To be pissed of that infertile people are getting the blame for falling adoption rates.

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As in infirtile person you are forever having adoption suggested to you by helpful people.
Now people having successful IVF are being blamed for the drop in adoption rates.

Why not blame the hoops you have to jump through www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46081726

I can't have a child. What pisses me off the most is when people tell me i can just adopt. No I fucking can't. It's not that easy. It's always comments from people who are fertile and/or have already had kids. Like fuck you.

They don't give kids to people like me, and the thing is, I'm not a criminal, I'm responsible, I've got a roof over my head and I work, but I don't tick all the wealthy straight couple boxes, and there's tons of other hoops to jump through. So no, I can't just adopt.

Any old druggie or alcoholic or paedophile or otherwise unsuitable parent can have a biological child. But anyone wanting to adopt has to jump through the most difficult of hoops imaginable. It’s completely disproportionate. When DBIL and DSIL wanted to adopt, social services wanted to interview DBIL’s first wife. She could have said anything she wanted to sabotage their chances. It’s ridiculously hard to adopt. That’s why the adoption rates are so low.

Whilst the contact with birth family thing is true in some cases, it is not true in all, though what is becoming common is birth families tracking children via social media before they are of an age to decide themselves, easier than it seems.

Even in closed adoptions (no physical contact) many families are expected to maintain Letterbox contact if not actual contact and this can be intrusive and upsetting

But anyone wanting to adopt has to jump through the most difficult of hoops imaginable. It’s completely disproportionate. When DBIL and DSIL wanted to adopt, social services wanted to interview DBIL’s first wife. She could have said anything she wanted to sabotage their chances. It’s ridiculously hard to adopt. That’s why the adoption rates are so low

In my entirely limited personal experience of friends, I have found this to be so. One friend had SS at her house and they remarked on its lack of neatness and asked what she was going to do about it. I haven't seen her house but her desk!!! :o The point being, she has a partner, so why not ask what he was going to do about it, if it's that important.

I am an adopter. There is so much misinformation on this thread.

Adoption is not about rehoming other people's 'unwanted' children. The vast majority of children are removed from the birth family because of abuse and neglect. Yes a stay at home parent is often needed, because many adopted children have significant additional needs. I work part time because of my son's needs.

Maintaining a contact with birth family is being misinterpreted. For the vast majority of adopters this means writing a letter once a year, actually meeting the birth family is incredibly rare. I am one of the rare adopters who should have direct contact with the birth father. It didnt last longer than two years into the adoption because he couldn't maintain the commitment. I don't know any other adopter who meets the birth family.
Yes social workers do want people to have put some space between the adoption process and infertility treatment. This is because assessment is time consuming and expensive. They need people to be completely committed to adoption. More importantly people need time to grieve for the loss of birth children before they move on to adoption.

The whole middle class/working class thing is very odd. No one can insist their child goes to university. I'm working class, I went to university, our home is full of books. My son will not be going to university, because last time I looked you do need academic ability. My son will get a handful of GCSEs, which for him will be a huge achievement.
Modern adoption is an extremely complex beast. There is no one reason for the decline in the numbers of children being adopted. Its a result of a set of complex changes and shifts in society and medical advances. There is no one thing to 'blame'

I was just about to post the same as Ted. I’d also add that the assessment process really isn’t that horrific or drawn out. And I’ll reiterate what someone upthread said - if you get told someone couldn’t adopt because of that’s probably not the whole story.

But OP, YANBU, it’s a ridiculous report from start to finish. I found it quite upsetting and I’m generally quite chill about it all, several years on. 💐 for you.

Thank god some actual adopters have shown up to correct some of the usual incorrect and offensive crap people spout about adoption. I have three wonderful adopted children. We have no contact with their birth family because they have never bothered to engage in the letterbox contact so we have stopped too. None of my children have any special needs. My eldest two came home almost one year to the day from our first contact with the agency, and I didn’t find the process hard or draining at all. Adoption isn’t all misery, we are just like other families, for all intents and purposes.

Ted, Pawnee, you should let Lambeth social services know, that was what they told us in an adoption information evening.

Perhaps they were exaggerating to put off time wasters, but they certainly said they would want the child to maintain contact with their wider bio family. Grandparents, cousins, siblings etc. I can’t remember if they included parents, this was five years ago. My impression was that they included parents in that too, but I can’t remember if they said that explicitly.

The LA where we are are quite open about the age gap issue my friends encountered on their website. They weren't even looked at beyond that so no other issues were found. Just an aribtrary line

My pregnancy was ivf. The pregnancy was horrendous not to mention the treatment beforehand. I knew I’d never be able to have another child. I grieved. I moved on. A few years later, I realised I’d like to adopt a child but am too ill to do so.

Until I had my bio child I didn’t allow myself to feel what it would be like to have a child and I was thus totally focused on the ivf process. To go through the adoption process, imo you need to be able to visualise actually having a child. It’s fundamental.

I’m infuriated that the writer of the article would submit such an insensitive question. It’s such a ridiculous question and I’m not surprised it is deleted. People going through ivf would drive themselves insane if they visualised actually having a child.

Why would that question not be put to anyone, who is a parents

*They answered that they would just want their child to be happy, and would respect their choices when they grew up. Still, it was thought that growing up in a house with books would damage the child's working class identity (which is, in my view, ridiculous: identity is not static, and why is it assumed that working class people don't read?)

To be honest, I think this is a particularly nasty form of the class system which is pervasive in Britain.*

I thought social mobility was meant to be a good thing, but only for biological children of their parents it seems!

Adoption was ruled out in our house because of the multiple hoops BIL & SIL were being forced to jump through.

From the point of being approved to adopt it took a further 18mths for a suitable match. They were really disheartened by the process.

Multiple adopters being shown the same childrens profiles then a panel deciding who'd be the best family for the child. Only allowed to express interest in one child at a time.

Adoption is very challenging - as it should be. It's not an alternative to IVF because it's not to do with fulfilling a desire to become a parent, but everything to do with finding a family for a child in need.

Exactly.
Thank you to the adoptive parents on this thread. Your insight adds so much.

Yes for some people it is what comes after IVF but the way it is talked about by society in general it is like it is the next natural step.

No one ever asks someone with one or two children if they ever thought of adopting.