Newbie

[Potentialadopter]

Hi all,
I’ve lurked on these boards for a long time but this is my first time posting in adoption. I’m a long time Mn but name changed as I have friends on here.

I have a young son (6). I am divorced from his dad due to DV, we’ve been split for 6 years since he was a small baby.

I’m newly married and we’ve been together 4 years. We’ve been TTC no 2 for 18 months now but nothing.

I’m a social worker (not adoption or children) but I work with adults often who have spent their lives in and out of the care system and or with chaotic parenting and broken attachments.

I’ve always been interested in adoption as a way of adding to our family eventually.

We’ve been thinking recently that rather than pursue IVF or similar we would rather look straight at adoption as a way of growing our family.

My questions are,
I know they speak to ex partners. For obvious reasons I would not want my ex husband contacted. I have worked extensively in therapy to build boundaries and work on the aftermath and I’m comfortable that I have dealt with it.
Would they insist on making contact?

Would the fact that I have an older child already make it more difficult to adopt?

I was looking at foster to adopt, I know there is always a risk of the baby being returned to their biological family. Are you able to do f2a with an older child?
DS has a friend at school who is adopted and has a step dad who he calls his second Daddy - we have talked a lot about the concept of biology and parenting and different families - and about reasons for adoption and how sometimes parents aren’t able to look after their children and give them all the things a baby needs like love etc...
But I would worry about the impact on him if we fostered a baby and it was returned to its biological parents - and obviously the impact on us! What is the likelihood?

Sorry for all the questions, I’m someone who likes to really investigate before even contacting our local authority!

Thank you so much I’m advance.

Your older child won't be an issue, although the children to usually have to arrive in the family in age order e.g. any child you adopt will have to be younger than your birth child.

Foster to adopt is worth looking into, again older child won't be a barrier, but you do have to think through and talk through the "what ifs"

I don't know about your ex partner, I suspect that if you have zero contact it might not be an issue but you'd have to get the LA or Agency's guidance on it.

This is just my opinion, but I'd be very wary of F2A with an existing child. It's one thing to take that risk on for yourselves, but that risk for a child, feels to me, unacceptable.

Adopting with an existing child gives you more to consider in matching, but it also gives you a degree of experience, even though parenting adopted children is quite different. Coming into a family with an existing child also works better for some children who've been used to living with other kids in FC.

On your ex, I've known people in similar situations and their ex has not been contacted. It's totally reasonable for you not to want that and I would expect SW to be sensitive to the situation.

Thank you both that is really helpful.

I completely get that raising an adopted child would bring challenges that I don’t currently face with my existing dS.

Good to know that they might not contact my ex.

I had worried about the impact of F2a with my DS. Perhaps a toddler would be less risky in terms of potential return.

It’s all so exciting ❤️

Your relationship with your ex will be scrutinised, especially as you have a child together. They will want to discuss not only what you've been through but also the impact of it on your child.

With regard to contacting your ex, you will need to ask for their policy on this. There was a serious case review during which they discovered that if they contacted the ex then information would've come to light about the adopter's past and that person would never have been allowed to adopt so the harm to the child in question would've been prevented. So contacting exes is done for a reason. Social workers are aware that they are exes for a reason and I'm sure that whoever you chose to adopt through will have policies covering your specific circumstances.

We did not do foster to adopt because we have dd of 12 and it would be too much for her as well as us if they went back

Foster to adopt is not for everyone but very worthwhile if you feel it is for you. It is extremely hard but depending on your personality and resilience it is possible to navigate through. Ultimately dealing with it and managing your emotions throughout all the possible highs, lows and outcomes will depend on your motivation to do it in the first place. If your motivation is simply to get a very young baby placed with you then don’t do it, too much risk. But if you can see and believe in the child centred nature of it then it is possible. By that I mean, you can see that you can accept whatever outcome (remaining with you or returning to birth family - parents or extended kinship family) as the right decision for the child. Giving the child an opportunity to be in their final home earlier if adoption becomes the plan for them is always the best. While they remain in care there is always the chance that they face multiple moves.

Now to you and your birth child. My DH and I have vast experience in concurrent care, a form of foster to adopt, and have experienced rehabilitating a child home. I can honestly say it was heartbreaking but we had bought into the process, fell in love with not just the child but their birth parents and truly supported to decision to move the child back home. We had become very proud of what the birth parents had achieved. We did cry lots, we grieved but we survived. We now have two beautiful adopted children and still see four plus years on our little one who continues to thrive at home.

We now support concurrent carers going through the process. Many of these people do do it with birth children. They all say it is hard on the children but the effect on them is not a barrier. One family we know of has faced reunification with a birth child. They believe the key for their son was in how they prepared him in the first place. They never prepared him for a little forever brother or sister, they simply prepared him to foster and what that meant (looking after while people tried to help their mummy and daddy to look after the child properly etc). Their birth child had no expectations that the child would be with them forever. If and when it was moving to adoption then they would look at what adoption meant with him. Children are much more resilient than we give them credit for. A birth child, who is securely attached, can cope with and often build resilience for life through a certain amount of loss and grief. Many birth children are part of families who foster and experience many moves of children and are able to deal with it with the right support and approach. I know I am going on here but what I am saying is don’t just rule out fta because of your birth child, they have much to gain from it as well.

Finally to you. Only you know what you can and can not cope with in terms of risk and loss. If you absolutely know you could not bear to hand over a child you had grown to love as your own then don’t do it. If you believe you could then explore it further when you begin the process. Pm me if you want to discuss f2a further.