Help me decode this email

[MashedHead]

DH received an email three days ago but has only just read it tonight. It's to tell us that our adopted child's birth mother has given birth to a new baby (we had no idea of pregnancy) and to phone them back. We have also worked out the the missed calls we had three days ago on both our phones were also from social services.

Now it's the weekend so we will have to wait until sodding Monday to phone them! Obviously we are now absolutely all over the place. We now have to wait and see if it is just an update or whether they might like us to have the new baby.

The email simply says:

"Dear X and X,
I have an update to share with you regarding your daughter's birth mother who has recently given birth. Please can you contact me so we can discuss this further"

My immediate questions are: would social services email us to simply let us know a sibling has been born even if birth mum can keep it? Is it likely the baby has literally only just been born? Or might it be a few months old? Are they likely phoning as part of a conclusion as to whether she or family can keep the child?

I know I know...nobody can tell me and speculating won't help us. Just wondering if anybody who adopted/was told about siblings could shed any light?

If they were just informing you I think they would say that so if pushed I'd say they are going to ask you to consider taking baby.

How do you feel about the idea of a new baby ?

Terrified and excited!

Well, we have had our daughter for 4years now. We are settled and we were just never in any rush for another one. We never worried about an age gap. Life happened and it was never the right time anyway. Recently it had been on our minds again...to the point where we have actually booked people in to redecorate our spare bedroom! Our daughter is settled and we are actually fine as a family of three but my heart has been swaying towards wanting another child.

I suppose the wording of "I want to share an update" made us think perhaps it was just a call to let us know rather than for us to consider a new child.

Very mixed emotions right now.

Would we have to do the stage courses again?! The email is from a stage 2 social worker...

It’s hard to say. We got a phone call from our lovely social worker from the first time round, saying, ‘remember I said I might call you? This is that call!’

The may be being noncommittal because they don’t want to pre-judge what you think and because there are processes to follow, don’t want to be seen to be ‘offering’ you the baby.

We did a mini stage 2 without the course (thank God).

We also did a much truncated stage 2 second time around, because most of our information was the same and they wanted the child placed asap.

I think it's very likely they will raise the possibility of the child coming to you, though things may be up in the air.

That sounds like they would like to consider you, especially as they rang you both too.
I don't think they would contact you they way they have unless they were going to ask if you were interested in applying.

Thank you all. Can't believe we have to wait until tomorrow to find out!

I have a little experience.

1. They have to inform you anyway

If they were involved when she was pregnant and thought placement from hospital likely they would have contacted you before - to avoid several moves for baby. This suggests that either she tried to keep the baby or family were being considered.

1. They may not be asking you yet, because if it is her half sibling - they will have to consider paternal side which can take a long time. If it is her full sibling they would have gone most of that with your daughter.
2. You will likely move straight to stage 2. As stage one is usually about references. They may look at school if your daughter is there, or updated Medicals for you.

Just to add with lockdown and homeschooling many SW are working very different hours to normal- so you could send your response by email and follow up with a call on Monday.- hope it's what you want x

Also there is specific training for 2nd time adopters

Ok, so they would tell us about a sibling whether or not the child was staying with birth mum? Yes it had occurred to me that biological dad may be able to care for the baby. The waiting is unbearable now!

My agency does not inform adoptive parents that either birth parent has had another child unless that child has a placement order (we live in Wales were foster to adopt does not exist). When we were told that our LO had a new sibling by her old FCs and we mentioned it at a training session, the trainer was horrified as it is a breach of privacy. In order to inform adopters of another sibling, the LA apparently should first apply to the courts for an order granting permission. Birth family do not necessarily need to be told that the order has been applied for/granted.

I believe they would tell you that your dd's bio Mum was pregnant. If they have decided the child is at risk, they will be making plans to put a care order in place, and if they decided that it maybe in line for adoption they will discuss this with you. I've known this happen to several adopters and they were given 'first refusal' for want of a better word, on the child, due to it being a sibling for their adc.

Ahhh! No further forward then. I bet you all anything that when I try to phone tomorrow (we emailed back last night) that the social worker will either be booked off on leave or not working that day!

When we were being assessed for DD her birth mother was already pregnant again and we were asked if we would consider adopting that baby as well. Friends of ours were considered for the sibling of their adopted child and they did adopt, the birth mum when on to have twins and our friends chose not to be considered for the as the older child was having some issues and they felt they needed to give all their attention to the children they already had. They do definitely consider placement with a sibling as one of the options.

I found assessment the second time around to be a lot quicker since everything prior to our first child hadn't changed so they only had to assess the current state of our family.

I think I'm just shocked because they have got in touch after the baby was born. This makes me think that birth mum potentially was given a chance to keep the baby OR that they were not aware she was pregnant. It's going to be a long day.

I think I'm just shocked because they have got in touch after the baby was born. This makes me think that birth mum potentially was given a chance to keep the baby OR that they were not aware she was pregnant. It's going to be a long day.

It could be that they didn't know she was pregnant, it's not unusual for women with chaotic lifestyles to go without any antenatal care and just turn up at a hospital in labour. It might also be that the team dealing with her hasn't informed the adoption team until the decision was made to remove the baby.

That’s what happened with our DS. SS didn’t know she was pregnant, she wasn’t getting any ante-natal care and moved a long way away to avoid being discovered. For reasons we don’t understand, she came back to the borough and tried to give birth, without medical assistance, at home. She and her DP had to call an ambulance half way through and that’s when DS was ‘discovered’ by officialdom.

So he was already born by the time SS told us.

Thanks all, I woke up at 4am and that was that! I really hope we can get in touch with SW today

She is on annual leave for a week. I knew it! We phoned around departments and somebody might get back to us today. I think it probably is just an update call then as surely she would have passed it on to someone else if they were desperately trying to a place a new baby.

Sigh.

I suspect it will be to update you and also if you are interested in adopting again. Happened to a friend of ours that took two young ones, and the mother just kept on having more babies which kept being taken. Ended up about 11 kids divided between three adoptive families

@MashedHead I really hope someone or your SW's manager can get back to you asap, fingers crossed!

If the baby has already been removed they will be with a foster carer and probably no adoption order yet. If the baby is still with birth mother but she is being assessed for her ability to care for her baby, they will probably be looking at parallel planning, i.e. looking at you as prospective adopters as a back up plan in the event that adoption is considered to be in the child's best interests. In both these scenarios it's not particularly urgent to get you on board, so I wouldn't read too much into the social worker going on holiday for a week without marking it urgent for a colleague to follow up.

Of course it could just be an update, but from what you've said I think it's unlikely.

Thank you so much all, we had a call back from a social worker who can't access the details as he is in a different department. However he took pity on my husband begging him and he is contacting the sw department to get them to phone us back. Argh! Honestly I've done nothing but dwell today. Literally got nothing done. I'm at work tomorrow and no doubt they will bloody call them!

Ok...we have information! Keeping it brief, baby is with birth mum at the moment with a lot of support in place. They did want to ask if we would be plan B and we said yes. It is unlikely baby will stay with birth mum but obviously they need to give her that chance.

The waiting time on all this and the back logs at the court means waiting 6months probably at a minimum...IF baby is put forward for adoption.

Not sure how to cope really. Realistically it will be a case of just put it out of my head until they get in touch...but let's face it, that is impossible. Ah, I remember the rollercoaster of emotions and endless waiting from the first time round! On the positive, we can get ourselves more sorted financially and have time to finish the decorating we were doing anyway...