How to tell your family your looking to adopt?

[sophie2105]

Hi everyone we are in the early stages of applying to adopt, we are not sure how to approach the subject and tell our family what's happening as we are not sure how they would react. Does anyone have any experience in this? Thank you

I expect most on here will have done this. The approach, I guess, depends on your circumstances -

In our case we have DD already, and weren't doing IVF, so we just had to bring it up 'out of the blue'.

The process is long, so DParents etc have plenty of time to get used to the idea before anything actually happens. (1-2 years is fairly common)

I just said sit down, I've got something to tell you. I would probably just tell parents first, because its a long process and it can get a bit tedious with people asking about it all the time.

Be prepared to answer some questions or tell them about the process. Do you think they might not approve ?

My mum was quite relieved because the last time I said that to her I was giving up my nice secure civil service job and going off to Africa for 6 months !

We chose not to tell anyone until we were approved (apart from referees) and I’m so glad we did this as it took a total of 35 months and as it was we were constantly asked questions.
It’s your choice. What suits you but everyone will be excited and keen to be updated.

Ours found out because they were down as referees and ss sent out forms before we had told anyone!

My DPs were supportive, but concerned for us. They knew we'd tried IVF a number of times.

To start with my Mum kept saying things like 'you wouldn't want a child with X'. So I had to explain really clearly that all the ACs were likely to have some sort of something, and it was up to us to work out what we could or couldn't cope with.

Our families have been unanimously supportive which has been really good.

We sat ours down once we'd decided to start the process. We wanted some to be referees and also we'd been told it would help strengthen our application if as many family members as possible did a course designed for friends and families of adopters so we went to get them on board with everything.

Be very careful about when you tell. The process can take ages. It’s a bit like telling someone you’re TTC...

Be prepared for prejudice, stupid questions etc. My DM, who is an educated women with a slight bit of professional background in the area was quite, shall we say, glum about what kind of children we would end up with. It was hard to deal with.

We now have the best children in the world.

Hindsight is a great thing. I wish I'd given our parents a bit more time to grieve for the grandchild they thought they'd have. I got very angry when they were lukewarm, said stupid things and some very negative ones.

I wish I could have looked forward to see the utterly doting set of grandparents she has now.

I would time it so its the end of a visit - give them space to take it in. Then steel yourself for some questions. And possibly an assumption you've not thought this through enough etc.

sophie2105 do you think they will not approve? If so, give them plenty of time but do not tell everyone.

Good luck.