Just beginning adoption: need advice

[jenny60]

Hi,
I have read so many messages here and have found them really useful so now it's my turn. I am 41, married, with one DS, aged 4. I have always wanted to adopt and we tried a few years ago but were told that we had to wait until ds was older so that there was at least a 2 year age gap between them. I found social services so incompetant, even at that early stage that it out me off. I went on to try for another baby, had 2 hideous pregnancies and 2 misacarriages, one very late. It was horrendous, but I feel good now and we are on the adoption road again. I am very scared as it is such a big thing and I don't know if I'm up to it, but we feel that we have enough love and space and time for another child. It sounds an awful thing to say, but I am worried that I won't be able to love the second child as much as the first, but then again I felt the same when I was pregnant for the second and third times. But it must be different when you adopt. Or maybe it isn't. I would love some advice, stories and even to know if anyone is at the same stage so that maybe we cn support one another. I am nervous, but very excited. BTW, we don't mind about sex or ethnicity, but we don't think we could take on a child with special needs, though we've thought about it a lot.
Thanks for reaidng this. J

hi jenny, sorry to hear about the difficult time you have had over these last few years. i recommend that you join Adoption Uk and, if you think you might wish to adopt overseas, Oasis.

Would i be correct to assume that you are a white couple and that you live in the UK? If so, your first issues will be to locate an agency who are willing to assess and approve you for the type of child you want. I would write a brief letter outlining your family circumstances and send it to ALL the adoption agencies who cover your area.I would then follow up EVERY agency from whom you get a positive response.

I would counsel you to try not to get too excited at this stage and don't tell many people in RL at this stage - I'm afraid you have a very long road ahead . Please do NOT tell your employers or your son - its far too early.

I'm sorry to sound so practical, as i can read the excitement in your post

I note that you say

" we don't think we could take on a child with special needs, though we've thought about it a lot"

I think this is going to be a major issue for you. You imply that you are hoping to adopt a baby/toddler (under 36 months). i think you will find that most white "babies" in the care system now will probably have special needs of some sort. Many will have pre natal exposure to alcohol or drugs and/or a family history of mental illness. Many will have developmental delays and some will have been neglected or abused. All will be at significant risk of attachment problems.

I would recommend that you familiarise yourselves with these kind of special needs and consider whether or not you could take these on.

its something i would consider doing but at 46 i,m to old i think my youngest is 3 and my oldest is 27 i have 5 and its normal to think "how could i possible love another child " trust me you do
best of luck !

Thanks for the replies.

KristinaM: yes, we are a white couple and we live in the UK. We don't want to adopt from overseas. Though we would be happy to adopt an older child, there has to be that age gap between the two so s/he would have to be about 6 or under, assuming that the process takes 2 to 3 years. I have two close friends who have been through the mill and I have watched carefully and have an idea of some of the pitfalls. I am very aware that most kids who need adopting will have troubles, some very serious troubles, and all I can say at this stage is that I am trying to keep an open mind. There's no point pretending that we can handle anything that comes our way but we don't want to let the doubts stop us either. We are excited, but we we know it's a long process and we will try to be realistic along the way.
Good idea about contacting all the adoption agenices. I always assume it's just the local council that can help, but of course there are many others. We are going to an introductory meeting in November and are reading and researching as much as we can. But I guess that's just like being pregnant. You can read all the books in the world, but nothing really prepares you.

I would love to hear some real life stories form people about adoption.
Thanks again.

good advice about all the adoption agencies: I will do that.

"Though we would be happy to adopt an older child, there has to be that age gap between the two so s/he would have to be about 6 or under, assuming that the process takes 2 to 3 years."

If your son is already 4 and it takes you about 2 years to be approved, he woudl be 6 so you would be looking for a child under 4. An " older child" woudl usually be school aged.

Unfortunately there is a long list of families already approved and waiting for a child under 4, so you may find it hard to get an agency to assess you.

