To think infertile couples should have priority

[Lil44]

I’m incredibly grateful to have been able to have my own family. However reading about the latest celeb who already has children adopting a baby makes me feel incredibly sad for infertile couples who are waiting to be able to adopt a much wanted baby. I kind of always assumed such (obviously suitable) couples had priority, seems not??

Very, very few people want to adopt. Surely there are not enough people coming forward for social workers to even think about who is infertile or not? Also, I think those who struggle with infertility are grieving the fact that they will never experience being pregnant or getting to raise their own biological children. I don't think adoption is usually the answer they are longing for. I think that to adopt you need to want to help a child who is need of a home and to be able and willing to work through the complex challenges that come with it.

The title of your thread is ‘AIBU to think infertile couples should have priority.’

and you went on to say ‘I kind of always assumed such (obviously suitable) couples had priority, seems not??’

So the poster hasn’t twisted anything.

If she’s adopting a premature baby then she needs to be very careful about contraception. It’s not that difficult to avoid getting pregnant. She should also have thought carefully about keeping the baby - I would not have done so in her position. She has a premature adopted baby with serious health conditions. She will now have a newborn and it will be impossible for her to focus anywhere near the amount of attention needed on the little adopted boy. Adopted children have much higher needs than other children. You really have to take that time out to bond fully with them and make them feel secure and attached. Having lots of biological children who are all close in age isn’t great either because this boy will be at risk of feeling like an outsider.

Absolutely not. The needs of an adopted child can absolutely not be compared to those of a child who is not. They are far higher. And also the age gap there will be would not be possible biologically because her baby is 7 weeks and I presume she is 3 months pregnant or so (given that she’s blabbing all over social media about it).

The adopted baby has serious health conditions?

@CandiedPrincess glad you found my comment about the needs of adopted children funny by the way with your laugh emoji. You might want to read up about what adopted children go through and the impact it has on their lives before laughing and thinking it’s exactly the same as biological children.
There is a reason the adoption agencies in the UK tell prospective adopters not to get pregnant and would terminate a placement if there was a pregnancy- whether or not a “surprise”. It’s because it’s very damaging and unsettling for a newly adopted child.

He was born 11 weeks premature and is very fragile, yes. I believe he has ongoing health issues, including problems with breathing.

Imagine being an adoptee and reading the bullshit on this thread. Most of it is stereotyped garbage (with a healthy dose of prejudice thrown in). The comment about MOST people not being able to love an adopted child as much as a biological child is so offensive.

The idea that adoptive parents MUST be motivated absolutely by altruism is probably one of the main drivers for dwindling adopters. Most adopters simply want to be parents. It's not remotely akin to fostering either; fostering is a paid role. Adoption is giving a child a new beginning, becoming the child's parent as though that child was born to you.

It's been a number of years since I worked in this field, however the majority of older children (and I'm talking 3 to 4 and upwards - ie not old at all!) were rarely deemed suitable for adoption. They were sadly destined for a life in care, because repeated unsuccessful attempts to reintroduce them into the care of their useless parents had failed (believe you me, there is nothing remotely child centred about giving patently unfit parents chance after chance after chance to let their child down).

The successful adopters are the ones who speak plainly at assessment about what they can and can't cope with, and then embrace that child as is meant (as their own). The unsuccessful adopters are the ones who arrogantly deem themselves fit for anything, and approach it as some civic duty/giving something back.

I’m an adoptive parent. i recall when we began the adoption process, one of the first thing we were asked was about any fertility treatments because the local authority adoption agency wouldn't accept you onto the first stage if you were less than a year outside of failed fertility treatments. They really drummed it in that adoption is not a fix for infertility and you have to have a completely different mindset. Ten years down the line I can tell you, they were not wrong.

Oh DFD. You have no idea about me, my background OR my experience with adoption. Go patronise someone else.

No. The baby has reportedly 'some problems with his lungs' due to being premature - she's just been told to not take him out to avoid infection. That's all.

