Do you always need an extra room to adopt?

[Heidi3333]

Hi there

I'm 45 and nearing the end of my fertility journey. I don't expect to have any success so am planning on adopting. However, I only have a 2 bedded flat with no spare room (I live with my 4 year old daughter). I know having a spare room is a criteria for adopting.

Has anyone managed to adopt without a spare room? I would buy a 3 bedroom house in the future but Id have to have 2 children sharing a room until then.

Would like to hear others experiences!

Good luck with the fertility treatment Heidi3333. We had about six years of treatment after birth child and before we adopted.

Good luck with whatever happens.

Thank you Italiangreyhound.

Infertility can be a long journey.

Well I received a reply back from my local social work department and to my surprise they said you don't need a spare room to make an adoption enquiry. Not sure that means not having a spare room would work against me though.

I am not planning on applying until the end of the year anyway but I just wanted to put the feelers out now

That wording is specific though. Not needing a spare room to make an adoption enquiry is not quite the same as not needing a spare room to adopt. They might mean you don't need a spare room to start the process but would need a strong plan to acquire one in the future...

Hi Marty. Yes, that's how I read it too.

When I asked my local social work team about adoption they came and met me in my flat and did an informal look around where they gave us lots of advice if we wanted to move forwards with the application.

I realise they may have a different system in place with covid. But it's worth seeing what advice they could give you now?

You can usually attend info sessions and have an initial interview without being at the stage where you are ready to move forward with the adoption process. The interview will look at your current circumstance and identify what you will need to do before being ready to move onto stage one so yes they are right you can make enquiries. You will, however, need to have a spare room to adopt. They may agree for you to move before starting stage two however it is likely they would prefer it if you move before as you need to be established where you are living, particularly if you have moved away from your support network. Whilst you say they could share initially and then move that won't work as firstly how do they know you would move, secondly the child coming in and your birth child need their own space and thirdly why would you want to put an adopted child through the trauma of having to move yet again after having left birth family and at least one foster carer and potentially having changed school/nursery each time.

Hi Heidi. Just wanted to say we had our initial interview when we didn't even have a house never mind a spare room.

We told them we understood that have to change and when it was going to happen. That's all that was mentioned of it. So no issues with you making an enquiry.

Hi somuddked thats good to hear. Were you successful with the adoption?

@Heidi3333

Hi somuddked thats good to hear. Were you successful with the adoption?

We haven't applied yet. Our initial meeting was Jan and at the we suggested at least 6 months in the new house to get work done, strengthen our local network and get to know the new area. The agency agreed with that time frame and checked in with us a month later (last week) to see if we had any more questions - we did. We asked for the home safety checklist as we thought we may as well make sure any renovation we are doing doesn't inadvertently go against the checklist. We actually aren't 100% sure we will go ahead. We are still sitting around an 70% I'd say. But we are planning our lives as if we were. I only mention this as I think one of your posts mentioned not feeling great about making life choices in case it doesn't happen.

Do you feel it might not happen because you might change your mind or that you might get 'rejected' (for want of a better word)?

If it is the latter, I understand this to be fairly rare. I've spoken to people who sit on adoption panels. Outside the absolute no's which would rule you out instantly, almost everything else is surmountable. It might take longer (I know a man whose start to finish was 4 years), it might take hard work from you, a willingness to be challenged and grow etc. Something to think about.

Just to reiterate this from Percy, try to consider "how can our lives fit an adoptive child." As a couple, we made a conscious effort to adapt our thinking to this a year ago. Obviously not all the time but with the big things. Our jobs, our house, hobbies, pets, big purchases etc. We tend to make sure we have a conversation that goes 'And let's add the adoption lense on top of this'. In some circumstances it changes our decision (we chose a bigger house) and in some ways it doesn't (husband took a job he will learn a lot in but with terrible hours and I bought a very impractical car) Both will have to change if we go ahead, that's fine.

Sorry for the massive posts. I have the day off work and so I'm so excited to be able to freely Mumsnet with a cup of tea

Thank you ladies.

I am hoping my fertility treatment will work but I've only been given a 1-2% chance of success so I doubt it v much.

I would like to give my daughter a sibling and I would like to help out another child but it will be an awful lot of upheaveal. I'd have to move house, maybe change my daughters school, get a bigger mortgage etc etc. It is a big decision and you ha e given me a lot to think about and things I never considered before.

I will have to do a lot of serious thinking
over the next few months.

Thanks again x

Just wondering how big the rooms are in your flat? Is it possible to convert your bedroom into two and you have your child's room?

My friend temporarily converted her daughters' room into two with a temporary dividing wall.

The other thing to think about is where is your support network. Are they near your flat. If so, moving would mean making new support and contacts in new place. This could be fine. But it could be a hassle.

I would really look at the layout of your home and see if the lounge could be divided into two and then your bedroom become lounge and your child's room become your room? Whichever is biggest room in house becomes two with temp wall and rearrange so your bedroom is smallest.

Because as an adult you will have the lounge of an evening so don't need the biggest room. Remember toys and even clothes can be stored in the living room, hallway etc so bedrooms just need z bed and some cost items to make them personal. Choosing the lighting and colours would mean the rooms could be unique and that is lovely for a child to fear this is there place, they chose the colours etc.

