Anyone else choose adoption before TTC?

[user1479136681]

We're a same sex couple and decided to adopt rather than going the donor route. There must be other people who didn't try to conceive but I've never met anyone else!

We're also a same sex couple and have done the same. Some people have asked why we haven't tried the sperm donor route but it just didn't feel right. I don't think we'd be going through the process of we didn't have friends who fostered though.

Yep, we aren't a same sex couple but have decided to go down the adoption route and have never TTC

We are a heterosexual couple in our early 30s who have adopted and never TTC 😀

I have always worked with children with complex needs and really wanted to parent a child. Our wonderful son was considered ‘unadoptable’ right from the start due to his complex needs but we love him absolutely to bits!

We won’t TTC now, we have our child, he spends lots of time in and out of hospital and needs a high amount of input so I would worry about trying to balance the needs of a sibling.

I know a few people who adoption was their first choice

We are a heterosexual couple and adoption is out first choice. Only just starting out though. I would be interested in hearing from anyone further along as to how the process but also explaining to family etc has been for them.

There are dozens of us!! Our age really set us apart during training (lovely group though!). Sometimes I get a little bit of FOMO having done this as it seems unlikely we'll ever ttc in the future and I wish I could have had that little baby for a bit longer - our son is now firmly into independent toddler territory. It would be nice if he stayed where we put him sometimes 🤣

I get what you mean entirely! Adopting our son is the best thing we have ever done, we wouldn’t change it or him for the world. I didn’t feel any need to be pregnant or to have a genetic link to our child. My only sadness is that we missed his first year of life and that we weren’t his parents yet so couldn’t support him during his very challenging first year.

@Somuddled congratulations on starting your adoption journey 😃 it is a long and frustrating process at times but 100% worth it! Our close families completely understood that we wanted to adopt but some members of our extended family and friends didn’t get it to start with. Our son has been home for a few years though and although everyone knows he is adopted he is just part of our family

Heterosexual couple and we didn’t TTC. It wasn’t for us. Brought up in a family where DNA didn’t matter so adoption was something we wanted to do. 100% the best decision we made. Our LO is the best thing in our lives. I don’t regret not having a biological child for a second. We worked blooming hard for our LO and it proves to everyone how much our LO was wanted, even before they were born.

somuddled a good thing to check out is Aimee vlog on you tube shes done a video on telling family etc, she also made adoption her first choice.

Hetro couple here too, and didn't TTC as family came with adoptions, long term fostering and 'uncles, aunts, cousins' a plenty who didn't share the same DNA so seemed a natural step. Don't regret any of the way we became parents and most family and friends have embraced it with us.

I too wish he was that chubby baby at times but also starting to enjoy the toddler phase.

@SFCA thank you for the recommendation. I did stumble across her a while ago and have found some of her content useful. On the other hand, her route, choices and background are very different to ours. Will look up the telling family one though. I do generally enjoy watching vloggers so if anyone has other recommendations that would be grand.

We are a couple with infertility and adoption was our first choice. - after researching fertility treatment we felt strongly that the risks and emotional highs and lows of adoption over those associated with donor egg IVF were more suited to us xxx

It's really great to hear all your perspectives and stories and reasons for adopting, thanks for sharing :) there are more of us than we thought! The only thing I really wish is that I could have had my son as a newborn, to keep him safe. I never really wanted to get pregnant but I feel myself becoming like, more maternal now and wishing I could have done that for him! It's also taken longer to bond than I thought it would but feeling that love grow is amazing.

That grief is an important part of bonding. Some people misinterpret it as grief for not having a birth child, but often it isn't that (it wasn't for me), it was grief at not having your child. The grief that you couldn't be there, and couldn't care for them.

It's hard. But it's a good stage to pass through, and gets easier. It's as your child grows in your heart from that part of their story being something that happened to someone else's child, to being the story of your child.

We had one birth child, then adopted. No fertility treatment.

Bonding and love take time, but it sounds like it's all going well. Honestly, there is no difference in the quality or quantity of my love for my children, whether I birthed them or they arrived via adoption. They're different people, so the love differs in that way, but they're my children.

Thanks @percypetulant especially on your perspective with both children. I definitely did misinterpret that grief at first (especially when several friends gave birth this year) but it's clearer to me now. Of course if we really could have had them from the start, they wouldn't be the amazing kids they are today!