"I am very aware that most kids who need adopting will have troubles, some very serious troubles, and all I can say at this stage is that I am trying to keep an open mind. There's no point pretending that we can handle anything that comes our way but we don't want to let the doubts stop us either. "

That sounds a very realistic and balanced approach. I woudl advise you to find out a lot more about these "troubles", so that you have some time to consider the impact they might have on your family, especially your son.This research will stand you in good stead if you decide to proceed with adopting.

"I always assume it's just the local council that can help, but of course there are many others. "

You should contact every agency that covers your area - voluntary agencies and all other local authorities who work in your area. Sadly its common for a family to get 6 montsh down the line with one agency before they are told that they wont assess them.

See herefor example. You will see here that this poster started enquiries in summer 2007 and it took until July 2008 to discover that they the agency would not assess them

Its perfectly normal to approach several agencies - you don't have to decide which to go with until you have it it writing that they will assess you for the type of child you want. Then you have a home study with ONE agency.

"I would love to hear some real life stories form people about adoption."

Have you thought of joining Adoption UK and going along to a local group? You will learn a great deal more from meeting other adopters. You will appreciate that many APs are reluctant to share much of their story on a public forum

Yes, of course, I was thinking 4, but wrote 6 thinking of my DS. I wrote a letter today and will send it to the agencies I can find. I realise that finding a child under 4 will be very difficult, if not impossible, but all we can is to try. I really am trying to be as realistic as I can about it: please don't think I am naive enough to think this will be easy. It might not work for us, but we'll give it a really good try. I've signed up to do some voluntary work with a local school where there are children with speical needs so that should give me an idea of what we may need to deal with. I also took your advice and joined Adoption UK today. I found lots of useful threads there and will use it a lot I think. Can I ask what your experience of this is? Not in a nosey way, just curious and tell me to mind my own business if you like. Thanks again, J

"I wrote a letter today and will send it to the agencies I can find. "

That's great - its harder for them to ignore a letter and less demoralising for you than endless phone calls that get no where.

"I realise that finding a child under 4 will be very difficult, if not impossible, but all we can is to try. "

There are quite a few younger children in the system,its just that most have special needs and/or need black or mixed race families. Some are in sibling groups and need to be placed together. Other will need to live in a certain area so they can continue to have regular contact with their birth family.

Also when young children and babies are relinquished by their birth families, it is usual to give the the birth parent/s a choice of adoptive families. Normally teenage or 20s mothers chose adoptive parenst in their 30s. And you will be in your mid 40s

Another factor is that SS will insist that one parent stay at home with the child until school age, and not every family can afford this. Even if they do not stipulate this, families with a WOHM will always lose out at panel to a SAHM

If you want a white healthy child under 4 with no special needs or developmental delays etc then many agencies will probably place only one or two children like this a year.If they have 6 families already waiting for a child like this then will not spend several thousands of pounds of their money to assess you when they already have a three or four year supply.They are only intersted in finding placements for their children - not in finding a child for your family

"I really am trying to be as realistic as I can about it: please don't think I am naive enough to think this will be easy. "

I don't think that at all.You sound like you have thought about this a lot. Anyway, we are all naive until we have been through it. like you say, you can watch a film or read a book about childbirth but its not the same as doing it ,

Just remember that most SWs you meet are not adoptive parenst. Most have never even been foster carers and have never lived with a child with attachment problems, foetal alcohol effects or with ASD, let alone parented one. They have simply had a few days training and done a few assessmnts - they have only read and heard about it - they have never lived it.The better ones will have experience of post placement support and additional training

i hope you get the chance to meet some adopters face to face and hear about their families.

Good luck with your voluntary work - shoudl be interesting

"Can I ask what your experience of this is? "

yes of course - i am an adoptee and an adoptive parent and i have been a foster carer

You did not mention assisted conception - are you aware that you will need to have completed this for some time before an agency will start to assess you? they will require a report from your GP regarding this

Jenny

I am an adoptive parent of 2 siblings. I don't have any birth children to compare but I just came down from bedtime thinking that they were two angels borrowed from heaven! I think Friday night has made me come over all sentimental, especially given the mess the "angels" have left in the kitchen.

