Adoption social work ask for embryos to be destroyed

[patrick80]

My DW and I have been trying to have children for years without success. This culminated in us spending a lot of money on IVF which too was unsuccessful. We decided that the emotional stress (and financial stress) was too much and so gave up on IVF. Now a couple of years later we are going through the adoption process and obviously the IVF came up. During a discussion with the social worker, it was mentioned that we had some frozen embryos which are still being stored (not that we have any plans to use them). The SW told us it would count against us unless we had them destroyed. I am being unreasonable in thinking this request was completely unacceptable?

fizzypoo, do you know? Have you a link? (Because that doesn’t sound like anything I recognise.)

Not on my phone, but when doing dissertation research my lit review was around placement instability of looked after children. Adoption figures of moving back into the care system are on the same tables. It's pretty shit and one of the reasons is (not exact words) adoptive parents having biological children.

I also work with yp who have experienced parental rejection and then adoption rejection. It's heartbreaking and I salute any SW who ensures to the best of their ability that the child who is being adopted doesn't have to go through that.

@patrick80
I have re read your OP. What exactly did the SW say.

You say she said it could count against you if you did not destroy the embryos.
Did she say she would not continue with the assessment unless you did? Did she say you must destroy them?
Ultimately its your choice whether it not you do. It's her job to make sure you are 100% committed to adoption.
If you can find another way of doing that then great, but at the moment it appears she may have doubts about your commitment.
You could crack on with your assessment and see what panel say.
Yes adopted parents are held to different standards than other parents because we are entrusted with children who have been very badly let down by their birth families, who have been traumatised, neglected and abused and the effects of that will be life long. There are many many things that we have to deal with that non adopters don't, and that includes parents with children with disabilities. You have to be tough, resilient, problem solving, you have to rise to the challenge. This is your first challenge on the adoption journey, how, or if , you choose to deal with it is up to you.

Just adding my two cents. There’s a lot of drama being banded about on this thread. I have biological and adopted children. I did not go to ‘hell and back‘ to adopt and my adopted DC whilst taking a few months to adjust is fine. They wanted to ensure the best match for the child.

I will admit that I had a great social worker who is also a parent so knows reality whereas many seem to live in theory land. Some social workers are a bit overzealous so just tell them you’ve destroyed the embryo. They can’t ask the clinic. However, for the adopted child sake, do not try and use those embroys for at least 2 years after the child’s has been placed.

I’ve heard of social workers asking all kinds of ridiculous things like people should give up jobs etc and the other adopters I know just nod and keep their job, they can’t make you resign after you’ve got the child. They’ve probably already moved on to the next case anyway so as long as the child is loved and cared for they won’t be stressing you for stupid shit. People have bills to pay. Do they really expect sensible people to give up jobs and claim benefits to adopt? Don’t think so.

If you knew how many adoptive DC end up back in the care system with even more trauma and rejection because the adoption fails as the adoptive parents conceive a DC then you would understand why there are preventive steps SW want to take to avoid that.

Which is something that cannot be controlled with couples who are fertile or borderline infertile.

The line between fertile and infertile is not clear cut.

@Tellmetruth4 gives excellent advice.

As the op said, it was a suggestion that it might not go in their favour if they keep them. In the same way that prospective adopters are often asked if they would give up pets (after cases where children with previously unknown allergies have been placed with animals, allergies have emerged and the adopters have chosen the pets over the child and the child has been 'sent back'). Adoption must not and cannot be second best; if the embryos are kept, the adoption panel will undoubtedly ask why and what you expect to do with them. So you would need a very good answer. While it is very rare that some adopters might go on to have a biological child, it is very much expected that adopters' biological children have already been brought into the world, so that adopted children do not face any more potential rejection.
And fwiw I genuinely could not have brought a child into the world who is more my own than my child; the language around adoption needs to change.

They're putting any potential children of yours first. If you can't put their needs above your own wants then you need to take action ie get some counselling for infertility grief, or try another round of IVF instead of adopting, or some other option that I'm sure your SW would be able to discuss with you.

@TatianaLarina @Tellmetruth4

the absolute worst thing you can do is to lie to your social worker. You would have to maintain that lie in writing in your report, and in front of panel, one lie leads to another. It will comes out and when it does then game over, You will destroy the trust of your social worker and it will be very hard to overcome that. if there is one thing SWs hate its deceit.

My SW became convinced I'd lied about something when I hadnt, I was left trying to prove a negative, it wasn't very pleasant and it took a lot of work to pull it back.

