Adoption

[motherone]

My husband I were considering adoption when I fell pregnant after two traumatic miscarriages. We have a lovely little boy who I adore but I always planned to have two children but now I have develop condition that means I can't have any more children. So we have talked about adoption again we planned on having more children this route. We have been to an information evening and are gonna proceed. Has anyone been through adoption? Are there anything I should be aware of that took you by surprise?

Hi @motherone!
My husband and I are in the early stages of considering this route. We’re still waiting for the info evening to come up but we’re not thinking of it for a couple of years so not rushing yet!
There are some really interesting posts on here about adoption.. from adopters, birth parents, adoptees.. they all help to give a really broad range of experiences for you to tap into. I spend some time every now and then just reading through old and new posts.

I’ve also found listening to the Adoption and Fostering Podcast quite helpful.. they interview a whole range of people involved in the process as well as adopters and adoptees. I listen in the car during my commute!

I started a thread on here about adoption preparation advice and some people gave great tips and a reading list.. hopefully you can find it and maybe join in the conversation?!

Either way, welcome to the journey... keep us posted with how you’re getting on! 🙂

Hi OP, how old is your son? Your youngest child must be 2 years older than any exsisting children in the house so you are likely to be told that your son needs to be 3 when you start the process as there are not many babies in the system.
It can be a long invasive process but totally worth it.

My oldest is nearly three

@motherofone

The first thing you wiil need to get your head around is that parenting an adopted child will not be the same as parenting your birth child.
The chances of adopted childen having additional needs are high - you should be resarching attachment, developmental trauma, sensory processing disorders, learning difficulties and disabilties, Feotal Alcohol Syndrome for starters.
Adopted children can be very challenging and complex. One of you will be required to take a significant period of adoption leave, many people find they are unable to return to work full time.
There are a couple of current threads from adopters in the early days which it would be useful for you to read,

I am interested in adoption, reading your post Ted is it a given that all adoptive children will have developmental delays/special needs/disabilities?
I know a few adopted children (adopted in the last 5 years) who don't have any of these issues - they were adopted at both though?

Birth

@hairtoss

adoption is a complicated business. You may not have noticed that I used the word 'additional ' needs not special. This was a deliberate choice of words. Of course not all children will be developmentally delayed, have special educational needs or be disabled. However, the needs of adopted children can be much deeper or wider than that - emotional, psychological, mental health, trauma related.
Don't lose sight of the face that children are removed for a reason, alcohol and or drug abuse, neglect, physical, sexual or emotional abuse of the child, parents may have mental health issues or learning difficulties. These things will impact on the child to a greater or lessor extent.
This is why adoption is such a risk for the adoper - you can never be certain how things will pan out. The east to place 'healthy' baby may become very challenging when they get to school, they may sail through the early years only for the wheels to come off in the teenage years (apologies for mixed metaphor!) My son has ASD, a learning difficulty, is very anxious - at 15 he is doing ok, but we have hard several years of traumatic therapy to get us here.
Many adopted children do well, have happy, successful lives but it often takes a lot of hard work to get them there.

@motherone i'm sorry to hear of your miscarriages but delighted you have your son.

We have a birth dd and I was told I would have no more with my eggs. Years later and many attempts, including donor eggs, and the doctors were right. When dd was 9 we adopted a little boy of 3.

My son is relatively easy but that is probably because my birth child is on the autistic spectrum and is very difficult at times.

All adopted children have suffered the loss of birth parents, and many will have had losses of foster carers so many losses before finding a family.

The fact they are sometimes very young when that happened does not mean it doesn't leave potential issues for them.

Many, like my son, will have experienced neglect at an early stage in life. This can lay down a sort of blue print and mean their brain does not develop in the way it should. Theraputic input, good nurturing etc can help to turn these things around but it is not easy and it does require work. Our son has been with us over 5 years and we are again getting some post adoption support to help him.

@hairtoss wee the children adopted at birth in the UK? It's quite rare but does happen through something called concurrent planning, I think, or foster to adopt.

Teachers and people who meet our on find him a delightful (and gorgeous - if I say so myself) little boy and many would not guess he is adopted. He can keep some of his challenging behavior for home. Just as my autistic daughter does.

For me adoption is 100% worth while and great but it is not easy.

The age at which children are adopted is not necessarily an indicator or how they will or will not have issues etc later. Some factors do seem to be relevant, e.g. having lots of carers early on (lots of moves and different foster cares) or poor foster carers (my son's foster carers were amazingly good), or having been exposed to alcohol at high levels invitro etc etc and can make things especially challenging for children, as you would imagine.

So all adopted children are different, have different experiences but largely these experiences are quite negative and many may have more than one of alcohol abuse/drug abuse in family/domestic violence/mental health issues/learning difficulties/etc.

The good news (I think) is that more and more now we are learning what these things do to children and how to try and change things, how to parent therapeutically and improve the lives of our kids.

So it is not a bleak picture at all but it is not an easy one. If children are fostered and then adopted from birth by the same person this cuts out the chance of multiple carers and this would mean things were much more stable for the child. But the only way this will happen (as far as i am aware) is if the birth mum relinquishes the baby (rare in the UK, IMHO) or if the family have lost other children to adoption already.