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Adoption

Here are some suggested organisations that offer expert advice on adoption.

Adoping, then conceiving a birth child.

41 replies

EmotionalFlamingo · 02/10/2020 20:45

My husband and I have adopted gorgeous siblings who we totally adore. We chose adoption as the route to complete our family after years of trying to conceive naturally. I have PCOS (confirmed by scans, blood tests, etc.) and we were told our only chance of ever having biological children would be IVF as I don't ovulate.

Anyway, fast forward, became approved adopters, got matched, siblings settling in beautifully (of course there are difficulties, but overall all things considered, they are amazing little humans who have settled wonderfully). And I think I may be pregnant (positive pregnancy tests, waiting to be confirmed through bloodwork).

Has anyone adopted and had a birth child after? I have met others through adoption groups that have had birth children then adopted. But not the other way around.

OP posts:
bunting1000 · 02/10/2020 22:19

Yes we have! Adopted two boys (we adopted as a first choice- no fertility issues) and then had a planned birth child a couple of years later. Not the standard way round of doing things it seems but it has been the best thing for our family. Our youngest is adored by his older brothers and he obviously knows no different. Our eldest very proudly tells his story of how he found our family and then we grew the littlest one! We often say he is as much theirs as he is ours, and having a baby seemed to really cement them in our family and their attachment too. If you are pregnant then I hope it works out as well for you- we did involved our adopted children the whole way through which helped.

lilymty · 03/10/2020 17:06

I'm currently going through this. Our daughter has been home a year & im 12 weeks pregnant after thinking i couldnt conceive.

EmotionalFlamingo · 03/10/2020 20:04

Thank you both for your replies. Flowers

If it turns out I am pregnant I will need a scan to see how far along I am as who knows when I actually ovulated. Until we have anything confirmed I dont want to get too ahead of ourselves - still trying to get over the shock ourselves as we were told it would never happen naturally. If we have, it is super exciting news!

My biggest concern is we don't yet have the adoption order for our siblings and I dont know what position this puts us in. Our paperwork is all submitted to the courts, and social workers think it would all go through smoothly (and hopefully before Christmas). If things are confirmed with pregnancy does anyone know where we stand with the adoption order? Would it affect it? The one thing that scares me more than anything would be this idea I have in my head that we could lose our children.

OP posts:
percypetulant · 03/10/2020 21:02

How close are you to adoption order? If at all possible, I would keep this quiet, and get the order through asap. Social workers are a funny bunch, and once you get that adoption order, you're free. If you're into placement, then there are fewer visits, and you could just be gaining weight through stress eating chocolate. I wouldn't risk disclosing a pregnancy to social workers at this stage.

Congratulations (I hope), I have no personal experience of this way round (as yet, I guess, you never know), and it can be a difficult path, I wish you all the best.

percypetulant · 03/10/2020 21:09

Sorry, I see you're very close.

SAY NOTHING!

Hope all goes well.

sassygromit · 03/10/2020 21:49

OP I would usually be very judgemental about anyone misleading professionals but here actually you just don't know what the situation is or will be and so there are many reasons to not start discussing it. Stressful conversations and long meetings are the very last thing you or a baby will need in the early months. Things have a way of working out for the best, I hope very much that it turns out as you want it to. Good luck! Flowers

sassygromit · 03/10/2020 21:50
  • I meant the early months of pregnancy
smeemoo · 04/10/2020 09:30

Wanted to just add that I don’t believe anything positive can come from bringing this up with a social worker. You sound like you’re doing wonderfully with your children, and I think bringing this up could lead to judgemental meetings with social workers that won’t really have any positive impact on your children or your own mental well being. I may be wrong and you may have wonderful social workers - but I can’t see anything good coming from telling them...

I hope it all works out for you - I think it sounds like you’re doing amazingly with your children - and whilst no personal experience of this- how wonderful that they get to be a part of it all.

Chicklette · 04/10/2020 11:18

Congratulations. I have no experience of this but have adopted siblings. As others have said, try to get adoption order ASAP and say nothing to SW. You know your kids and your family better than them and as long as you are confident and happy that it’s all gonna be Ok, that’s all that matters. SW have all the power at this point and things can change in a click of their fingers

Ted27 · 04/10/2020 12:10

I can’t imagine that a social worker would remove children from a settled home because of this.