Don't discount local authorities. Try your neighbouring authorities, it's a bit of a postcode lottery. We are fortunate that our SS department is very professional and supportive but had we lived a few miles away it might have been very different. I don't know where you live (don't feel you have to say) but I know of an older, white couple who moved out of London to the home counties so they had a better chance of adopting, which they successfully did, a 2 year old IIRC.

Adoption UK's publications and message boards were a good source of advice to us, and helped us go into it with our eyes open, although we haven't had too many problems surface so far. Also if you get the "children who wait" magazine, you pretty soon get an idea of the sort of children looking for new parents, although bear in mind these tend to be the "hard-to-place" cases. Local authorities will place all the children they can within their own pool of approved adopters.

Best of luck with your enquiries

Thank you for that and I am so glad to hear that things have worked out for your family. We do live in the home counties and my best freinds has just been through the process here and found it pretty smooth, though she thought she would have problems as she is single, not financially solvent and certainly can't be a SAHM. The social worker told me it should take about a year from initial inquiry to approval but I don't know if she is lying, being optimisitc etc.. It took my friend 18 months. In any case, we'll stick with the council and others and hope for the best. I'm already finding the Adoption Uk website really useufl and I have contacted the coordinator of our local group. Fingers crossed and thanks again for your encouragament: I know we have to be realistic, but having so many people only spell out the negatives doesn't always help.

Kristina always tells it to you straight and knows what she is talking about.

We have birth sons of 12 and 8 and last July received a little girl who was 2yrs 8months. She is very bright and has no 'special needs' as such, but does have longterm health problems, in the form of cystic fibrosis and short gut syndrome. There had been very few enquiries about her because potential adopters were scared off by all the medical info. We, however, have found that getting into a good routine and accepting that trips to hospital are a part of our life, means we just have three children and it's really no big deal.

There is 5 years between her and our younger son - that relationship has been quite volatile as she has rejected him a lot, in favour of his older brother. I have found that quite difficult to deal with, but I have not found the issue of 'loving an adopted child as you do a birth child' a problem at all. It helps a bit, I think, if the adopted child is a different gender, so it is harder to make comparisons. I also think that it is in the day to day care of a young child that the feelings of tenderness towards them really develop, which is why I think it is so helpful for you as the parent, that the adopted child is the youngest by a few years.

I'm not sure if that makes sense and I'm sure it's not everyone's experience.

Hi Jenny - just wanted to wish you all the best of luck for your journey ahead. People are wise to counsel caution, but I just wanted to say that I hear where you are coming from, that you don't want the doubts to stop you: it can happen smoothly and everything can slot into place. Our DS1 is adopted (two bio children followed him) - for us, the lengthiest phase was the approval. We approached our local council in the January to say we wanted to start the process, eventually got onto one of their mandatory two-day prep courses some 7 months later, and began the home study about 4 months after that. The home study took about 5 months. Then we were finally approved as adopters; after having gone through some 18 months of preparation, we were matched with our DS two weeks after going to panel! 9 months old, healthy, with no 'issues' and freed for adoption. Just wanted to say that, yes, you do have a lot ahead of you, but it is possible for things to happen very straightforwardly.

Oh, and try to make sure you build a good relationship with your social worker (even if, at times, you find the whole process very frustrating, as we certainly did) - he/she will be your key advocate and could well be instrumental in making sure your papers are in the right place at the right time. Good luck .

We were assessed and matched with a child through Surrey Social Services (although we have since moved). They were pretty good, and in our small sample of the couples we met along the way most of them have been matched with children under 2 years old (I think that there are a lot more of these children than social services let on).

Yes, almost all these children have had some drug or alcohol issues but so far developmentally "normal" but only time will tell...

My advice would be to (as you already are) stay as open minded as possible. So many times we would roll our eyes at our social worker's latest request or idea only to realise weeks or months later that she was spot on!

Go along with everything social services ask of you - they make you jump through endless hoops which seem pointless at the time but it is just the system and you have to stick with it - our little girl is now 2 years old and charms people wherever she goes, such a joy in our lives.

