Giving up v.severely disabled baby for adoption?

[mirage999]

Contraversial question I know - but is it possible or easy (practically, not emotionally) to give up a severly disabled baby (one that requires full time special care) at birth for adoption or have it placed in care?

I am trying to decide whether to go for the prenatal tests for Downs etc and have decided that if the results show there is a problem with the baby, I would rather let nature take its course and allow the baby to live (but be looked after by someone else) rather than go ahead and have its life terminated, thinking that this would be the lesser of 2 evils.
Has anyone done this and is it possible to have a such a baby adopted/placed into care?
I have 2 healthy children already and the reason for not wanting to keep a baby who was severely disabled as it I dont believe it would be fair on them. Plus my DH would not be supportive and I have no family who could help.
thanks in advance

MMJ as usual you haven't bothered reading my post have you.

I didn't call her heartless or awful.

I said that she shouldn't jump the gun and decide what she is going to do if her LO has a problem, as regardless of that she will love him/her anyway.

If youd read that youd have seen that.

This poor women posted this is a section, which to be honest I feel is very tactless, and had I done something like that, the first thing I would have done is apologised.

Just a thought

IF someone feels they cannot adequately care for their child - for whatever reason that they feel - then an enquiry about how you go about seeking good loving care for that child is not unreasonable.

How other people re-act to the same thing is not relevant tosomeone who (for whatever reason) feels under immense pressure.

All those posters who post with anxieties about 12 week nuchal scans etc get very gentle treatment. Why shouldn't a person who feels the same fears (because it is the same fear - fear of having a baby with disabilities) also get thoughtful constructive feedback? Many women give up babies fo adoption because they feel they cannot look after them for reasons totally unconnected with disability....would you condemn every mother who gives up a baby f adoption? It's advice often doled out on MN to people who find themselves unhappily pg 'have it adopted'.

It could be to research support, or wait until the baby is born, or seek counselling for anxiety...or just to listen.

But (the inappropriateness of it originally being in SN aside) I don't see why per se a question about adopting a disabled child should arouse such judgmentalism or be decreed 'offensive'.

Isn't it better for the OP to admit that she can't cope with a SN child than to struggle and struggle and finally the child is taken into care?

I think in fairness Blu there are lots of postive messages buried within this thread, and it would never have come to the attention of those who would be offended ahd it not been osted in the wrong section. It's perhaps mainly unfortunate.

I am not anti-adoption for SN kids; the foster aprents and adoptive parents I know are truly fantastic. Far better that than many of their birth famillies (quite a few have FAS for example).

The answer thugh OP is that it is practically easy to arrange care for a disabled child, sadly I think often easier to get that level of srevice than suport for caring within the home, ridiculous as it may seem.

If you have a child with a disability then 99% of the time you feel exactly the same as if your child didn't have a disability (except more protective).

For the 1% who don't there's the Julia Hollander response, she's written a book, and you could read it, but I don't think her response is particularly normal or at all common, I believe it to be very unusual indeed. I can't say I recognise the things she talks about. I know many mothers of children who are very severely disabled (not DS which is not really a severe disability- usually LDs are moderate and semi independent adulthood would be the norm)- none of them have the feelings Julia Hollander talks about. I don't either.

I strongly suspect if you did have a child with difficulties then you would find that you felt just the same about them as your other children. That is the usual response. Your child isn't a disability to be dealt with, it's the child who you created and loved.

It is very possible to give your child up for adoption, however in this country it is not an instant thing. Initially the child will live with fostercarers (who may or may not be approved to adopt as well), and you have 16 weeks in which to change your mind.

I have worked with a number of severely disabled babies who have come into the care system. Some have gone back home to birth parents once the birth parents have worked things out for themselves a bit, some have gone on to be adopted or at least to look for an adoptive placement.

I don't think the OP has been given a fair hearing. Yes, those of us who have severely or profoundly disabled children do know how good it can be, we know how much we love our children and we know how much their siblings have benefited from having them in their lives. But there are some birth families who cannot commit to their child with a severe disability, just as there are some birth families who cannot commit to the child without a severe disability. It's entirely natural I think to be worried about it, to wonder how it will work, to be scared of the possibility, and to consider the future. Sometimes just knowing that there are options out there means that you can carry on yourself because you know it doesn't have to be forever - knowing that there's a number you can call and say "enough" means that you don't have to make that call.

A look at the number of severely disabled children who are adopted ought to indicate that there are a significant number of birth parents who make the decision not to parent their child. I don't think that makes them all monsters at all - and fwiw I definitely think it's better to have the child and go for adoption then to abort. But that's just me.

Oh - and as far as OP being a troll because only one post - look at the kicking lots of you have given her - wouldn't you be inclined to namechange if you were making that original post?

To the OP - call your local social services and see what they say - they may have more information, and they may also have info on support groups and other services they can offer to families who do have a child with disabilities; it may help to know you wouldn't necessarily have to do it all totally alone.

The Op would have been better off posting this thread if she had actually had a positive pre-natal test for a severely disabled baby. I think it's incredibly cold and insensitive for her toss this question out for debate .... I actually thought it was a sick joke when I spotted it yesterday

FWIW I only posted on this when it was originally posted in Special Needs.