In the UK, she would never have been approved to adopt with two toddlers. She doesn’t have the ability to give an adopted child what they need. She would also have been advised that she needs to use contraception because she risks seriously destabilising the adopted child’s life by having another baby 6-7 months after the adoption.
She became pregnant with her first child about 3 months after meeting her husband which doesn’t really scream super-stable relationship either.

Kids aren’t accessories and given her behaviour on social media in terms of drawing attention to herself and taking pictures with her children’s faces in, I’m not sure this is the stable home this little boy needs. Nothing about her suggests stable at all.

He is 11 weeks premature. Also “some problems with his lungs” = health issues. That aside, HE IS ADOPTED. You cannot compare him to a child who is not. It’s established fact that it’s not good for an adopted child to gain a sibling until they are well and truly settled in their new family. It can have really serious repercussions.

It isn’t about who is first in the queue - it’s about which person/couple is the best match for the child.

When we adopted our children (both adopted as babies) it wasn’t about whether we were or weren’t infertile/famous - it was about why we would be a better match for the child than any other adopters who had also expressed a interest in adopting the child. The emphasis was always their needs, not ours (as it should be).

A lot of infertile people don't want to adopt, I know I certainly didn't. Adoption is a nightmare of red tape and emotional torture and I didn't want just any child I wanted my own pregnancy and child.

Infertile also does not mean cannot have children, infertile means its hard to have children and may need assistance. Sterile means can't have children and natural sterility is pretty rare (usually the result of rare birth defects or illnesses/treatments like chemo) even then theres options to try for some people like TESE.

The idea that infertile people should just adopt is ridiculous too, we are not clean up for irresponsible fertile people and news flash this isn't Dickensian England there are no orphanages here anymore and they are dying out most places.

Children in the system are NOT adoptable they have families who they can't be with for lots of reasons like maybe they pose a risk to siblings or parents ill and unable to care for them or parents in prison or in rehab or the family is homeless or fleeing dangers so surrender the child until they get suitable accommodation etc... Those that become adoptable usually after a long journey in care are often older and have had a lot of trauma from being removed from their family and do not always settle happily into being 'adopted'. These are children with complex emotions and connections to people they have lost not rescue dogs that are just happy for a non abusive home.

As others have said, Joss Stone is on record as saying her husband, an adoptee himself, has always wanted to adopt. Article I read today said he put this on the table on their first date.

Plus, people who already have a child or children could suffer from secondary infertility. Having ONE child is no guarantee you'll be able to have another. Should they not be allowed to adopt?

It depends on the circumstances but I’d say someone with secondary infertility would need to work through their feelings about it because adopted children require a high level of care and commitment. It wouldn’t be fair to either child to do it until the older child is at least 3 or 4.

Yes her husband was adopted but so what? It doesn’t make her or her family set up ideal for an adopted child. As I said it would never have been approved here given the young ages of her older two children. Plus if her pregnancy was pre adoption order (which it would be because the baby is 7 weeks and placement lasts at least 10 weeks) then it’s highly likely the placement would have been terminated and the little boy placed elsewhere. With good reason.

Adoption is a complex, messy and sometimes brutal system (I've been through it - am an adopter and also have a birth child). Social workers quote at you constantly that this is about providing parents for children, not children for parents - which is how it should be, but I've seen some pretty gratuitous trampling on the feelings of prospective adopters, including those for whom this is their last chance of parenthood.

I used to think that getting approved to adopt meant you had reached some universal bar of good personhood, but the reality is that it's a market in which local authorities are looking for parents for the kids they are responsible for. There are financial incentives to match local kids with their own list of approved adopters (this was true when I adopted 25 years ago, can't guarantee it's still true).

Ethnic matching was a strong factor 15 years ago, so we applied to adopt in another London borough (not where we lived) because we were the right ethnic mix for that area (black Caribbean/Irish).

To my surprise, having another child already was NOT necessarily a benefit; a lot of children are 'advertised' as needing a family with no other children, or only much older children. This is because many, if not most, adopted children have very complex needs that require high intensity parenting, and all the resources their parents can provide. (Tbh, on reflection this was true for my kids too, though they do really love each other.)