Whilst some might think its less than ideal, life, (literally in your case !!) happens,
I do know a couple of adopters who this happened to and the SWs were fine.
Having said that, I don’t think you are obliged to tell them either, particularly as most people wouldn’t be making announcements until after the three month mark anyway.
I really do think you have nothing to worry about, try not to let anxiety marr what should be a happy time for your family.

EmotionalFlamingo · 04/10/2020 14:53

Thank you all so much for your comments. Flowers

Logically, next thing I need to do is speak to my doctor again. Which I plan to do Tuesday as thats when they said they'd get my blood test results back. Until then, I guess I have to sit tight and see. I have a lot of the early signs of pregnancy, but a lot also cross over with symptoms of PCOS and/or stress and are things I have felt before. But I've never had a positive pregnancy test in my life, alone several of different brands...

Perfect situation for us would it to be positive, but not too far along, partially to give the adoption order time to clear, partially to give us time to get our heads around something that we never ever thought would happen.

OP posts:
Jellycatspyjamas · 04/10/2020 15:54

Many congratulations - take some time to get over the shock, and surprise. You’ve done nothing wrong, and I know it was far from planned but it does complicate things quite a bit.

How long have your little ones been with you and how old are they? I can’t imagine any social worker wanting to disrupt placement because you’re pregnant, that would be way more harmful to your children than helping you support them through your pregnancy. I can however see any social worker worth their salt looking at the potential for the placement to break down regardless of everyone’s best intentions.

As a professional my concern would be you having the necessary physical, emotional and psychological resources to parent two small, traumatised children and a newborn. The potential is that the newborn takes priority because they’re the smallest, meaning the older children have to compete to have their needs met because all our resources are finite and in the best of circumstances new baby’s are a lot of work.

I’d start now thinking about how you’ll manage the competing demands of all your children whilst also recognising that a new baby may well trigger off all kinds of feelings (and behaviours) in your adopted children. One concern for social workers is that the adopted children become dysregulated, the parents can’t cope and begin to worry about the impact on the newborn (Eg if adopted children are triggered, become aggressive or violent towards the baby) with the result that the placement breaks down anyway. There are very good reasons for not placing children with parents who hope to conceive naturally, because 9/10 a parent will chose to protect their newborn, and the adoption breaks down usually with much heartache on all sides, but with very damaged children going back to the care system. I know that’s the furthest from your mind just now, but it’s far from an unusual occurrence.

In your case, there was no way to know that you’d become pregnant, and you’ve gone into adoption with ever good intention. I would however go against the advice to keep it quiet from social workers simply because you’re likely going to need their help even after the adoption order. You’ll need to consider what you’ll do if your children don’t cope, and what supports you might need. You’re not the first person it’s happened to and your social worker (or folk in their team) will have ideas about how to support you and your children. It’s very different to bringing a newborn into a bio family - and it sounds like your children are relatively recently placed (less than a year?), so the children won’t have a sense fully of being “family”. By way of example, my two were placed age 4 and 6, 3 years in and if we had to while my youngest would cope with a new addition, my oldest absolutely wouldn’t because she would always believe we love the new child better and much of her early years were spent not having her needs met in favour of younger siblings.

In these circumstances you need to give consideration not just to what you want, and what you hope for but what these little ones, that you’ve made a lifelong commitment to, can cope with too and what needs to be in place to help that.

It shouldn’t impact the adoption order being granted, but if you’ve got a court date and can wait to tell social work, that’s a decision for you to make. I know I’m being the voice of doom here (reinforcing all the “judges social worker” comments too boot) and I don’t want to cause you any upset or anxiety, but I want to be honest about why social workers might have concerns. Sometimes things work out really well but rarely without a lot of work, consideration and flexibility on all sides. I hope all goes well at the doctors and that you have a safe, healthy, happy pregnancy.

