adopting with a birth child who is 7

[cedar12]

Me and my husband have just had another ivf attempt fail, and are thinking about adoption.We already have a dd who is 7 who is great and I am sure would love a brother or sister.
Realistically we cant get the ball rolling for 6 month after the ivf attempt I think. What is the time frame after that? From what I read it seems to take at least 2 years. So dd would be 9 or 10 by this point. Just wondering for those of you who have adopted with birth children how they have coped if they were older? and how they have bonded with the adopted child? When should I start talking to my dd about it?
Thanks for your advise in advance

I can't be of much help, since our adopted dd is not (quite) with us yet, and our dd is 4. Hope you'll get someone with more relevant experience along soon. What I do know is that you should expect the process to take at least 2 years, and that social workers prefer an age gap of at least two years (and usually more) between any child already in the family and an adopted child.

I'm not sure what age child you would want, but you probably know that it will be hard to adopt a baby if you are both white.

You probably also know that many adopted children come with a less-than-great history that has left them with a legacy of emotional and behavioural problems to deal with. This will have an impact on your birth child.

Personally, I wouldn't talk to your dd about it until you have attended an information evening and had your first discussion with a social worker - and maybe not until you have completed prep course. No point raising her hopes if you are going to decide this is not for you.

Best of luck!

Thanks Hester, there is such a lot to think about.

Cader12 just wanted to say hi, we are in a similar position. Our IVF attempt failed this year and we have a DD aged 5 and a half. We have been to an open evening but not talked to DD about it yet and not decided what to do at all yet. We cannot proceed until 6 months after the IVF failed and we are not sure if we will or not, it is all speculation at the moment. I posted a few months ago, Adoption after IVF. All the best.

Thanks For your reply I have read your previous thread.
Our last attempt only just failed so will have to wait until at least xmas. Would we be allowed to go to an open evening before that? I cant decide whether to do one last try at the ivf or not at the moment. But that would mean putting the adoption off even longer. I am worried how dd will cope being that much older.

I expect they would allow you to go to the open evening, but not proceed with your application until the time has lapsed. But going to an open evening is a good way of helping you make your mind up, so no need to put it off I wouldn't think.

Do make sure you are really ready to move on from fertility treatment before you proceed with adoption. it would be really terrible to be tormented by regrets for that one last try.

I really hope you get to complete your family x

Cedar12 Thanks, looks like we are in a similar boat...and it's leaking! Sorry, that's the silly joke I usually make.

Our last attempt was our first and only with donor eggs. We were told almost 5 years ago my eggs were no good but soldiered on (no pun intended) with my eggs and IUI for almost three years before DH felt ready to go on the waiting list for donor eggs and then 14 months later it failed.

I am half and half ready to move on. Which is why we are not doing anything yet. The County Council adoption services say we must wait 6 months before proceeding but we could go to the open evening, which was helpful.

I was a bit sad we had to wait but now I can really see it was right to make us wait.

Hope you find the right answer for you.

Personally, I know now that I would like another go but DH does not and it is very expensive so not sure we can afford it. I am torn between Spain, where there is no wait, and the UK where we would be waiting about 10 montehs.

We will see what happens.

Off on hols for just over a week so will check back in in about 10 days.

All the best.

Thanks Italian and Hester.
I know what you mean about moving on. I am not sure if I am quite ready but keep on thinking I could keep on saying just one more go. Like you Italian I am the driving force behind all this, Dh would be quite happy if we didnt do either but knows it is important to me. He would love another dc but finds it hard to deal with it all.
We have had 3 fresh attempts and 2 frozen over the last few years. My problem is tubal, 3 ectopic pregnancies. I have no tubes now. First attempt was a disaster I got an infection from the egg collection. 2nd fresh attempt had a mmc at 10 weeks. 3rd frozen was a blighted ovum. 4th frozen bfn, 5th bfn. They have found out now I have raised natural killer cells.
In theory I should be the ideal ivf patient but something always seems to be not quite right!!
Maybe we will look into going on an open evening.
My clinic has links with Spain, its a clinic in Barcelona. It has good success rate i think. I hope you have a lovely holiday Italian.

Thanks Cedar12 we have internet access in our French chalet! Whoop whoop! Sorry you have had so many problems. It is a real pain. I am a Christian and at times it has tested my faith a bit to have these repeated attempts and not get anywhere! So sorry for you. But I must admit I amso grateful for my wonderful dd - even if she does drive me mad! She has started being quite naughty - which I put down to her not having sibs and therefore getting her own way more than is strictly necessary!

In some ways I feel that we have not had tha many attempts because after DD was born we had about half a dozen IUI attempts at two different clnics and one IVF attempt that did not go anywhere but we were told after the first IUI we would not be able to get anywhere with my rubbish eggs! So in some ways I sort of feel our one attempt with donor eggs was our only attempt!

