adoptiong a second child

[desperateid]

I would be so grateful for any thoughts on adoption.

Situation is as follows. We have one child (biologically ours) and our in talks about a second. My other half is keen to have another of "our own", I'm not so keen. But I am keen on adopting - makes more sense to me when there are lots of unwanted children and when a new child is going to eat up lots of resources.

I'm made contact with uk adoption people who manage to be faintly discouraging without being unambiguously negative.

Thoughts/comments/experiences.

ty everyone

It's a difficult one but I guess if your DH is very against the idea, there's not really anywhere to go other than trying to change his mind which could be stressful to your relationship.

Is it a deep down longing to adopt a child, rather than have another biological child of your own or do you think?

It'd also be different if you couldn't have any of your own children and perhaps that's why your DH is hesitant.

I know what you mean about resources but it's a big decison that goes a lot deeper than resources.

Maybe have a big 'discussion' with yourself and then if you still really want to adopt, then tell your DH exactly why you want to.

Then if he agrees, take it further.

I think you need to sit down and talk. Why do you want to adopt rather than have another child naturally? Did you have a rough time first time around? Perhaps you need to look at your reasons for wanting to adopt and talk it through. my neighbour has adopted two beautiful children - but they can't have them naturally. Good on you I say - good luck with whatever you decide together

This is something we've been pondering for nearly 2 years now.

Dd(7) took us 7 years to conceive, and we've not been able to produce a sibling.

I always wanted a huge family, but as I'm 40 now I'm beginning to realise it's not going to be.

Dd is desperate for a sister, but although dh and I have discussed it again and again we've not taken it any further than an initial phone call.

I've got a feeling it'll be crunch time this year and we'll have to decide what to do, be it adoption, fostering or accepting that it will be just be the three of us.

It's a huge step, and you have to understand that most of the children up for adoption come with some sort of 'baggage' and it will not necessarily be an easy road.

you say that your motivation to adopt is that there are "lots of unwanted children". In the Uk there are indeed lots of children waiting for families, but these children are mostly black or mixed race, older( school age) and/or are in sibling groups. Nearly all of them will have special needs of one sort or another.

you woudl need to be very clear in your own minds why you did not want another bio child, as you woudl be questioned in detail about this. it goses without saying that you and your Dp woudl need to be absolutely in agreement about it.

you woudl also need to think about the impact it woudl have on the child you have alreday.

as you say, any adopted child will eat up a lot of resources - they will take up most of your time and energy for a long time, far FAR more than "average". Remember any child coming to you will have many moves of home and carer and often very traumatic life experiences, so they will probably be very demanding.

BTw just before anyone posts saying

"that's rubbish, Krsitina, we adopted a 6 week old healthy baby last year and she is totally undemanding and perfect in every way and we have a cast-iron guarantee that her development will continue to be on target from now to adulthood etc etc etc and that she has suffered no ill effect from her past etc etc and that she no adverse family history of anything etc etc....

i am talking IN GENERAL about waiting children in the UK today becase that is what the OP mentioned ( I assume thats what she meant by unwanted children). There are no "unwanted" NT healthy babies or young children in teh system - there are families queueing up to adopt them

sigh

Don't want to hijack this thread (may start another one), but are in a similar postion to OP and almost identical to Oogsfrog, after much deliberation have made an appt with an adoption agency in a months time (Families for Children - anyone have any experience of them?). We were told that there is more chance of a 'family breakdown' (whatever that means) where there is a natural child (DS is 7.5 and would love a sister) and an adopted child comes into the family, and local authorities were quite anti, but this agency had had some good experiences. Just looking for feedback from anyone who has been in this situation?