Lovely to hear about some more experiences. We talk and talk about this and are going to give it our best. We will expect the worst and be thrilled if things work out well. I was wondering about the geneder things. We said we wouldn't mind a boy or girl, but perhaps a girl would make the process smoother for DS. Have spoken to the local group rep. who is very encouraging about local SS. Fingers crossed. Have any of you adopted in your 40s? I am 40 and DH is 39. We are not currently and never have had assisted concetion treatment and don't plan to. I hope the fact that I had my last miscarrige only in May won't be held against me.

We adopted a small boy (18months) in the home counties from the local ss, and yes dh was mid 30 me approaching 40. We started the process about a year after my last mc, which did trouble ss! They made it clear I would have to be a SAHM and er take precautions. Approval took 18 months and we waited a further 12+ for ds to be matched. We were approved for 1-2 children up to 5 (with or without mild sn) so were actually surprised and delighted to get ds details. Ds does have sn although that has become more apparent with time. Our original hope was to adopt 2 - but as ds sn became more apparent we realised that he would benefit from 2:1 parenting, and any second child might suffer because of ds high needs.
We love our son who is nearly 9 and frankly I forget he is not my flesh and blood! He might as well be.
Ds needs very high parental energy and at times his needs have tested relationships around us. My life is quite different to other mothers with one child, and it can be a little isolating as it is for parents of sn dcs , especially when behaviour is problematic. I can honestly say ds starting ms school was amongst the hardest times of my life (and like you I have s/b and m/c amongst those hard times). Ds is now in a lovely special school for children with ASD and MLD who understand him and treat him fairly.
Would I do it again if I could go back 7 years ( with todays knowledge) - ofcourse I would!

jenny - there are more boys than girls in the system, so it might take you longer if you are only approved for a girl

agencies will all have their own opinions as what they will deem is an accepptable amount of time to wait after a m/c, but i suspect that as its only been 4 months they may ask you to wait for a while, and/or to have soem counselling. as magos says, they will also tell you to use contraception ( goodness knwos how they check!)

they may also wish conformation from your Gp that you have not been referred for assisted conception services. if you change your mind about this they or get pg they will stop your adoption application immediatly.

just to warn you. soem people think they will defer it to see if the treatment/ pg is sucessful but they wont.

Good to know. Absolutely no way we will ever go for another birth child: that is clear and my GP will tell them that. If I do want to 'try again' I have to have a very large fibroid removed. I am going to leave it be so that should be pretty conclusive for them. Have had counselling and they told me I was doing well so that's that. I hope they don't make me wait too long: surely at our age, we know our minds and we have been thinking and planning for this for years.
I can't be a SAHM but I do get 6 months adoption leave and my job is very flexible so I hope they won't hold that against me.

Magso: did you ever think of adopting a second child?

Its not that they will " hold it against you", its just that they want to make sure that you have come to terms with not having another bio child. i understand that you feel that 4 montsh is long enough to deal with this but they may not agree!

Likewise, they will not hold it against you that you are a WOHM, its just that when you go to matching panel for a young child you will be competeing against other families. More often than not, panel will choose to place a child under school age with a family with a SAH parent. Children who have had disrupted lives need a lot of attention and may struggle in childcare.So unless you flexible job allows you/your DH to stay at home all the time, you may find its a problem in adopting a child under 4, although you may get approved.

Some birth mothers may also express this preference

Please understand, i am not advocating adoption agency policies , I am just explaining what i understand to be common practice. Information is power

I'm sorry if you feel this is being negative but what i really don't want is for you to get a year down the line with an agency only to be told they wont assess you because eg you cant give up work or you wont consider a child with SN

Jenny. Yes. But realistically ds sn were very demanding at the time and we were worried that we would not have been able to keep a second child safe! I only manage to work very part time now - and ds needs (he has autism amongst other things)are such that I doubt that I can ever again work full time (unless dh and I swop). It is not a choice to be an almost SAHM but a necessity.