Edit sorry I said both but just realised you didn't specify number so could be more!

I'm at the stage where I can't contemplate more than 1 😅

the more the messier! I mean merrier.

I find it often comes up when we do lifestory- "I wish you came and helped me." "I wish that, too, LO". And I mean it. I wish I could have swept in and made it all better, because that's what mum's do. (Actually, I often wish I, or someone, swept in when BPs were little, and the bad stuff was happening to them.) You can both wish together that the bad times didn't have to happen, that doesn't mean you wish they were different, but that you're their mum, and mums always want to make things better, even when they can't time travel. (And littlest LO can get quite angry that I can't time travel, because they believe I can do anything, and know everything... that passes, I know!)

I think that the stories her about adopting instead of TTC are lovely but I do have some concerns about what @percypetulant has said because there is pressure on adopters to say this as it sounds "right". The truth is that many adopters give testimony to grief at not having had biological children. It is important to be honest about that because otherwise the grief comes out in other often more destructive ways.

Obviously, many people do grieve not having a birth child, of course. I'm lucky in that I've done both. I know what I feel.

@user48392

Did you have issues with grief for your birth child that wasn't addressed in the process? I may be useful to the OP to share that, as I believe mostly that is addressed in the approval process. If your personal experience is different, then it's interesting to hear that.

The thing about grief I've been thinking about today is that I think I'm grieving the nice, "easy" life of a birth child. Of course pregnancy, birth and recovery are difficult and dangerous (in fact a friend of mine is determined to adopt #2 and never be pregnant again) but then you've got years with a securely attached child. I'm scared about the future with and for my LO.

I guess BCs can be horrors too and you never know what you're gonna get!

I am considering adoption rather than ttc but to be honest I’m not sure if I would be approved.

I have never felt the urge to have a biological child and I am a firm believer that while there are vulnerable children looking for stable homes and love, I don’t want to create a child purely for me to “enjoy”.

I believe that you never know how things will turn out. I know a lot of babies and children needing adoption have extra needs, but so could a biological child. I was born healthy but later diagnosed with a lifelong condition and it didn’t change the way my parents felt about me so I can’t imagine looking over someone just because they may have additional needs in the future.

Sometimes I feel like I am really up for it but then there are times I doubt myself and somehow feel like I am living in a dream world thinking it could ever happen.

We did not choose adoption as a first choice, although I did really want to adopt! I just wanted to share my perspective, which may or may not be useful!

We have a birth child and an adopted son.Our birth child is on the autistic spectrum and much harder to parent than ds. I know this is very rare.

I did experience a lot of grief that we could not have another birth child even though I had a horrible pregnancy and birth and I wanted to adopt!

I think it is important to process all these feelings and emotions and to come to your decision after careful deliberation. We pretty much tried every kind of fertility treatment we could with me the second time around. Lots may not want that, but I did.

However, now I love and cherish my little boy and would not change a thing.

It was the journey we went on, we did what we felt we had to do, what we felt we could do, what we could afford to do, etc. And in the end we are where we are.

I do think it is important to make a choice, because there are sometimes few choices open to those of us who come to parenting later or have fertility issues etc (both of which were my situation but may not be others' situations).

Fanciedachange1

"I am considering adoption rather than ttc but to be honest I’m not sure if I would be approved." If you feel willing to share, why do you think you would not be approved?

Italiangreyhound:

Both myself and my husband are early 30s but have very little experience with children in a home setting (no nieces/nephews) and because we have no known fertility problems I just get the feeling that any assessor would think we would be better ttc and start a family that way.

I also have epilepsy (controlled through daily medication) which I worry would be a barrier although I know there are precautions that can be in place to help.

@Fanciedachange1

We are a little bit younger than you and haven't ttc. I really don't believe either of those things will hold us back. The thing that might raise concerns with a social worker is the lack of childcare experience. We have nieces and nephews and godchildren (though not all local to us) and we were advised that we should get in some additional volunteering time. This was our plan at the start of 2020 which obviously didn't get to happen!

Anyway, we have our first informal social worker meeting on Thursday. One of our questions to them is about whether they want to see certain things from, or have different expectations of, couples who have not been through fertility challenges. I'll report back and let you know.