Desperate to adopt, but how?

[louisejohnson87]

I am 21 years old and have just found out that I have a disease of the uterus and will have to have a hysterectomy.

I am obviously devestated as I have only ever wanted to be a mummy.

After talking to my boyfriend we have agreed that we would like to adopt a baby.

The only problem is I have no idea baout how to go about this.

After searching the internet all I can find out is that babies are becoming hard to adopt, unless of course you are famous and then you cn have who ever you want!!!

If anyone can give me advice it would be greatly appreciated!!

Oh yeah I am from England, in case that makes a difference.

I know nothing about this, others will know far more, but have you got time to 'harvest' some of your eggs first? I hope so. I hope that the cancer isn't really aggressive. How completely awful. There are some mums on this board though, who are completely in love with and fulfilled by their beautiful adopted children.

Louise, I am sorry to hear about your health problems. Your first step would be to contact your local social services

So sorry that you are ill. Are you able to say what is the matter? I believe you will have to be restored to health before being considered for adoption. But I am no expert.

Thankfully it is NOT cancer!

It is a condition called adenomiosis, which is where the tissue that lines the womb and sheds for a periods decides to grow within the uterus muscle wall, therefore it can not be removed in bits, the whole lot has to go.

They wont have to take my ovaries, so I would be able to harvest them, although I am not sure how I would feel to see another woman carrying my baby. Too much jealousy etc.

Have you had a second opinion? Are you in a lot of pain? Have you tried to get pregnant naturally? Have you talked to your consultant about having a baby?

It is definate! There is no way a baby is coming out of this body!

Sorry, but why not? Do you have a lot of symptoms?

It is like having the worst period of your life, but every day, without fail. It also causes severe back pain. This is due to the fact that even though this tissue is inside the muscle wall when it coes time to have a period it still wants to be shed and bleed but it has no where to go.

Another symptom is infertility. For some reason it makes the lining of your womb very "boggy" so even if an egg was fertilised it would not stick to the wall and I would just miscarry every time.

We have tried naturally but nothing, and IVF is not an option. It will be quite a relief to have a hysterectomy as I am in constant pain.

thread on an Australian site with women with the same condition as you

Poor you. adoption information website

Hi Louise, so sorry to hear about your illness and infertility.

Me and my partner adopted our DD a year ago, and it's the most wonderful thing we've done, so I'd say start looking at what your options are.

I do think you might have to give yourself time to grieve for the birth children that you won't have first though, before you adopt. I know that for me, I really had a lot of sadness and anger I had to deal with, and adjusting to out lovely DD would have been so much harder if I hadn't got a really good grip on that 'baggage' before she came home.

Wishing you the very best of luck and happiness in the future.

"Some adoption agencies insist that if you are married" no agencies are allowed to insist you are married, it is the law that unmarreid couples are allowed to adopt. Yes both partner can now adopt the child, the law has changed on this.

Your biggest issue in my opinion at the moment will be your age. 21 is very young to adopt and you may (only may) get some resistance to starting so young form your social worker.

AS everyone has said, your social worker/ social services will want to see that you have fully come to terms with your inability to get pragnant and bear a child. The adoption process is long and draining and really it is best to deal with how you feel about the loss of a birth child way in advance of having to deal with pesky social workers!

I would advise you to try and get some counselling (maybe ask GP?) it shows willing and SW's love that and ask your local council about adoption information evenings. They will be honest about potential difficulties etc and give you more information.

Just to reassure you, being a celebrity in the Uk gives you no advantage in domestic adoption at all (read Dawn French's account of thier adoption!). All adoption stories you will have read are American and the process is significantly different there, celebrity or not.

Good advice from Kew. It would be better to give yourself time to digest all your medical issues and their repurcussions before you can recharge your batteries enough to deal with an adoption.

Sorry I thought you had cancer! I don't know why I assumed that. It sounds awful, no wonder an hysterectomy would (in some ways) be a relief.

Thanks for all your messages.

Don'y worry Liffey when I don't my family there was a problem they thought cancer as well.

I have talked about counelling with my GP already, so I think I will need it.

As to my age, I know that I am young, but, it is such a lengthy process I thought I would be better off getting the ball rolling now.