I knwo you are not asking opinions on thsi but I can never keep my mouth shut...

if your choices are to have a fibroid removed and then be able to conceive or go through the adoption process i woudl go for the first like a shot.

disclaimer - I am not a doctor. i am saying this as soemone who has had a m/c and an emergency c section (which i assuem is similar to a myomectomy) and several adoptions and i can tell you that the ECS was a walk in the park compared to the adoption process

hi jenny, we had a failed adoption with a baby. the adoption agency insisted we waited a year before applying again, they said they would do this with the loss, by any means, of a child. good luck.

it might be worth saying you will be a sahm as they dont approve of you going back to work so early.

once the adoption is finalised, 3 to 6 months depending on age you can do what you want.

you will get the same rights as anyone on maternity leave.

but as magso points out, your child may need you to say at home

It's not just the fibroid: the removal would be a doddle, I know but I have had 3 hideous pregnancies (the worst sicknes my GP has ever seen and she in her 50s), lots of hosptial stays and after the last m/c at 18 weeks, I just won't do it again. Not just for myself, though I was desperately despressed every time and it took me a long time to recover mentally, but also for my ds who really suffered and is still reeling from having mummy so ill and then having a brother coming and then not having a brother arrive. I think living through that hell and having to worry about anothr late miscarriage might just push us all over the edge. In any case, I really have wanted to adopt for as long as I can remember and I wish to god I had not get pregnant again the thrid time. But there you have it. Thye may think four months is not long enough, but my thinking on this is that I have known for a long time that I wanted to do this, and I know it will take a long time so it's best to begin now isn't it? They won't get around to seeing me until later this year anyway.

Hifi, I am really sorry to hear about your baby. Can you tell me what happended. Will fully understand if you don't want to discuss.

Sorry to be vague, but I'm not sure what you mean about leave and work. Will I be expected to stay home longer than 6 months? If this is the case, surely that means only wealthier couples can qualify. I need to work for financial reasons, but also because I love it. Giving up would be a really big deal for me. What are other people's expereinces.

Kristina: I don;t mind you being negative at all: I know you are just being realistic. I don't know what the policy will be here, but hopefully things will be clealer when i speak to some more people who have recently been through the process. My friend, who adopted through our local SS recently, was pretty positive about the whole thing and she was certainly not expected to stay at home for more than 6 months.
Sorry about my shocking spelling by the way: I type quickly, but badly, but I can spell... really

jenny, you just have to say you arnt going back, \change your mind after the adoption.
our baby went back as his mother changed her life around, life's tough.

Sorry jenny, i appreciate that you have had a horrible time. I knwo so many families have been through stuff like this and feel that teh adoption process must be much easier. sadly sometimes its not

If you have had post natal depression you need to read up about post adoption depression, so you are aware of teh risks. You also must know that many families have a failed adoption, so your son woudl have to live with this too, as well as a number of promised placements that fail to materialise.
you will see that hifi and her Dh lost a baby and their story is not unusual.This is espeically a risk if you go for an agency that does concurrent planning, like Corum, or if children are not legally secure.

"it took me a long time to recover mentally, but also for my ds who really suffered and is still reeling from having mummy so ill and then having a brother coming and then not having a brother arrive. I think living through that hell and having to worry about anothr late miscarriage might just push us all over the edge."

please understand, I am not trying to talk you out of adoption. i just want you to know that you are still at risk of most of the things if you adopt.

please listen to the other posters who have shared that their children have special needs which they were not expecting. this is a much higher risk than with a birth child, due to family history of things like ASD & mental health problesm, pre natal exposure to drugs/alcohol and damaging early life experiences such as abuse, neglect and multiple placements.much of this " soft" neurological damage does not show up properly until school age and its hard to seperate it out initially from develomental delays from being in teh care system.

so you need to knwo that whatever SS tell you you will be probably be adopting a " high risk" child

only you can decide if its worth going through a horrible pg etc to have a bio child. you will have teh stress and uncertainly and risk of depression or losing a child with either route