Good luck

Thank you Italiangreyhound

Lots of good suggestions there 🙂some I hadn't thought off. X

let us know how you get on.

Best of luck.

Hi,

I have adopted three children. They are not biological siblings. I have a 3 bed house. With the first two rooming was obviously not an issue. With our littlest we had to think about what to do with rooms. In the end my first two shared a room and our littlest had the small room (she was 8 months). We knew our social worker really well by this point and she explained that with our eldest they were fine to share as now they were adopted we could have them sharing if we saw fit. This was always going to be a temp measure as my eldest is a boy, middle is a girl and littlest is a girl.

Littlest stayed in her own room for a couple of years and now the girls quite happily share a room. We knew the original set up was temporary and would have looked to move to a bigger house if this set up didn’t work. We probably will move as the girls get older as they will want their own rooms as they become teenagers.

Could your daughter share with you as a temp measure with your new child having the bedroom. This would be a temp measure for a year or so until children are ready to share or you are ready to move?

@Tishtash2teeth

Thats not likely not likely to be a suitable solution. Her daughter will be school age, and it will look very much like a temporary solution when stability is needed.

Social services will also be warey that the daughter will be asked to give up her bedroom and face additional upheaval around the "new child" which is likely to cause resentment

We were very much discouraged from moving house at any point during the adoption process, including for a significant time after LO was placed which makes sense in terms of how can you assess the environment if thats not the house the child will live in and because stability is so important in the initial periods (moving house is a massive upheaval in general but especially in the early stages)

It sounds as though op isn't looking to move in the near future anyway though so solutions would have to work longer term

@Heidi3333 this sounds trite, but I really benefited from time off after the ttc period. Initially I saw it as a tick box period, but ultimately I needed to grieve the child I might of had, and get my head around the differences of adoption.

Initially I was very much ivf done, adoption next and hadnt really adjusted my thought process and expectations. I was busy trying to cram a child into our lives, without understanding the complexity of adoption

Once you start the process, have the training and get to understand then the restrictions suddenly make much more sense. I couldn't understand why I couldn't move house, but it then clicked into place and once LO was here It was apparent just how much that learning had helped

We adopted siblings though separately so were approved for no 2 after no 1 was placed. We were starting to think about adopting again when no 2's imminent arrival was announced so our approval was "in principle" as well as for a specific child.
Because they are birth siblings (half) they could share a room but as no 2 was a baby when placed it was understood they would be in our room at first. We had the option to move some rooms around though and it was always suggested that they should be in their own rooms when they needed to be and that we had to have the room to do that (they are opposite sexes). We ended up moving house so that we have three bedrooms on the same level and enough space for a play room. But by that time DC1 was in school and DC2 had been with us for a couple of years (was a preschooler).
I would really think about how you can change your lifestyle to fit in a child, not how your child will fit the lifestyle, as many others have said. Your flat is not more important than a child.

Thank you for the replies.

Yes an option could be that my daughter shares my room for a while as we often share a bed but she's starting school soon and wants her own room to do her homework etc.

Moving house isn't an option I'd consider for a while. It's my first flat and I love it and it's taken me years to get it right. Not just that - moving would mean taking my daughter out of her school not long after she'd settled in, I'd have to move to a rougher part of the country and further away from her grandparents and I'd less money due to a bigger mortgage.

I understand the reasons now for an adopted child needing their own room but I'm starting to think it's just too much upheaval all together, not just for me but for my daughter and I'm not sure it's worth it tbh.

Thanks for exploring this all with me.

She won't be doing homework independently for many years to come. The dining table is the best place for that in early primary school - and most of her homework will be reading to you anyway, or doing a Maths app.
If you don't think an adopted child will fit into your family, that's a good decision to make at this stage.

Coming to the decision you don't want to, or aren't in a place to adopt, or now isn't the time, is as positive a decision as the other way. It's ok to not want to adopt. It's a big decision, and it's ok to be happy with what you have! Good luck, OP. I hope you get to grow your family in the best way for you and your daughter, whether that is as a three or a two, or any other number.

@Heidi3333

maybe go back to the reasons or motivation that led you to think about adopting. How important is it to you, what are you prepared to sacrifice?

I had a job I loved, I ‘sacrificed’ it for a better paying job, because being a mum was more important.
I would have been prepared to move, but probably not disrupt an existing child’s schooling.
Could you delay for a few years and move at a better point in your daughters school life, when you may also be in a better financial position?

Adopting will be a massive upheaval. You have to really want it to happen. Me and my husband would have moved heaven and earth to get approved. It’s the best thing we have ever done and we absolutely adore our little clan. For us it was completely worth any upheaval. Hope you find the right way for your family x

Heidi3333 it's good to know if it's the right time before you start.

Maybe not the right time yet.

I had extensive fertility treatment including donor eggs over 6 years plus.

I didn'"t want my dd to be an only child. Ironically I think she may have been fine and maybe it was just me wanting another child! As you can adopt up to 50 plus there is no massive need to decide yet. But do stay in touch here if the feeling of wanting to do this persists...

Thank you for all the help ladies.

You have been v helpful abd supportive.