How long did it take for you to bond with your child?

[LolaTheShowgirl]

I have recently been diagnosed with polycystic ovarians and as a result, my fertility is very limited. I have no childred yet but would absolutely love to be a mummy so I am looking to adopt in the future. I have a few questions if anyone would be so kind to answer them. First how long did it take for you to bond with your child? Did you adopt from the uk or abroad? How long did it take for the child to feel like your very own? Where there any obstacles?

Thanks xxx

bump

IME it varies a great deal - its much like asking " when did you knwo that your Dh was THE ONE for you?". For some parents it happens very quickly, for others it takes years or never happens. Depends on so many factors - age of child, personality of child and parent,fit, life experiences, attachment issues in child, family support. time at home etc etc

there are many many obstacles for families in the Uk wishing to adopt. Unless you are a back or mixed heritage family and/or youngish, you will find it very difficult or impossible to adopt a non special needs baby or toddler.

Overseas adoption is exteremely slow - around 4 years at least - and often expensive

I woudl urge you to explore every other option before attempting to adopt. Assisted conception treatment is often very succeesful for woman with PSOS. My friend has a baby a few weeks ago after only a few montsh treatment. If you have just been diagnosed you need to check out your options

I agree with kristingle to explore fertility treatment first, as i felt that at least i had tried every option available so i wouldn't have any regrets in the future and while going through the adoption process, we adopted through social work, they want to be certain that you won't conceive until you have bonded with the child. IME we bonded very quickly, our baby was 5months old and has no special needs. We find it hard to believe we're not the birth parents. We were very lucky considering i was nearly 40 to be placed with a baby maybe it depends on where you live ,maybe coming from a big city with many social problems there are alot of babies being taken into care. Of course there are many factors not just age that are considered when being placed with a child.
The main obstacle for us in becoming parents was the fertility treatment, the adoption process was a doddle compared to that. It also helped to have had a really good social worker.

interesting ramona as I found the adoption harder than the three rounds of IVF!

PCOS is one of the more treatable conditions as far as fertility is concerned sometimes even with somehting as simple clomid - i bleive about 80% of PCOs women who take clomid ovulate on it so I would even be close to considering adoption at this point.

Bonding is also a bit of a red herring - if you are reasonably normal and your child is reasonably young you will bond at some point whether they are birth or adopted. whther its on day one or day 200 doesnt seem that important looking back on it - it such a small amount of time in the lifetime of your child.

I adopted from overseas though as Kistina says it certianly isn't the easy, quick or chepa option and there are longer and longer delays in most countries now.

Roughly my guess is that I took about 6 months to bond with DS thoguh its hard to assess that now as it isn;t a black and white process and there is no "moment" where bonding happens.

Also your feelings for your child grow and develop over time which I imagine as also true of a birth child.