AIBU to hesitate about caring for my niece’s baby?

[FerretPants]

I have name changed for this. For legal reasons I can't discuss how the baby was conceived - needless to say that that side of things is currently being dealt with.

My niece has Global developmental delay, severe learning disabilities and is believed to be on the autism spectrum. She lives in a residential setting with staff present 24/7. Her father (my brother) takes care of all her affairs. Her mother died several years ago. She was there only child and there is few other family members.

DN is pregnant and due to give birth in the next few weeks. She isn't going to be capable of looking after a baby even with intense support. Social services have carried out an assessment and confirmed this. So the question has turned up what will happen to the baby when it's born. DB is now in his mid 60's and has said he feels he is too old to care for the baby full time. So myself and DH have been approached by social services - we have two DS's of our own aged 14 and 18 - the 18 year old is due to move to University in the Autumn. We have a spare bedroom (it's a box room but would be fine for a nursery) so that wouldn't be an issue. DH (I haven't told our sons yet - they rarely see her and don't know she's pregnant) is keen to explore the idea further. But I'm having doubts. We are both in our mid 50's and I feel like I'm past the nappies and bottles stage now... But at the same time this baby is family (as is my niece) and I feel like we should help if we can. If we say no the most likely scenario is foster care and then adoption. We have a meeting with social services next week, so we really need to decide one way or the other by then. I'm torn

I was thinking this. With the best will- and all the love- in the world, that would be extremely difficult and completely turn your lives upside down.

The guilt would make me consider it in your shoes, but I think the answer would be no.

There’s no reason whatsoever why this baby wouldn’t go straight to an early permanency setting at birth, if neither parent is assessed as capable, and all family have ruled themselves out as kinship carers.

I think there is a difference to taking on an older child who had lived with their family and then was removed to taking on a baby. Lots of couples want a baby and the baby will go to a family who are actively seeking a new addition. Is there any chance it can be an open adoption so you can be an aunt?

I do think this baby needs the opportunity to have a clean break from what are obviously chaotic and distressing circumstances surrounding their conception. Their mother is unable to bring them up, their grandfather does not wish to, available kinship carers are too old to be a reasonable option.
Babies available for adoption are less common than older already traumatised children or sibling groups and there will be good adopters easily available to give this child a secure upbringing free from complications.
As the child grows they will have questions to ask and information can be given appropriate to their age. Their option to pursue more information about their birth circumstances and contact will be there for them at a later stage when they are ready and have a secure background to build on.

Honestly, this is another myth that needs busting. Being a baby, a toddler or an older child makes no difference. In fact, there’s a lot to be said for adopting an older child as you will literally see what you will get. I hesitate to use the word ‘damage’ but much is done prenatally and in utero. The removal of a baby from the mother who carried them for nine months is the ultimate primal wound. There is no magic wand or clean slate in adoption. It is simply impossible to erase the trauma of the primal wound.

I think I would in these circumstances but that’s obviously easy to say when it’s hypothetical. In my mind it would be a similar scenario to my teen dd coming home and telling me she was pregnant, less than ideal but I’d want to help.

Would your brother support you?

I think all adopters recognise that it comes from a place of loss, but in this case, there’s absolutely no possibility of the baby remaining with its birth mother, even with the maximum of support.

I think you may have missed my point. I was responding to a PP who wrote, and I paraphrase, that it was better to adopt a baby than an older child. I do understand the circumstances here. I just feel compelled to respond to all the posters who believe that there will be a queue of prospective adopters waiting to ‘snap up’ this baby. Because the truth is that there possibly won’t.

This could have a negative effect on your own children, particularly the 14 year old who is at an emotionally difficult time. You could completely disrupt his stability, which can carry long lasting consequences for his mental health. Teenagers can be very vulnerable.
I say could; you know your son and how he would cope and and react.

I think I would and in this case the DGF is.

What makes you say "A life of care"? The baby might well be immediately adopted.

No. I understand that there is no clean slate in adoption. But the reason that adopting a newborn baby is more appealing to some adopters rather than an older child isn't because this somehow avoids a primal wound but because the baby is less likely to have experienced abuse or neglect at the hands of its carers, or to have had the repeated subsidiary losses involved in many changes of carers.

In my experience of working in adoption, prospective adopters often find the idea of adopting a baby more attractive than an already traumatised older child. They know that taking on such a child will be a huge challenge and that there will be no support - it will be offered, but not given in my experience.

All babies have unknown pre-natal influences to add into the mix and full information would need to be available on whether this baby is at risk of inheriting their mother's problems so that the adopters go into it with their eyes open.

Whatever the decision and in every scenario (adoption, fostering, kinship care), the problem of the absence of proper support still stands sadly.

Same here.

When she was 2 social services decided she was best being placed for adoption.

This is another point to think about.

How much say will you get in raising the DC, will you be 100% bringing them up, like your own or just a person to place them with and SS/DB be the one's to decide day to day happenings of DC.

When she was 2 social services decided she was best being placed for adoption.

This is the sound reason for early adoption for this baby.

Agreed. Interesting that the children’s minister has this morning apologised for the systemic failures of the current adoption system.

Being adopted isn't 'a lifetime of care'. I can see that adoption isn't guaranteed, but nothing is. Being adopted could be the best outcome all round.

It's not the same at all. A teenage mother would be able to look after her child with support and would be able to take over the parenting role completely once she had matured. There wouldn't be the situation where a young teenager is potentially solely in the care of parents who are over 70.

By nature, babies removed at birth come from the worst circumstances - if it were any better the family would be given a chance to stay together with support. The effect of trauma or neglect starts in the womb. Their experience will be different to that of an older child but to suggest that removal at birth means they will somehow be less affected or have lower needs just isn't true.

I admire your optimism.

Yes, could be. The stats imply not, but could be as you say.

Experience? Knowledge? Published statistics?

He’s a single man well into his 60s so it’s a different scenario. I personally couldn’t but it’s whether the OP feels a strong familial connection or duty I guess. Not everyone will.

You're correct in what you say about psychological trauma and infant development, however guilting someone (who has two other DCs to consider) into adopting a child she may or may not actually genuinely want to raise or be able to cope with is not the one. If you're going to sit on a throne of psychological wellbeing, it has to be for everyone involved and not just one of the people.