I doubt very much that I would have replied at all ( and certainly would not have posted negatively) had it been posted anywhere else.

Posting it in SN is not a minor mistake. It is posting "if you were me how easy would it be to get rid of your child because i really don't want one like yours".
THAT was why she got the reply she did from me. But since it was moved I haven't responded again until now.

The placement was a mistake but an awful one.
The OP should have just asked for it to be deleted and reposted elsewhere on the board. I think the thread would have been far less antagonistic throughout had she doen so.

mirage - you are not going to know at the birth what your child will be like at 1, at 2, at 5, at 10... At 5 weeks old my full term dd3 was still in special care after a normal uneventful pregnancy. We were told she would not walk or talk. At 5 she is at mainstream school with no lds and some fairly minor physical difficulties. (She has cp from brain damage due to birth hypoxia).

We all try to plan in advance but with any child (especially one with a disability) there is no such thing as a crystal ball.

I wasn't kidding earlier btw (posting from sn), if you want an idea of how it can work out in the way you are suggesting, look up julia hollands. She felt she couldn't cope and left her dd in the hospital. She is still in touch with her dd and has recently published her story - it was splashed all over the papers a while ago with pics of both birth and adopted family...

oh - hollander, oops, got her name wrong lol...

Moral issues aside - I broadly agree with Blu's first post on this thread. I really don't see the point in upsetting yourself mulling over a situation that is fairly unlikely to happen. And if it did, as Jute and others have said, your feelings may well be very different from what you might predict.

I must agree that there's no guarantee a "normal" child won't get brain-damamged two years down the line in an accident, or have a problem that isn't immediately detected. For example my cousin was heavily austistic but it wasn't immediately known. There is so much importance placed on Downs, but so many other things that can happen which you won't get a test for.

I don't know what conditions if any you are entitled to apply as the birth mother when giving up a child for adoption, but if it were me I would want a loving home guaranteed before I let them go. Some disabled children are so much more vulnerable to abuse and neglect surely...

Just personally, I really think if I couldn't look after them myself I would probably feel it better to terminate (as long as done early as poss) because I wouldn't know what their fate would be, IYSWIM. But again that's just me.
And despite me thinking during the first half of my first pregnancy (now on 2nd), towards the end, I knew in my heart that I would take whatever came and love him.

Blu is right too, if you would have it anyway, why stress yourself with tests?

Good luck anyway.

If the OP has a husband that is saying get the tests, and if it has DS, then we will abort, and everyone around her is saying the same, and she for ethical reasons does not wish to abort under any circumstances, then it is not as simple as saying, it will be OK, you will love the baby, and won't want to give it up. Parents can have very different opinions on these things, and the difference between having a child that then has problems, and choosing to have a child that you know has some problems is that the possibility to say no to that is there. That's not to say it is right or wrong to make that choice, but given that having a severely disabled child is very challenging, if you thought that you might be doing it alone, with two other young children and no support (as the OP has intimated) then thinking through options seems a sensible approach. Perhaps the OP didn't realise that her dh had such strong opinions before she had this pregnancy, perhaps she has just become old enough to be recruited into the testing regime, or perhaps the pregnancy was unplanned.

OP have you thought about contacting an adoption agency or two, and asking them what the process would be, or the DS society for more information, perhaps your dh might just be over worried, and reassurable?

I can't help feeling that the OP is trying to justify giving her child up for adoption by saying she couldn't terminate. Meaning she is doing what is best for her in that that is what she could live with easier.

What about the child who will learn that his/her mother didn't want him/her as they weren't perfect? Maybe an abortion would be better in that case.

confused- cant imagine giving my child up (having already had 2!) for adoption just because he/she is disabled??? But I suppose everyone is different, like you Riven my cousins dad developed ms very young- and his family did'nt 'dump' him!

I don't understand the family dynamics either, her husband doesn't even want to try to cope with a situation he has no experience of so she is going to appease him by aborting or adopting out a problem child.

What are the daughters going to think once they learn a sibling of theirs was aborted or adopted out because s/he is disabled?

It's hard having a non-NT child (noone is pretending otherwise), but she (and he) doesn't even want to try. That's what really gets me....

yeh- kind of reminds you a bit of hitler- sick (sorry to be so brutal- but makes by stomach churn!)

i think you should re consider lots of parent have children with a disability its is not the last resort to just give up that child. infact you can become emotionally attached to a special needs child and with children with downs there is considerable learning to help tham lead 80 5 normal lives . i think you are being a little premature in this idea, lots of children get removed at birth [ i am a foster carer] and a mother needs child, contact between the birth mother and the child is seven days a week you have to consider milk feeding attachment for the baby, the role of adoption takes 12 ot 18 months.
think about how you would feel at a later date, most special needs children rocover 50 % to have a pleasant life and with things like autism there is a full recovery plan. please see www.treatingautism.co.uk
it would be too quick a thought just to give up your child because they have a special need.

please reassess this situation
froma a very caring mum

It is an odd, cold attitude but sadly I think it's the norm these days- the matter never seems to be up for public debate, and tests are always presented as A Good Thing,so the other (I nearly said alternative) approach never gets aired.