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

I was worried I was being too negative too. You are very wise to have asked for others storys - I am sure they all different.
To answer your questions. It was made very clear to us that we could only go forward for adoption if we could have one parent always with dc for at least a year - preferably until school age. We had to show ( in discussion) we had thought about and arranged our finances to be in a position to do this - though nobody actually asked to see the (private) papers!! (We changed to a flexible mortgage) I espected to be able to return to part time work once the adoption was complete (18months)- but it became obvious ds needed longer than that (and childcare is very difficult when sn are involved). Dh has slightly flexible hours to allow me to work. I do miss the cutting edge of work ( and being knowledgable in a way its hard to be when you only do it pt)- since now I am filling in at the bottom so to speak and am always rushing to get home on time so miss out on social contact!
I can understand not wanting to risk another late mc! Good luck whatever you decide.

I was 42 when we adopted, DH was 39

ill be 42 when we get our next on. my friend was 47 and 2 weeks, and single.

I would have been 41 when second son would have been born had he lived and I don't think it's that old, though I do understand why younger parents might be seen as preferable.

Hifi: I am so sorry and I really hope the next placement works out for you.

Kristina: I do understand wht you're saying and I also know that I can never know what any of it means or feels like until I am in the process myself. The 'sensible' part of me tells to quit while I'm ahead and to be grateful for my lovely ds, but there's a real desire for another child which is hard to deny. But you know, I may yet change my mind. All we can do is to get on with it and try to keep an open mind while we're in the process. If it feels wrong or if we really don't think we can cope, we will be honest enough to say so. I was with some children with sn this morning at the school where I was volunteering and they ranged from retty severe to very mild as far as I could tell. It was an eye opener and I don't think I could deal with very severe probelms full time. I know a couple who adopted siblings and were told they were 'meeting all their developmental mislstones'. It tunred out that thatg both were autistic and became apprent when they were about 4 and 5. Tbhis has turned out to be very difficult for this couple and I can see why.

jenny - i'm sorry to hear about the loss of your son. No, of course i dont think 41 is "old" - I had babies at 42 and 43!

Personally i think a lot of the Ss rules are complete rubbish and have little to do with the best interest of the children placed. But I get angry when they are not upfront with prospective adopters. They often say that teh rules are flexible so families think that they will bend them their particular case if they can give a good reason. Most of the time what they actually mean is that they don't all apply if you will adopt a hard to place child.

So families who want a white NT baby or todddler are strung along for months before they are told that they wont even assess them.

they are often not honest with families about the types of difficulties that children can have. your friend story is sadly very common, many of these things don't show up clearly enough until the children are nursery or school age. Often SW, (who have no training in child development) will just go on what the health visitor or Gp has told the foster carer - rarely do children have a proper assessment with an appropriate professional. The childs medical is often performed by a GP who are not experts in PDD, ASD, FAS, RAD etc

Even if issues are picked up they are often dismissed with " i'm sure this will go away once they achieve permanence".

If you read the SN boards here you will see how hard bio families have to work to get a DX for their children - it often takes years. And thats when you have no complicatiing factors of abuse, neglect or multiple placements

I'm sorry, i woudl love to be abel to tell you that there are many white healthy babies waiting for you to adopt them but there are not. There are many older (school aged) children, often in sibling groups, many who need a black or mixed race family, and almost all of them will have additional support needs. And there are some younger children who will also be at high risk of developing problems.Of course all these children deserve a loving home - but not everyone is able to meet these needs, especially if they have existing children and teh appropate support services - respite, psychological, psychiatric, educational, therapuetic etc- are very thin on the ground.

You can request a meeting with the panel medical advisor or whoever is responsible doctor fo rlooked after children to discuss the medical history and needs of the child prior to your decision to adopt the child, some children do display behaviour which can be attributed to attachment issues / lack of permeance / neglect which also mirror traits found with ADHD and the like. It is important to be as honest as possible with the social worker assessing you as this will give the best assessment and allow you to explore the issues which you need more information about before you can make a decision about what you can realitically cope with in a child, it is important to be honest not everyone can cope with the same issues so do not feel you should be able to cope with everything

Kristina: what's a DX? I am really glad of your advice and in my letter to the VAs which cover this area, I asked them to tell me realistically if they would assess us. I just hope they answer truthfully. I'm told there is a shortage of all adoptive parents in the area, so I hope that puts us in good stead.

Gothicmama: good to know that: if it gets to that stage, I will request it. It's best to know everything isn't it?

I remain determined ... we won't know until we try.

(Dx is diagnosis.)Good luck Jenny.

jenny60 - what Kristina says about SS not being particularly interested in white, middle class couples whom they see as only able to offer a home to a white, non-special-needs baby/toddler, certainly rings true with me.

The trouble is, they will also pigeon-hole you and not assess you quickly unless you appear open-minded about the sort of child you could consider. We were happy to be considered for non-white children, but they would not hear of it.

Our assessment took nearly two years.

It was only because I identified and enquired about our little girl that they even thought of us for her - even though she was one of 'their' children. They had her medical needs down as too severe for us to cope with - total nonsense as it turns out. It has been a very successful placement and they now ask me to talk on their adoption courses and to prospective individual adopters.

