after a second. Looked slightly longingly at families with a toddler and a baby, that kind of thing. And in fact, when I heard of people who had adopted and were getting a second, I felt quite envious.

But then, those feelings went away and I began to feel as though things were just perfect the way they are. DD is doing really well, DP and I are on the old side, let's just leave it as it is.

And THEN - we found out a few days ago that BM is pregnant again - due next month - and I'm completely thrown.

I feel really, really ambivalent and I don't know what to do for the best.

It would be so lovely for DD to have a full sibling in the same family (she has lots of halves, whom she can't have contact with). And, like I say, I thought this was the family I always wanted.

But I worry about so much. The impact on DD now - quite newly placed and being 'ousted' from her position - and the impact on her in the long term, because we just don't know how a new baby will turn out. That's my biggest worry.

And then there's just the feeling of not rocking a steady boat. And if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And other clichés about the value of the status quo.

And we'd find it tricky though not impossible professionally and financially. I'm not long back at work after taking time out to look after DD, and DP is adamant it's a bad time in her work (I don't quite get that but that may be a whole other thread, and it could just be a panic reaction for which I don't blame her!).

And we are OLD. (Have I mentioned? ) Extending the baby years and feeling more tired feels a bit scary at the moment.

And yet, and yet. DD's little sibling. And DD has brought us SO much joy. Who can argue against more joy?

So my questions are:

If you've been in this position, what did you do and why?

How have you found the shift from one to two, if that's what you've done (through whatever means)?

Thank you for reading.

We adopted for a second time just over a year after our first two came home and are glad we did. Can’t imagine our family being missing the littlest. We did however know BM was pregnant when we were approved for the first two so alway ‘knew’ we would have three. Sadly since then BM has had more children and as heartbreaking as it was we were unable to take any more children. We felt the impact on the lives of our existing children would be far too great, and opted not to take number 4. We do meet up once a year for a day out though which is always lovely. I think you need to consider what you really want.

We have been wondering what we would do in the same corcumstance! Honestly, word for word your post! Although I’ve gone from being 99% sure we are happy with just one to being very broody. I think we would adopt a sibling but I’m not sure if we would adopt from a different family. We are going to discuss it again in a year when our dd is 4. Unless BM has other ideas...it’s so tricky.

I have two, one BS and one AD, I found out Ads mum was expecting again last year and asked if we wanted to be considered. It was such a hard decision and after a lot. If soul searching we decided not to. I just felt that as we stand now things are great, we have the time and energy to devote to our two and particularly the challenges our smallest throws at us. We had to draw a line under our family but found the decision a huge heart vs head battle. Good luck with whatever you decide.

Gosh. I don’t know what I would do in your situation, OP. Bizarrely my DH says that of course if a birth sibling came along - we would adopt - and I just don’t know. It’s partly because I am perpetually exhausted and I feel as though I have aged and we are getting on (42 and 52).

We adopted DS1 almost 5 years ago, then adopted again almost 2 years ago. When we decided to go for it again, I thought it wouldn’t happen - and yet 4 months after starting the process for no 2 we were matched. Instead of feeling europhic, I felt sick. We had quite a lot of medical concerns so it took a while and I remember almost always hoping that something would crop up which would mean DS2 wasn’t right for us. But nothing did. Then, they wanted us to go ahead but I was still dithering - I couldn’t sleep and didn’t sleep for 4 months with lots of worry. Was I doing the right thing for DS1, for our family? Were we too old? I also didn’t really relish the toddler stage. I liked how everything had turned out and I felt that we had rolled the dice and everything had worked out fine. Would we be so lucky again?

To this day, I am not sure why I decided to bite the bullet again and go for it - and even though it had been hard, I don’t regret it at all and am so happy both my boys have each other.

Ask the question to yourself - if the SWs said “you are dithering too much, we have now found another family.” How would you feel? Relieved or sad? Maybe that might help you make the decision.

Good luck. And neither decision will be wrong.

Good advice above. When I was looking at profiles I looked at one of a sibling group who were older than what I had in mind. I was dithering and my sw asked what would I do if the decision was taken out of my hands. I realised I would be relieved so knew it wasn't to be. Very soon after I was matched to my daughters and it felt right from the off. I did think of the sibling group for a while afterwards and was thrilled to hear that they did find their forever one eventually.

Our third adoption was a sibling and recently considered another sibling! From our own experience it’s an incredibly tough, draining journey. Both times we were given very little info on sibling or time scales and each time another month passed and LO got older it was so stressful not knowing when proceedings would be at a stage that they could share more info or give us time scales. LO was nearly 7 months by the time he was placed with us which is young in the world of Adoption but at that age it had much more of an impact on him and our existing children. From the time we were told about the pregnancy though that was nearly a year of being left in limbo! Hope you have a better experience though, I’d advise pushing for F2A and early permanency, the younger baby is the less impact on your existing LO but that’s just from my experiences. Best of luck.

Thank you so much for your really helpful and insightful responses. They've really helped and I've thought a lot about them.

BM has had the baby, there's an ICO, and communication from the LA has been frankly shocking.

We are still making up our minds, but inching towards going for it.

Good luck with whatever you decide @Rainatnight 💐💐

You can look at it from two perspectives. One your family is complete. We have one son and we love having just one child. We decided not to try for a second.
We have so much freedom. He goes everywhere with us and we can afford to give him lots of time.
Also the new baby can make another family as happy as you are now.
Our son loves being an only child.
If right now isn't the right time then accept that one child makes your little family complete.

Gosh - I came on here to post something very similar. It’s interesting to read others experiences. Apologies if I should actually be starting a new thread.

We adopted DS1 two years ago (age 10 months). He’s attached really well, we’re waiting for a paeds referral as we think he has some development delay (birth mum has learning difficulties). He gets lots of support from us and his pre school.

We had contacted a LA to start the process for adopting again and they’ve asked us to wait until we have a diagnosis for DS1.

In the meantime we’ve been told by the LA we adopted DS1 through that birth mum is pregnant again and due in a few months. We’d decided not to apply again through this LA as we didn’t have a great experience with them.

There’s a long waiting list for a paeds appointment. Has anyone else been asked to wait in these circumstances? We would be over the moon if we were able to adopt a full sibling (subject to new baby being removed, but very likely).

I don’t know why we’ve been told there is a new baby due when a decision hasn’t been made on their future. It’s very difficult to try and put it to the back of our minds. Also find it very frustrating that we can’t at least start the stage 2 process until we know more about our little chap. We have pushed our health visitor to get him some more support with his gross motor and speech but having to wait for this paeds referral.

We too are old and tired and worried about how we’ll cope!

Some really good posts here. We adopted one at 18mths then had to make the decision to do the same with a baby only 17mths younger. Went for it and it was the best decision, despite there being some very challenging times.

We are now faced with the birth mother being pregnant again...