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

Why should I hide a topic?

The OP posted in SN about giving up a child like so many of us are doing our darndedest to raise ourselves. Why is that acceptable, and why shouldn't it be discussed, and why shouldn't we give our opinions about why that thought is so upsetting to us? We're the ones with the real life experience, and to post in SN about giving up a child "like ours", it would be disservice to our children not to respond.

A child isnt a toy, that if it is broken (and I say this sarcastically, as I dont think they are broken, before I get flamed)we can send it back.

We are TRULY BLESSED to be given the opportunity to have children be a part of our lifes.

good post mm22bys

From what I understand, you are not saying you couldn't LOVE a disabled child, you are saying you fear you would not be up to the job of CARING for a disabled child.

I think that if you feel you cannot give a child, any child, everything they need, then you OWE it to that child to make sure you get them someone who can. Be that adoption, respite or home help or whatever.

I think though, that your fear is born of ignorance - not saying that in a put-you-down way, but if you have no experience or understanding of certain disabilities, I suppose it can be difficult to process for some people.

But the thing to remember is that children don't come with guarentees. You have no idea if the 2 children you already have, will one day need full time care - will you give them up for adoption if so? Or will you look at other choices?

Do you really fear that you are SO incapable of looking after your child if they needed so much care - from birth, or as a result of accident or illness later on, that you would feel you had to pass that to someone else without trying to get help, support, training first? If you really feel that, then I think you would be sensible to give them up if that happened, because you wouldn't be the best person for them.

I think that you will go round in circles now, but you have NO idea how you will feel if you are ever IN that situation.

Can I ask please about a discrepancy I can see here, and do set me straight because I genuinely don't understand.

OP has received a pretty harsh response and a lot of mothers are rightfully defensive of the fact that disabled children are just as nice and beautiful and loveable as other children.

But every week at least there is a thread on the pregnancy board, asking for help in a decision about whether to abort a baby with a perceived high risk of Down syndrome or another disbility, and often these threads contain extremely sensitive responses which are utterly different to those on this thread.

ofetn also there is at least one post suggesting the OP consider adoption rather than termination.

I don't get why someone considering terminating a child with a disabling condition gets a more favourable response than someone considering having that child adopted.

I'm asking this because I often feel very upset about the termination threads (and angry) but it doesn't seem acceptable to criticise that. Why therefore is it Ok to be harsh to this OP?

Thanks

Also I feel from OP that she is probably under huge pressure from an unsupportive partner.

In circumstances like this it must be very hard to make a decision against that of the other potential parent.

I must add that I agree with many of the posts here. I personally like to think I would not terminate nor give up any of my children, disabled or otherwise. Though of course I've not been in a position where I've had to make that choice.

Helen - I think the backlash has been because the OP is asking a hypothetical question, in that she is not actually in the situation as far as she knows.

Until quite recently it wasnt unusual for parents to be encouraged not to take children with disabilities home from the hospital.
I know someone who had a child with DS (30 years ago) who left him in the hospital, and has never seen him since.

I think because she initially posted in the SN thread, which was insensitive, then on this thread.

Also because she already has two kids and people can't understand why she's only thinking this now. She hasn't replied to this question.

Perhaps on the pregnancy thread she would have got a better response. Mind you, those threads are often by people who have been put in high risk cateogories and are feeling frightened and emotional. I don't think this lady hasn't even had any tests yet, so this highly emotive subject has been brought up (as I said in the wrong place asking the wrong people) by someone who's baby could well be fine...

Double x, soz.

HB - I think it depends on many things - where it is posted, who sees it - but mostly it depends on the tone of the op. I have seen threads on terminating a pregnancy because of poss of ds where people who have children with ds have got very upset. I have seen threads on the same subject where parents of children with ds have come on and been so understanding and supportive.

If you post a fear and ask for help and info, you will get a better response than if you post something that says people with disabilities are not worth as much as 'normal' people, or they'd ruin your life or whatever.

If the OP in this case, had said "please give me some advice, I am really scared that I won't cope with caring for a severely disabled child, I am so worried about whether I would be capable enough that I can't help thinking about adoption. Can you talk to me about your experiences please"

she would have had a TOTALLY different thread! I think the main problem with the OP was, really, the assumption that a disabled child damages 'normal' children.

If she'd have just left that bit out - this would have been so different.

Yes I see now, thankyou for explaining.

27 - a lot of awful things were and still are not unusual, with regard to the general views about and treatment of disabled people....but that doesn't make them correct or acceptable.

And Hecate - yes that makes more sense, thankyou.
Perhaps the way she put it was unintentionally insensitive.

Agree, she posted in the wrong place asking the wrong people.

There's been some "support" for her here, but we'll never know what general response she would have got if she had posted here (for instance) in the first place....

electra, no of course it doesnt.
I didnt explain myself very well, just that that boy is someone I think about sometimes, being left in hospital, never knowing his family, and his mum never knowing what happened to him.

I think the story about the mother giving up the baby with DS to be very sad (from the mother's point of view- happy for the adoptive mother and the child). She sounds like Juia Hollander. Something that struck me reading JH's blog recently & the article about Alex is that both seem stuck in post dx crisis. Yes, yes we've all been there, but it is more normal to move through it. You don't stay there. They also seem to make the problems insurmountable. People mention nappies on a 10 year old (no big deal - really), or 10 years to get direct payments sorted (rubbish- a year - yes, but not 10).

Both Alex's mother and JH had dh's that certainly from their descriptions sound unsupportive. I find that so hard to understand I'm afraid, if my dh was talking about killing my child (a la JH's) or having a child adopted because of a disability, it would be bye bye husband without a second's thought. So I find their view almost impossible to understand.

Me too, Jute, I wouldn't be posting on Sn or adoptions about getting rid of a problem child, I'd be posting on Legal /Money Matters about getting rid of a problem husband!

Sorry, but I'm not seeing the "big big difference". My SIL would often ring in tears saying she had to arrange to get my niece adopted (and this is with a supportive family) - I found it shocking and upsetting (tho didn't say that to her, obviously, and one of the reasons she was in such a state was that she found it shoking to feel like that about her own daughter), but immediately understandable. She's not been in that sort of state for a few years now, but I think if she had known pre-birth what life was going to be like for the first few years, she would have been asking the exact question the OP asks. So I wonder is the OP merely going into this with her eyes open.

It is one thing to give birth to a child, experience their particular difficulties and feel you cannot cope. It is quite another to see that your child is not perfect and bail out.

I also think your premis that people who struggle for the first few years will go on to wish they had opted out earlier is theexact oppostie from the realisty.
Most SN parent I know - me included , find that the longer time goes on the more spectacularly ordinary their 'special circumstances' seem.

Really pagwatch? i guess we must be different from most people then as we have found that DCs needs became more difficult to manage over time not less.

Riven - sorry for hijack, but what's the name of the play center in Kingswood for disabled children?