@WTCT -Adoptive parent here too. Lots of adoption in our family, my own dad, my husband and his father as well as our son. Our children are hard fought for and my son is my own. I get reaaaaaallly annoyed when people don't think about what they are saying. No excuse or start asking questions like. Did his mum not want him? WTAF. Being a mum to an adopted child is a battle hard won without thoughtless language.

@CakeandCustard28 Its crappy attitudes like yours that make my blood boil. Do you not think my son who is adopted is every bit my own? Educate yourself.

SW have no way of accessing medical records, they are covered by data protection.

At first I was outraged on your behalf but after thinking about it I can see why they would ask.
However I agree with pp that surely having you agree not to use the embryos for x amout of time would be more favorable. I cant imagine deciding to destroy your embryos is an easy one to make.

Appalling I think,m, but not surprising from my experience.

How many embryos have you got left? Can you get a loan? My advice from and only from my experience is that this is only the tip of the iceberg it’s about to get a lot rougher. Like one of the previous posters said I would rather go through 36 rounds of IVF than the adoption process. We’re a lovely hardworking professional couple and I’ve never been made to feel so worthless or desperate than by adoption social workers.

There’s no way on earth I would be destroying those embryos only anyone whose been through the process knows the blood sweat and tears that will have gone into getting them. Have you looked at embryo screening? My advice is look into that. Dig deep, do whatever you have to do counselling, yoga, meditation get a loan if you need to and get them used.

OP I think you should use those embryos and see what happens. Take the IVF to its complete and final conclusion. Absolutely go into it knowing that this is the last and final chance.
If it works brilliant, if it fails, then you've completed the IVF road. You no longer have it in the back of your mind those embryos could become a baby. You are then 100% ready to move on.

I can totally get the logic that you want to try for adoption and if it fails try again with the FET. But actually its probably easier to do the FET first get it out of the way.

For friends who adopted and friends of friends who were going through it at the same time. They seemed to have a very similar story, a year for approval, various attempts at the matching process, and then a crazy 5 month delay after matching. From beginning filling forms to child coming home 2.5 years!
It would be so so tempting during those delays and reject at the matching process to say "let's try that embryo".

I think this is why social workers prefer gay adopters.

PanicandRun and Blackbear19 speak a lot of sense.
Coming to adoption from failed IVF is different to coming from adoption to add to your family.
Also most adoptions now are not babies from healthy unmarried mums as they used to be (I was one of those adopted babies in the 1960s). Even if you adopt a baby they are more than likely coming from a mother with drink/drug problems which can have a huge impact on that child (but not necessarily fully known at the time of adoption). There will be many issues you will have to deal with and SW need to know you will be fully committed.

For some children being adopted, it could cause them even more trauma if another sibling was thrown into the mix.

@stairway and single adopters too.

Totally agree also that many adopted children could not cope with an additional sibling. Mine certainly couldn't.

Well, what are you planning on doing with the embryos??

Thing is, adopters can’t have it both ways.

At the moment we have ‘my adopted children are so special they couldn’t cope with XYZ’

And

‘My adopted children are just like my birth children, no difference and I will get angry over lexical references that everyone fully understands.’

Which is it?

@thehareandthemoon
Neither. Any decent parent puts their child first. Your comment makes no sense.

There's no link between needs and parentage, so you definitely can have both.

Just like a biological child with severe needs that can't cope with x,y,z is not less loved or less part of the family because of their needs.

The fuck?

@patrick80, as you will be aware, lots of factors might potentially ‘count against you’ during the approval process — poor health, a high BMI without any commitment to lowering it, or if you refused to commit to giving up a beloved pet if it turned out that your child was allergic, frightened of, or cruel to it, or if you said both of you definitely needed to work full time, whatever the child’s needs, and would not consider otherwise etc.

Surely you can see the sense in these in terms of trying to ensure a secure placement, although no one could require similar of birth parents?

TheHare
Adopted children are ours, we feel as connected to them as other parents.
But adoptive parenting is parenting+ . Many children are deeply impacted by their experiences before being placed for adoption, which can come out, sometimes years later, in numerous ways. There is also ongoing contact in some form with the birth parents. We can be quite 'othered' by other parents in the schoolyard, in a similar way to those parents of SN children. And of course many adopted children also have SN too.

Personally I don't get too upset by 'own children' as I tend to feel it comes from people just not knowing the 'right' words. I object more to 'real parents'. I'm not that keen on 'adopting' animals at zoos either, as I would prefer 'sponsor'. However I do understand why some adopters get upset/cross about the use of 'own and other words.

Oh and to dismiss the trauma,abuse, disabilities,attachment issues etc as "so special" is a really twattish move.