How did you decide to to adopt

[ButterMelonCauliflower]

first post but serial lurker.
I’m just hoping someone will help me get my thoughts in order!
I’m 43, married with 3 birth children aged 8 to 13. We’ve always thought about adopting but now I’m wondering if the time is right and we should start looking into it more seriously. I’m just worried whether we’d be doing it for the right reasons, and terrified of messing up my family.
I’m really aware that I’m probably slightly broody because of my youngest not needing me so much, and my hormones aren’t doing me any favours, but I also think I wouldn’t want to wait until we’re much older.
I just feel as though we as a family have the capacity to love and help a child who needs it, but there’s so much at stake that is it worth the risk?

I always recommend checking out adoption UK they have fab webinars,zoom meet ups for prospective adopters and their adoption barometer is really useful at giving good real life experience.and a good book is sally Donovan's no matter what.

I don’t think our path to adoption is common. I was a midwife and was at a breech delivery and the baby had Down Syndrome! I was working on NICU and we had to attend certain deliveries. His parents were lovely but felt they couldn’t cope the rest is history!!

I think a lot of people come to it the same way as we did. Infertility but not wanting to go down the route of IVF.

For us I will say DH was keen on adoption from
the start and it was me that wanted to try for a baby first.

We had a gap of around 5 years between accepting we weren’t going to have a baby and starting the adoption journey. We used it to travel, settle into careers, buy a house and enjoy ourselves.

It’s hard to advise someone else as everyone is different but I have told several people I know that were also considering adoption, you cannot over-estimate the amount of time and patience it will take. And you need to really look at your life as it is now and evaluate if you can spare it.

For us, our LO was 2 when we got them home. Took 3 months ish for them to really trust me (longer for DH as he was out of the house more due to working). It was almost maybe 8 months before DH and I went for a meal on our own. We’re almost 15 months in and are now looking at attempting leaving LO overnight with grandparents.

It’s been amazing - but it’s been hard. I’m exhausted. During adoption leave I was the only person in the world LO trusted so they would follow me around constantly and want to be touching me where possible.
Also, trauma responds differently to everyday things. In my adoption group we have 1 child who is hysterical when she sees a camera, another who has aggressive tantrums when unsettled and another who will literally become silent and shut down, no tears or anything, when scared.

It’s a different type of parenting. I think your best bet would be read up on therapeutic parenting, the effects of trauma and as pp said, look at Adoption UK.

@ButterMelonCauliflower I think only you can know if it’s right for you or not.

I think if I was you I’d think really carefully about how you will support your birth children through their tricky pre teen & teen years whist settling and supporting a child with early trauma experience. As pp said adopted children need parenting very differently , would your children understand and cope with that?

example from tonight my ds 8 has rained cherries at his bedroom wall as he couldn’t find the shorts he wanted (they were in the wash) then he felt guilty so covered the cherry marks in felt tip. Then realised this was worse felt even worse & ripped up some photos that were up in his room.

the consequence will happen tonorrow when he helps clean up the mess. If I had shown an ounce of judgment or disapproval tonight we would have had at least an hour of violence & intense distress.

he was punishing himself ripping up happy family photos, after this he sobbed & we were able to repair, he then made us a card to say sorry and asked us to move photos so he can’t reach them next time he’s angry. 😭😭

it’s heart breaking and soul destroying.

thankfully there are good times too and he’s an amazing kid and we are a team to be reckoned with but it’s so much harder than any amount of training could have prepared us for and we’re both experienced in professional capacity with children with additional needs.

he’s currently not in school as he just can’t cope with it & we’re battling the LA for the right support
, again not an uncommon scenario sadly in adoption land but could be hard for siblings to understand!

i’m really not trying to put you off!

He is also the kindest, bravest funniest little person I have ever met & i’m loving sharing the adventure of life with him!!

do your home work & be really & open & honest with your other children & I’m sure as a family you’ll make the right decision for you all! Good luck whatever you decide!! 💐

apologies @ButterMelonCauliflower I really didn’t answer your question!!! Same sex couple & it seemed like the best option for us! Don’t regret it despite my previous post!!!

I provided respite care to two girls, got involved emotionally and tried to advocate for them, became their long term foster parent and then adopted.

If you all as a family feel able to have a child with additional needs, go for it.

It's if you can't live without a child in your life. You'll have to accept issues and the need to parent differently and the fact your adopted child will take up 75% of your time and attention. And they will probably hurt your existing children physically or mentally.