I really had faith up until this point what one day the ivf would work not so sure now.
We had an exciting weekend this weekend we have bought a puppy he is gorgous. dd is loving it.
Itailan I use to always blame any bad behaviour on dd being an only child, I can asure you they can all be a pain!!We went to see some friends at the weekend who have 3 dcs and they spent the whole day arguing and fighting.
I hope you have a lovely holiday.

Thanks Cedar12, I really hope you will find your faith again. For me I know it has not gone at all, I just find it hard now to give those pat answers I once used to give! I can still pray and often do because that is all I can at times. I know I am so lucky and privileged to have the life I do, I really have a nice life, a lovely kind DH and a beautiful, if naughty, DD.

I agree maybe I do blame her behaviour too much on being an only one. I feel if I could have given her a sib she would be happier and find it easy to do things. She is quite a little fuss pot when it comes to food, socks, shoes, etc it is like the princess and the pea! These socks hurt, those shoes don't fit etc!

Hester I saw you on another thread, can I ask, did you have a birth child when you adopted and how easy was that? Please tell me some things if you can and if not, no worries.

Thanks

Hi cedar,not sure how much help this is but our adopted dd is 3 and our birth son is 10. He adores his little sister and we have had no problems with bonding. In our case though dd has lived with us since she was 3 days old so that probably made the bonding process easier.

Good luck for the future

dolphin13 did you foster first, can I ask, please? I wondered about fostering with a view to adoption. I have wondered about fostering, wondered if it would be too hard to do because of the chance of giving the child back to social services if necessary or to new adoptive family but I did wonder if it might be a good way of seeing whether we could all bond as a family without the express decision at the start that we would definitely adopt. I mean if the child needs to go into foster care and would eventually be adopted one day it would mean less changes for the child if the two situations could be the same family. I know that is often not possible but if a family with a child were interested in fostering with a view to maybe adopting and got approved for both first, how do you think the county council adoption services would view it?

(I know you are not an expert in it and feel free to not reply or for others to reply, please.)

Thanks

Hi. I dont have any experience of IVF (thankfully) so cannot comment on that re adoption.

But my bchildren were 9 and 11 when we first fostered DS and then went on to adopt him two years later.

They bonded with him very well. We never had any problems. I dont know if we were just lucky. He was very young and I think that helped.

DS and his elder brother do NOT get on at all at the moment but that is reassuringly normal

thefirstmrsDeVere thank you that is really helpful and encouraging.

Thanks everyone.

Italiangreyhound, Yes we did foster her first. We didn't go into fostering with the intention of adopting. DD came to us at 3 days old. She was always going to be adopted but in her case the process was going to be unusually long. When she was 10 months old her sw showed us the profile of the family they would eventually be looking for. The profile matched our family perfectly and we couldn't bear the thought of her spending another year or so with us. Then having to go to strangers when she would have grown to see us as her family. So we applied to adopt her.
Her sw was really pleased but the SWs from the adoption team were against as for some reason they seem to hate FCs adopting.
I know our LA wouldn't look well on people applying to foster with a view to adoption (although I do know a couple who did that). There is a scheme called concurrant planning which is where you foster a child with a view to adopting if and when the child becomes available.
The problem with concurrant planning is there is a chance the child would not be freed for adoption which would mean the heartbreak of giving it up. Not all LAs offer concurrant planning but it may be worth you asking yours if they have any information.

Dolphin13 Yes, I have heard of concurrent planning/foster whatever but don't think our County council does it. I think it is actually a good idea, if it works. less change for the child. the potential heratbrake is for the family and the child may end up with a good foster home and then adoption without change. I wonder why adoption services seem so negative with the view of peopel fostering wityh a view to adoption. I would not want to be cutting any corners or anything. I would want to be fully aproved before-hand and fully preapred for whatever happened.

Does anyone know why it is considered such a no-no by some to foster and then adopt the same child?

Thanks for sharing your experiences Dolphin13 - most helpful and so glad for you and for your little one it worked out well.

Italiangreyhound - from the child's point of view it is the ideal solution for them to be adopted by their foster family if they are settled and happy there and are not going to be returned to birth parents. For social services though it means they're likely to be losing a foster family they've recruited and invested in. I imagine that's the reason!

Hi Just13moreyearstogo

I've been looking into it a lot now and can really see why the adoption services do things the way they do. I still don't understand it all but I can see why fostering and adoption are usually kept separate. I can imagine that they need the foster family to be as neutral as possible about what will happen and they will want the best for the child even if it does not mean staying with them! I imagine it is a hard job to do but rewarding too.

Cedar12 are you still around? Hope all is well.

I think it is time for me to sign out for a bit. I will sign back in when things are clearer for me but I wish you all the very best and will continue to lerk! How do you spell that word!

If anyone want to email me you can do so on my name italiangreyhound and my imaginary age 39 at yahoo dot co do uk

Thanks to all