Post adoption contact has ruined the chance of adoption for so many children

[Popcornhero]

I am a paediatrician, Mum of three children (who arrived by adoption) and have several foster carer and social worker friends. I keep seeing children no longer getting adopted now there is an expectation for face to face contact with birth families.

I have seen this through work recently, and today was chatting to a foster carer friend who was saying how many children in their fostering network are no longer being adopted. Shehas a 14 month old in her care, who she's been approached to keep as a long term foster as he's been up for adoption for a year with no one to take him.

The rules now around face to face contact with birth families have meant adoption rates have plummeted. I'm so angry about it. Children deserve a fresh start with their new family & they aren't getting it because needs of birth parents are being prioritised.

Some research suggests adoptees would have liked more contact, but there is a bias in the literature. It's those most affected by the adoption that are coming forward not those who grew up and moved on and adoption is only one part of their story.

I know we wouldn't have adopted it we had had to maintain face to face contact with the birth family. They are our children and they have a lovely protected life. We changed our children's names to give them a better chance in life ( they had for example names like Thor, Loki and Renesmee and are now, Theo, Luca and Esme) **just an example. We never send photos so they can be captured in birthday parties and their identity remains safe. They know their story, they know why we are their parents. We write to the birth family yearly. It would be awful for them to feel split between two worlds.

Surely they need to review the impact this has had,before more children lose the chance at having a family?

You sound so like my AD1(now 18). I want to scoop you up and give you a big hug. Yes, you are right, please check out epigenetics. Basically, and I’m not a biologist, exposure to trauma and harmful substances can alter your very genetic code. Also, it’s widely recognised now that babies in the womb can suffer trauma as a consequence of exposure to domestic abuse.

I will add to this that neuroscientists and biologists are discovering that a man’s intake of alcohol during the pre-conception stage can contribute to foetal alcohol spectrum disorder in babies, it’s not just the mother’s drinking habits.

Aww thank you for your kind words ☺️ And you sound a wonderful mum, your DD is very lucky.

I've heard of epigenetics, yes, and I sometimes wonder how much the trauma affecting my birth mum impacted me.

My health hasn't been good over the past decade either, as I had a head injury and post concussion syndrome before being injured permanently by an off label antipsychotic that gave me a movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia 💔😪 I wondered if my brain was affected by the drugs in utero and that maybe made me more susceptible or sensitive to medication side effects 😳

I had a pharmacogenetics test too, after i was injured by the antipsychotic, and it showed I should use antipsychotic drugs with caution (!) Hindsight is a wonderful thing lol 😆 😄 😅

Life is a funny old thing. I've had to try and see it from a positive perspective and be grateful i was adopted. I'm lucky to be alive too.❤️🥰

I've been reading this whole thread with interest as we have just welcomed an adopted granddaughter into the family. She's 2 and currently keeps asking to go home (to the foster carers' house).

The social workers really want her new parents to agree with contact with the birth parents, but they're not keen. I'm kind of in agreement with social workers but I'm keeping out of it as it's absolutely not my business.

The adoptive parents are vague about the birth parents and have refused to give us any information on them, which is fair enough, other than they're both 18 now and there are drugs involved. I am curious about the little girl's birth family as I feel desperately sorry for her birth mum as I also had children in my teenage years and I'm guessing she just couldn't cope even with support. I'm also curious as to why no relatives could do kinship care.

However, I'm minding my business and treating her like my other grandchildren, although it's hard because I look at my others and can instantly see family resemblances and traits and I loved them as soon as I saw them as newborns. This little girl is currently just like any other child, like a niece or a friend's child, who I'm sure we'll grow to love. She is lovely and seemingly quite a happy little chatterbox.

Anyway, this thread has been interesting and has given me things to think about that may happen in the future.

@Ketzele we had direct contact aka in normal world we met up with birth mum and her parents plus two siblings.
As they lived at a distance we met them there and at a point when birth mum had been in trouble with the police we paid to use a contact centre to meet her.
We did not disclose our address or more than our general location (we did post things to grandparents but without return address and they gave gifts at visits) and we didn't put photos or information on social media. Birth mum is now deceased and we have no contact details for any other side (s) of the family so she can't disclose anything to them. We feel our DCs are safer now to be on social media but had she survived we'd have continued as we were - visits near them, posting things to GPs, no locality details on photos (we had to pull school up for putting DD in a logo cardigan for a school photo we wanted to send to GPs but I think we would worry less now, as it happened the cardigan was so big for her the logo was lost in the folds!)
We arranged all the meetings ourselves but it's not rocket science. We had a phone number birth mum could always use but not linked to us/our area. Like many birth parents with chaotic lifestyles she frequently lost or changed her phone.
We periodically chatted to SWs about our meetings and phone calls (and Zoom in lockdown) but we got more support from other adoptive parents who do this. Contrary to what some people believe, lots of US adopters who adopt from foster care meet directly with birth parents, and this group has been most helpful for us.
Now that birth mum is gone we are so glad the DCs met her - but we'd rather they met her as small children with us not as teenagers on social media without us.