I think most adopters are people who have experienced infertility, though they are expected to wait at least a year after treat.entvto adopt, and to be able to demonstrate that they have truly moved on. The process puts a lot of emphasis on ensuring you understand the reality of adoption, and how different it is from birthing a biological child (and it is REALLY different). And it also places high value on being able to demonstrate how you have survived and sorted crises in the past - they don't want needy parents but resourceful, resilient ones. And above all ones who can thoughtfully navigate the realities of parenting someone else's child.

I hope I have shod some light on the process, OP, and why it just wouldn't work to I introduce 'deserving' as a criteria. I'll finish on a quick what if: how would you feel about bereaved parents, who had lost their only child? Surely nobody deserves a child to love more than them? Yet you can see how that would be a really bad idea, if they were still so consumed by grief that they could barely function, and were looking for a new child to just replicate the one they had lost? But a few years on, having done both couples and individual therapy, taken time out of family building to heal and explore the world, and having developed deep understanding of grief and loss, they might be brilliant adoptive parents to child who has experienced grief and loss.

Good adoption services are about matching individuals, not categories. Oh and finally finally, many infertile people drop out of adoption recruitment because they are required to use contraception. You can understand why they are asked to do this, but also why it feels like an impossible demand.

@Lil44 kind of always assumed such (obviously suitable) couples had priority

Well that's on you then. But like you, I don't have a clue how it works either.

What I do know is that my parents fostered (and then eventually adopted a child) all through the 1970s, and going on what she used to tell me about that process, it wasn't anywhere near as stringent as it is today.

I know of someone (daughter of a distant friend) who adopted a child, about seven years ago. My friend mentioned that her daughter & husband had to jump through no end of hoops to prove they were suitable to adopt, and it was far from a quick process.

What I took away from it was that it's very, very much about doing what is believed to be correct for the child and their needs.

Wealth. The ability to provide a child with a traditional "family" (siblings). Location = the child became available in their area & needed to be placed locally. Have previously fostered behind closed doors so were privy to children going into care & this particular child was going to be put up for adopting

You don't know the process anyway, they might have been on the waitlist since before they had their own children or gone through private adoption through friends/family/work colleagues

At the end of the day infertile couples haven't had priority on adoption since the days of forced adoption (unmarried mother's ect.) & have shown first hand they would rather have kids of their own "if they were able too" (adoption rates plummeted with the invention of IVF ect.)

I think it's extremely sad anybody unable to have kids for whatever reasons misses out but there's alot more to adopting then just a "good" couple wanting a child

I thought you were going to say for IVF! That would make sense. But not everyone that is longing for a baby has the capacity to adopt a child, especially if they are older and have been through trauma etc.

I definitely think that more needs to be done to House younger people into safe homes. But when it comes to adoption I believe it’s more about what you can provide and how suited you are for that child.

There's not a massive shortage of unwanted children in the world.

My friends are adopting as they are a lesbian couple, they have decided they are willing to adopt a baby up to the age of 12 months and have been told they are likely to wait roughly a year, so not much longer than a pregnancy.

Someone wanting a fresh newborn with no disabilities might wait a little longer; another friend looked into this and was told that the majority of newborns put up for adoption have FASD and this wasn't something they felt equipped to deal with, so had they continued the process they might have waited a while, but would have been matched eventually.

Anyone willing to adopt a disabled child, a sibling group or an older child might be matched almost instantly.

Presumably, Joss Stone went through the same process as anyone else.

Does seem unusual they were approved for this age group knowing had 2 small toddlers already

Adoption can take months so their other children would have been literally 1&2 surely

Does seem madness

There are such huge misconceptions about adoption.

Not everyone is emotionally equipped to adopt: I have an aunt and uncle who would have loved children of their own but it never happened. They have endured decades of people telling them they should have ‘just adopted’. My aunt got drunk one night and told me my uncle didn’t feel he would love an adopted child in the same way, so he wouldn’t do that to a child. Any child deserved to be loved fully.

being infertile doesn’t mean you are a good candidate for being an adoptive parent. And if you think of it as ordering a newborn with no complications then really I didn’t think adoption is for you.

I guess it's worth exploring why more babies are available for adoption in USA