Me and my BF are both white, however we would not be asking for a white baby. I just want to be a mum, no matter what colour the child or children. I'm not sure I could cope with a sick or disabled child, that may sound awful and I know that there are many children with disabilities that need homes but when you yearn for a child as much as I do I would really want someone healthy. The thought of having a child that could possibly have a life threatening problem, I could not bear.

My local council and local agencies are only interested in homing older children, is it going to be a massive wait for a child under 1?

I don't blame you. My dd has two lovely friends, adopted from China/Taiwan. Both beautiful, happy healthy, their adoptions both went smoothly no probs. Have read lots of dreadful things about babies from Russia whose mothers had alcohol problems, or worse. People want the baby to look like their own though, they don't want the whole world to know their business, and I can understand that. But I'd rather just be upfront and have a healthy baby.

you will need to get all the medical stuff sorted first and i think going for counselling after that would be great

after that you could then investigate what kind of children are available for adoption here and overseas and approach various agencies to see who would assess you both

I'm sure you will appreciate that ( thankfully) very few women these days give up their babies for adoption. So there is not much chance that you can adopt a baby under 1

Most toddlers and young children in the system have been taken away from parenst who have addiction and/or mental health problesm. So these children are at risk of disabilities because of this . These problesm don't always show up when the child is young. Its also difficult to distinguish between temporary and long term issues

so you see its not very likely that you will be able to adopt a healthy young baby. the nearest you can hope for will be a toddler who doesn't show many problems yet but will be at risk of developing them later

healthy babies of mixed heritage tend to go to families who match their background

its not really a waiting list system, as in if you stay on the list long enough you will get to the top. its more like job interviews. The person interviewing you doesn't care if this is your first interview or if you've had 500 and are really desperate. they only want the best person for their vacancy.

kewcumber is right that most SWs will prefer a married couple in their 30s to an unmarried couple in their 20s.they will be seen as more stable and will probably be better off financially. they won't refuse to assess you - its just you could keep losing out at matching panels.

i knwo a couple in their 20s who waited years to adopt a healthy baby and ended up adopting a baby with down's syndrome. They kept losing out because they didn't have a spare bedroom but the Council would only rehouse them after a child was placed

I am sorry I cant give you more encouraging news especially when you are facing such big medical issues. perhaps counselling will help you consider other options for building a family. After all, if you adopt another woman will be carrying your baby and MANY other women will be caring for him/her befroe you bring them home

If you and your bf are both white then you will not be able to adopt a non-white child (unless you are going for an overseas adoption). I can understand your worry about being able to cope with various types of disability, there were some things that DH and I knew we wouldn't be able to deal with, but there are virtually no children available for adoption who are without some kind of issue or uncertainty. It would be a long shot to be able to get a white baby under 1, there are so many prospective adopters out there who want that.

DH and I adopted after infertility, and I really understand the dark despair when you fear that you will never be a parent. But it really is better to take some time to grieve for what you've lost before you start down the adoption route. The adoption process is extremely emotionally wearing, and if you are fragile when you start then the process really would be awful for you.

I recommend a book that I found very helpful called Adopting after infertility. It made me cry a lot but helped me to focus on what I really wanted, and to get past the feeling of loss. It's written for the American market so any reference it makes the the actual adoption process will be different for the UK, but that's quite a minor part of the book anyway.

I know that you don't think you would be able to deal with surrogacy, but once you've had time deal with not being able to be pregnant with your child yourself perhaps you might be able to reconsider it. There is a lot to be said for knowing the family medical history of a child, and that the birth mother had ante-natal care and didn't take any harmful substances during pregnancy. If you adopt you won't be able to be sure of either of these things. But that's a decision for the future anyway.

It is possible to adopt a sibling group which can sometimes mean younger children or with fewer obvious issues. You don't have a rush, I would take a few years to get settled in your home and relationship (as you might if trying to conceive naturally) and then contact your local authority.

Does anyone know where you can find out more about surrogacy?

Sorry to hear about your fertility problems.
I was older than you when we first applied to adopt but were met with huge prejudice from the adoption agencies as we were not yet 30. This is despite having been married a fair while and having a large family home, financially secure etc. We also have lots of experience with children.
After 3 long stressful attempts (no actual refusals but they constantly placed children elsewhere rather than with us) we have put it on hold and are currently fostering instead.
I hope you have more success than we did!
Perhaps they just didn't like me !

cots site for information on surrogacy

DSS - on rereading probably more my reading too fast than your lack of clarity!