My birth mum was a drug addict, and a good person. I think you need to try not to word things like "junkie" in such a disparaging way. Not all drug addicts are bad people.

I can’t believe you even asked about the birth parents or the circumstances in which she was removed from her parents’ care or why other family members didn’t take her in! Surely you can see that your own curiosity is no reason for the adoptive parents to give you information which is their new daughter’s own private story, to be shared with her in careful, age-appropriate ways as she grows, and to be shared with others as she sees fit?

You’re just going to have to learn to cope without seeing family resemblances and your nosiness going unsatisfied. There are adoption guides and courses for friends and family of new adoptive parents which will explain further why your curiosity is so inappropriate.

Also - if we'd had information on birth dads we'd have met them as well in the same arrangement (either with GPs or in a contact centre) but we wouldn't have gone to a prison to visit.

Exactly!

There are often complex why they're addicts in the first place.

Does this mean then it is impossible to ever find out who the donor was? What if your child wanted to know when they reached 18, or later?

I imagine with DNA testing being so widely available it wouldn't be impossible IF the donor wanted to be found, no.

Ancestry and similar means all bets are off with regard to tracing donors or relatives of donors. No matter what laws are in place it is possible to trace.

Not allowing contact with siblings feels different to not allowing contact with birth parents - I suppose there's danger potentially of bringing back unwanted memories of trauma of early childhood...and siblings may have suffered more damage and contact could be be retraumatising for that reason.

That's what I thought...

I see....what if they didn't? I can understand wanting to not have to deal with the complications of a known donor- but otoh isn't it potentially upsetting for a child to have a biological parent who is thus probably unlikely to want anything to do with them?

That's a very valuable - and disturbing- piece of information..

Yes there are potential risks, which we had to weigh up against the risks, upsides and downsides of a child seeking out a known donor, IVF not working due to the age of the eggs, not being able to find a known donor at all, not being approved as adoptive parents, an adoption disrupting, or not having a child at all. It's certainly a complex matter with no easy answers.

Re US adoption: I'm sorry, my posts re this were probably not written carefully enough.. Historically, US adoption does seem to have had more elements of children being adopted due to poverty/pressure rather than inadequate parenting, and this was magnified with international adoption.. But, I know that has changed more recently and contact with birth parents is much more encouraged. I do think lack of as much welfare state probably does make the adoption system a bit different there, still.

@Carla786 you are right about the lack of welfare in the US but many families could manage the income side of things if it were not for personal chaos, rather like here.

I also think other social issues hold bearing on whether would be adopters progress or not - being financially secure and having spare bedrooms are less common now than they maybe were even 10 years ago, particularly in certain areas of the UK. I think people are more hesitant about having children/expanding families in general because of the cost and issues with childcare in certain areas so that's all bound to have an impact as well. Same for people willing to provide fostering.

I hope you will grow to love your granddaughter. Also, her parents sound like effective adoptive parents who are protecting her privacy and personal information and holding their boundaries firmly. It’s a weird thing that society can regard adoptive children as public property and can be overly invested in their narratives.

Wasn't planning on working full time :) yeah I'm in a group with my skills to foster training gang so rapidly learning the challenges of social workers/false promises etc

She's 2 and currently keeps asking to go home (to the foster carers' house).

That is heartbreaking. 🥲

But absolutely totally normal. Her life has been up-ended and she has been taken away from what she knows to live with strangers. This is adoption.

A Family members of ours is actually in long term foster care and calls her carers mum and dad . Her brother was adopted separately due to both children needing therapeutic parenting placements. They keep in touch which is great and both sets of parents facilitate this.
Bio Mum is not well enough to see the children due to still being in addiction sadly.
We don’t see our family member as she even found gifts from her bio family overwhelming and it impacted her behaviours.
The SW asked that we don’t see her and we agreed due it being in her best interests.
It very much depends on the child and family but there is a whole network to consider