What I'm saying is that you have to be very proactive and make them see that you are worth prioritising, by not seeming to have made up your minds too soon about the sort of child you can or cannot adopt.

I know people say there are more boys than girls in the system, but it will just totally depend on what is happening in your area when you are approved - it's been almost all girls adopted by our friends over the last 2 years! However I know that 2 years ago there were hardly any girls at all. So you can't make your decisions based on what may or may not be out there. You just have to decide what is best for you.

The issue of going back to work... Yes, this is a big one for social services. I was always definately going back to work (for financial reasons) and indeed did so after 6 months, but DH stayed at home for another 9 months and now we split the care. This is NOT what I thought would happen, but so many things change the way you think, it's not easy for an adopted child to just slot into life in this new family. I really believe it takes a year for it all to settle, and sending them to nursery too early can be a real set-back.

My work was really important to me before DD, but now we have her all that business stuff just doesn't seem so attractive!! We have made a lot of financial cut-backs to afford for me to be at home more but it is the right things for our family. So just be open-minded and tell ss you may or may not go back depending on the child...

You are not restricted to waiting for a child in your own area. There is an Adoption Register for England and Wales. Here is some information from Adoption UK

After prospective adopters have been approved, the agency must forward their details to the Adoption Register within three months, if they have not been matched or linked with any children. The register seeks to link hard to place children with prospective adopters. Adopters may also self-refer to the register.

The Adoption Register provides a national overview of adoption in England and Wales by:
Maintaining a national database of all children needing adoption and of all approved families waiting to adopt.

·Identifying ?what works? in finding families for children; the trends in adoption; the characteristics of children needing families and the adopters available to meet their needs.

·Providing a free service to adoption agencies which identifies links nationally between children and families where a local or regional link is not desirable, or cannot be made within a reasonable period of time.

When adopters are approved, their agency forwards their details to the register and they are entered onto the database. This can provide the additional opportunity of a match with a child beyond their local area. It can also lead to speedier placements for children in public care.

While newly approved adopters may feel comfortable waiting for a child locally, there may be a child somewhere else in England or Wales who also waits. But they cannot be linked unless the adopters? details have been activated on the register.

While agencies must refer adopters to the register three months after approval, they can refer adopters before this and will usually do so if it is unlikely they will be able to match the adopters with a suitable child in the area quickly.

I just wanted to say thanks to you all for replying. We're just going to get on with it, taking all your advice on board, and hope for the best. I'll keep you posted. J

Good luck.

Hello there! We adopted a little girl aged 17 months just over four years' ago. She was given up at 5.5 weeks and spent the next 15 months or so with fabulous foster carers who loved her like she was theirs. We have never had any problems with her whatsoever, we bonded from day one and I couldn't possibly love her any more. However, we were very lucky. We have met very many adopters along the way, some good stories and some not so good. I'm afraid I have to disagree with people when they say that adopted children come with problems, no more so than any birth children. We have a very wide network of adopters who are close friends and the only problems we ever have are the usual problems with kids in general. My daughter knows she is adopted though she doesn't know really what the word means. She knows what her birth mother and father look like and she knows I am not tummy mummy. Having said all of this, it very rarely gets a mention. I am sure this will change as she gets older. I am happy to chat with anyone who wants to know of my experiences, good and bad (let's say, social workers don't figure that highly in our home) but at the end of the day, having our daughter was the best thing we ever did and I won't ever regret making the decision to adopt.

I would say to anyone thinking about making the step to go along to an information evening. The first thing the SW will tell you is that there are no babies and if you only want a baby then not to apply. Not true. When we adopted our daughter we met 4 other couples in the same boat as us - all without children and hoping for a healthy baby. All of us got children under the age of 2 and we were all matched with our children within a year of approval - for us we got our Littlie within six months. I hate to say it but you have to tell SS what they need to hear - DH regularly had to bite his tongue at the home study meetings. We were advised to use contraception whilst going through the process, we didn't.

Good luck to one and all.

Bongo xxxx

Thanks so much for thay and I am very glad all is well with you and your family. I have read in a few places that often children who seem absolutely fine begin to show sings of various kinds of distress at around 3. Has that been your experience or have you heard of this happening to other people?
I would love to hear more about your experiences. How old were you and partner? Are you thinking of adopting another child? We are booked into the information evening and I for one can't wait to hear more.

when is the info evening jenny? do let us know how it goes. have you had any positive responses from other agencies?

Adopted child when young, may not show many problems and seem like any aother child but problems start to show up as they are approaching teens. I have a son we adopted at age 3 but is now 12. Looking back, the signs of emotional and mental health problems were there. The post adoiption social workers "normalised" them all and brushed them under the carpet. I know now why! If they acknowleged he had underlying problems, they would have to fund very specialised therapy. Either that or they are plain thick. Many of the decisions that the social workers have taken in this case amounted to more emotional abuse to my son.