Jellycatspyjamas · 04/10/2020 16:25

Sorry, I meant to add that I wanted to explain why social workers might have concerns, we’re not all power hungry, judgemental creatures just waiting to pounce. There are very good reasons for wanting to know which are wholly about the development and care of the adopted children. It’s not a case of cross your fingers and hope for the best, the adoption order won’t change the impact on newly placed children of mum having a baby and like most things, the earlier there’s support in place the better.

percypetulant · 04/10/2020 16:44

I'd be worried whether the "support" is supporting is 50:50, though.

I know there are many excellent, sensible, social workers looking out for children.

Unfortunately, there are also some who aren't. And I've experienced them. And the "welfare of the child" (in this case children) is often not given the primacy it deserves.

If the AO is Christmas, then you have time to settle in to pregnancy, and still time to seek eary support. But with the benefit of the AO.

vjg13 · 05/10/2020 19:33

I am an adoptee with an older adopted sibling and a sibling a year younger than me who was my parents' birth child. Being totally honest it was really difficult, my adopted mother resented not having more birth children whilst struggling to cope with the family she had. Youngest child was the golden child and it was a tricky family dynamic.

sassygromit · 06/10/2020 13:03

OP, a PS to my post above is that you will be asked by your midwife/dr about your family situation and they may well have professional input and good advice as to what you need/can do in relation to informing SWs here.

sassygromit · 06/10/2020 13:06

*need to do/can do/should do...

sassygromit · 06/10/2020 13:08

@vjg13 that sounds tough Flowers

scallybrice · 07/10/2020 14:17

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RainbowRaine · 07/10/2020 14:34

@EmotionalFlamingo as others have said keep quiet for as long as possible and get the paperwork arranged ASAP.

EmotionalFlamingo · 07/10/2020 15:52

Thank you all.

We had a scan this morning.. I am indeed pregnant. And further along than anyone could ever have anticipated. Todays scan was a quick one, confirmed heartbeat, and gave an estimated due date of January! I honestly 100% did not know or anticipate this ever happening and my head is a bit of a whirlwind. We have a more detailed/longer scan early next week.

I think we both need to get our heads around everything. With a due date of around the same time the adoption order is due I think even thinking about not telling social workers is out of the question really.. but we do want to get better grips with everything ourselves, maybe have our more detailed scan next week, then speak to our social worker.

I am scared to tell them... Almost feel like a naughty child being sent to the headteacher (at best) and at worst my head is rushing through all these scenarios where they take our children back from us. We've been lucky with social workers, both ours and our children have fab social workers. But I'm still super nervous.

OP posts:
nevernotstruggling · 07/10/2020 16:19

There's some crap advice on here.

You were advised during the assessment process to use contraception for a reason.

Phone the sw immediately.

Jellycatspyjamas · 07/10/2020 16:20

I am scared to tell them... Almost feel like a naughty child being sent to the headteacher (at best) and at worst my head is rushing through all these scenarios where they take our children back from us. We've been lucky with social workers, both ours and our children have fab social workers. But I'm still super nervous.

Many congratulations - that’s such lovely news though I can imagine it’s also a bit of a shock and you’ll need time to get your head around it.

Please try not to be anxious about telling social work, it’s honestly not that unusual - they’ll have dealt with similar in the past, I know I have in my practice.

They have no reason to remove your children - on a purely practical level, placements for children are hard to come by and expensive so unless there’s a really pressing reason, they’ll do all they can to support you and the children in your care. There are much more challenging circumstance that arise early in adoption and most social workers want to avoid a breakdown in placement as far as possible. You’ve not done anything wrong so please don’t let this cloud the lovely, albeit unexpected pregnancy.

I hope everything goes well for your next scan and in your pregnancy.

Jellycatspyjamas · 07/10/2020 16:26

You were advised during the assessment process to use contraception for a reason.

That’s more than a bit unfair, advice often is to use contraception but when you’ve been trying for many years, and have been told categorically that you can’t conceive it’s not unreasonable to not continue with contraception. The OP has done nothing wrong here, and certainly doesn’t need a telling off from anyone.

theboardgame · 07/10/2020 17:16

due date of January** that is not an early pregnancy. You will show by now.