Fertility Test for Social workers benefit ? And Ours?

[selly24]

If you have not had children ttc in the usual way or gone down the path of ivf ( has never appealed to me) Do SW still want to see that you in some waz investigated the chances of a couple having a biological child ie do they like to see documents Have medical proof that say For example “due to xyz ( age, poor sperm, low Ovarian Reserve etc ) this couple have a v low chance of conceiving naturally“. They have no interest in pursuing fertility treatments avd have therefore concluded that adoption is the right choice for them.

Wondering if it is worth us both going for a fertility MOT to rubber stamp our decision - who’s benefit is this for!?.. is it needed / good idea?

We have never TTC and don’t know of any reason why we wouldn’t be able to. Our SW just wanted to know why we wanted to adopt rather than TTC and confirm that we were using birth control. There were several ‘what if’ conversations but we were very determined about our decision.

I know they like there to be a gap between TTC and starting the adoption process so that people have time to grieve having a birth child though.

We had a birth son and were told that despite DH being infertile, I had to go on contraception to prove our committment. I think their fear is that they will invest time and money in you and you will back out in favour of a birth child.

absolutely not. They will want to talk you about your decisions but wanting to know the fine details of your fertility treatment and reasons for it ( or not ) would be way overstepping boundaries.

Thanks for the feedback. We haven’t had any fertility treatment and have started and stalled the Adoption process due to health and job reasons - all stable now -so this is third time lucky!

So am I right in thinking the consensus is that explaining to SW that we are committed to adoption and have ruled out birth children (‘never came along’ and have now written off ttc even with fertility treatments because our ages (40s) make the chances of even an assisted conception very low).

We adopted as we failed to conceive after DS.
They just wanted to know why we chose to apply to adopt. I was too old by then to have any IVF and with 2 previous MC before DS we hadn't had any previous fertility problems.
They did say that if we'd had IVF we'd need to wait a year to allow us to 'grieve for the loss of our biological child'
We didn't have to prove anything to them.

We just had to confirm (verbally) that we were using contraception. No details just that we were using contraception.

Would going for more tests help you feel more secure in your decision to adopt? (You don’t have to answer. You just added that in at the end)

You don’t need to explain why you didn’t go for assisted conception or provide confirmation you’re using contraception - the process is intrusive, but that would be overstepping the mark by some distance.

We vaguely tried for a few months while mulling it over but really adoption was always our primary choice.

I heard that some SWs are a little wary of those who adopt from desire rather than necessity but we found it only a selling point.

One agency told us they wanted us on the pill before they'd even speak to us but most just want to know you've ruled out getting pregant and will ensure that doesn't happen during the process.

All that said I think there is one important issue to consider:

Are you completely happy with the decision to adopt rather than have biological children? If there is any doubt in your mind I think you should have the tests and talk with a doctor about your chances.

I had to show I was using contraception to prevent a pregnancy, I’m a gay man...

I wouldn’t bother with fertility tests unless you want it anyway, but you will need to agree to use some form of contraception.

@SimonJT

I suppose you have to give your SW top marks for applying equality policies there

I had to show I was using contraception to prevent a pregnancy, I’m a gay man...

That would have been a very interesting home visit - I’m assuming they wanted a practical demonstration

@Jellycatspyjamas

I had to show I was using contraception to prevent a pregnancy, I’m a gay man...

That would have been a very interesting home visit - I’m assuming they wanted a practical demonstration

🤢

I thought she was joking, so I let out a very little laugh, she then shouted at me for a good five minutes about it being an extremely serious issue. After that if there was anything she disliked she would shout orders, she ‘sadly’ left and was replaced by a nice and normal social worker thank god.

She sounds like a fruitcake - she’d have shouted at me once...