Now at 12 he is having difficulties. He has depression, gender identity issues, eating disorder, post traumatic stress, attachment issues (signs for this are subtle)just to name a few. Having failed to get any help from CAHMS or post adoption, I am resigned now see him go down the slippery slope. I cry every day because I can see the potential in him, but know he wont reach it. He has also attempted drinking alcohol and overdosing on ibupofren.

So if you think you could not handle a child with specail needs, we thought the same, adopted children have special needs. But they are not recognised and you will not get any help. You will be stuck and and there is no way out as this is your problem. I am hanging on to my sanity by my fingernails.

I go to local post adoption coffee mornings. It is very enlightening! The mums of younger adopted children all look so happy. In contrast the mums of teenage adopted kids look like they are at their wits end. They describe the horrors of their life and the pain their teenagers are suffering. I am just entering that phase. They do not come out well at the other end. Most end homeless or drug and alcohol dependent etc.

There is no real help for these very disturbed and distressed children. They may pass as normal when they are young but unless you have been lucky and adopted when the child was a baby, the care process they go through is just as if not more traumatic for them.

Hi Jenny

just wanted to pitch in here.

I have mainly positive things to say here.

Our SS expects people to take full adoption leave and then return to work (pref. part time) they don't expect people to give up work.

We were told it would be impossible to find a white child under 4 unless they had additional special needs and that there are more boys then girls.

We said gender was not important and expected a boy but got matched with a girl.
We were also approved for a sibling group (thinking it would improve our chances) but they only had single childrne in the system at that point in time.

I think its best just to keep an open mind. It depends a lot on your LA and also on what the profiles of waiting children are like.

Our DD was 2.6 when she came home and she was one of the oldest children when we went to adoption support toddler groups, coffee mornings etc.

Everyone we met through adoption has ended up with a healthy child with an average age of 18 months on placement.

SS always try to get people to lower their expectations because they have hard to place children that they need to find homes for.

I have worked within the system and this is my experience.

hope it helps

Hi Dispair

So sorry to hear what you are going through. I must apologise for posting after you without having absorbed what you were saying. My post looks really crass and insensitive and it honestly wasn't intended like that, I must've been distracted and skipped your post when I read the thread.

It's terrible that you are getting no support from CAMHS or post adoption support. Would Adoption UK be any help?

Thanks to you and Maryz for sharing your experiences with us. There is a lesson here for all of us. we never know how our children will be affected in later life.

I really hope that things improve for both of you and your children.

Hi Jenny - I am a retired sw with over 30 years experience in fostering and adoption. Am a little rusty though as have been out of local authority work for over 5 years now. I work as a part time independent sw assessing adoptors and foster carers.

I think you are getting excellent advice and I endorse most of what Kristina has to say. However I think she is erring slightly on the pessimistic side about there being very few children under 4 who are awaiting adoption. In the l.a. where I worked in the year 2004 - 45% of the children placed for adoption were under 2. Now that is over 5 years ago and I don't know the current stats but I wouldn't have thought they had changed that much. It is true that some of these children will have special needs and by definition the vast majority of them will have suffered some kind of abuse/neglect otherwise they would not have been removed from their birth parents. I think attachment difficulties cause the main problems and I would suggest that you really acquaint yourselves with this issue as it is really important where adoption is concerned.

Just a word of warning about applying to the vvoluntary adoption agencies. They are far less pressured that l.a. SSDs and so may assess you quicker but they do not have children "of their own" awaiting adoption. WLocal authorities SSDs is the only agency that has children "available" for adoption and they will always try to place children with their own adoptors because this is the cheapest option (all l.a's are struggling with funding issues)- the next cheapest option is to place children with adoptors approved by another local authority (known as an inter agency placement) the most expensive option is to "buy" adoptors from a voluntary agency. The voluntary agencies recruit and approve adoptors and then have to "sell" them to local authtorities for specific children who l.a.s can't place themselves. Local authority SSDs often can't afford the fees that the voluntaries charge and so can't "use" the adoptors offered to them by the voluntaries. This is still a live issue as I read in the Observer recently that many voluntary adoption agencies are having to close because l.a.s cannot afford to buy adoptors from them. Some of the voluntaries don't tell prospective adoptors about this and this is vry unfair.

So if I were you I would stay with the la. even though Kristina says they sometimes won't assess for a child under 4. I have experience of l.a.s targetting prospective adoptors for older children/sibling groups/children with special needs etc but I don't have experience of refusal to assess for a particualar age range but this may vary between different authorities.

Anyway I wish you luck and hope all goes well for you.

Sorry - forgot to add - I really think you have to re-think the return to work issue. I think that adopted children need to have one-to-one care because of their past experiences, at least until they are over 3 years of age, and then should only be left with a good childminder or nursery for limited periods. These children are far far more vulnerable than birth children and if they are to grow up to learn to trust adults and become securely attached children, which they deserve, then the best chance of this happening is by being cared for by one of the adoptive parents who are physically and emotionally available them. No matter how good the nursery they cannot be emotionally available to children -may be more possible with a good childminder.

You will be competing with other adoptors and preference will be given to those who can care for the child themselves during the child's formative years.