What would you do if your pregnant best mate asked you to take her child for adoption?

[fairylightfree]

If you had been trying unsuccessfully for a baby for a long time? What if the best mate was a godmother to your child and likely to be in your life for years to come and she had fond herself with an unwanted pregnancy? What if she said she couldn't have a termination?

Is there anyone here who has experience of this or inter-family adoption?

i would ask the friend to have intense counselling before any notion of adoption was mentioned. i think the birth mother being a close part of your lives might potentially be a whole otehr can of worms that could complicate things. had you discussed surrogacy or anything like that with her before this?

Don't Social Services have to approve this sort of adoption even if it is all agreed? - I'm not sure they'd be keen given the potential for future problems.

No, we had never discussed babies full stop. This is a complete shock to her.

I think the same as you. I worry desperately about relationships turning sour. I love her so much. My heart did leap when she asked (jokingly) if I would have the baby.

if she has mentioned it jokingly, you should maybe treat it light heartedly.

why can;t she contemplate keeping the baby?

what if you did adopt the baby and 6 months down the line when she was more settled she then changed her mind? how much more souring would that be?

sounds like she is in a terrible muddle and wants rescuing

do you even want anotehr child??

so sorry, you said you had been TTC...

that was a bit crass of me

I'd think I was dreaming and jump at the chance....but then reality might hit, and I'd think very carefully about the legalities and I would also on reflection assume she would be likely to change her mind once the baby arrived.

You can't give somebody a baby can you? I assumed you had to go through all that endless vetting etc even to be considered.

She could be it informally I suppose but that would be totally fraught and insecure on both sides.

Think she just needs support when the baby comes. No doubt she will cope, as millions have before her.

I think I would say yes, but think counselling important. If I was in the awful situation of unwanted pg then I think a close friend taking on the baby would seem attractive, but you both have to be REALLY sure that it is what you both want and you can both handle it. Very difficult..

I had a very unexpected PG at the beginning of this year ,double contraceptive faliure (condom and MAP) .

My sister has been TTC for two years and things are looking bad for her .

I seriously thought about asking her to take the baby ,I mean sleepless nights rows discussions with DP in the end I couldn't do it ,it seems like an easy option to do even now when I have my wobbly days but I know once I have it I probably wouldn't be able to do it and it would break her heart.

I hope if she is serious it al works out for you ,but I would tread very carefully .

At the beginning of September not this year .

There is fostering

I am not sure how it all works tbh

there is also helping out once her baby arrives

you need to look at all options - but I would have been v excited if someone asked me to do this too. The idea of a baby without pregnancy and birth is great

I would be very concerned there may be an anxiety/ante-natal depression component to her thinking, and that once she had recovered from that she may change her mind.

i thikn that is a really good point totalchaos

if this was my best friend, i would not be agreeing to anything other than supporting her in what was the right decision for her and her alone. and where is the baby's father in all this?

The man who she fell pregnant with was a one night stand. I have told her that I will be there for her whatever the weather. She lives the other side of the country to me but I even suggested she move nearer to her family so that she could get support that way.

I've told her that she shouldn't be making any rash decisions.

She doesn't want children.It's very early days and I have lots of thoughts going through my head. I posted this to get another perspective on the situation.

I cannot imagine anything worse than falling in love with a baby and then having it taken away.

I think you would have to lose the friend for this to work and only see her for possible contact visits for the child. It's really not a good idea. It would be different if social services removed the child, but it's not that easy to just give one up - you also can't do it immediately post birth in this country I don't think, presumably to give mum the chance to change her mind. I also doubt that social services would approve it, and they would have to unless you didn't declare what you had done until after the fact (risky for all as again, she could change her mind and if you didn't give the baby back you would effectively be kidnapping it)

Really? I would put the brake on my heart in case I allowed myself to really believe that I might have a baby of my own. Because as sure as you allow yourself to dream and look forward to holding your own baby, she will be unable to go through with handing him/her over.

She's a mere human, a mamal, slave to instinct and biology, and she'll be awash with hormones telling her to nurture the child she didn't plan. This will pale next to whatever promises she has made to you. That fact that the baby was unplanned will probably seem like a long forgotten memory.

IF she is certain that she wants to adopt her baby, I'd try and do everything as properly and legally as possible. NO idea how to go about this.

i have no experience of this area but i am just wondering . .. do social services have to be involved if she says she is acting as a surrogate mother for you ?

probably not, but I'm not sure on the legality of surrogacy - whether the birth mother or natural mother goes on the birth certificate. If the natural (although in this case adoptive) mother goes on the birth certificate that is a big deception and probably illegal.

I think it's a non starter though I understand how desperately, desperately tempting this is. However your need for a baby and your friend's situation are completely seperate things.

All you can do is truly be her friend and support her to cope with her pregnancy. IMO there is a 99.9% chance she will want this baby.

You would first of all have to approach the courts for an Interim care order, which would require social services to have made reports on both you and her. You would then have temporary custody of the child.

After a year or so, adoption could be applied for. This gives both parties a chance to change their minds. Which is a real possibility.

May I suggest you approach an adoption charity like Parents and Children together and ask them for some advice before you go any further, if nothing else you have to complete courses and be counselled before you would even be considered.

If she did decide to go ahead with this (and I can understand why both of you might want to), it's going to be a long road ahead. But it would be a brave and wonderful thing for you to do if you can give the child a warm loving home.

Even if this doesn't work out, have you considered adoption and fostering.

I really feel for both of you, but I think this would be an incredibly difficult set-up to make work happily for everyone concerned.

Could you cope if she changed her mind after the baby was born?

Could you cope if you had to break ties with her in order to bring up the baby?

How does your DP feel about it?

I think there are an awful lot of questions you need to ask yourself and she needs to ask herself.

ss would be involved to asses that the child would be well cared for. but providing everyone is happy with teh situation and you can satisfy that teh child would not be confused then they will not stand in the way.

your freind needs to think very carefully about this. an unwanted pregnancy doesn't mean it will be an unwanted child.
the attachment to a baby once born is something most people underestimate when in this position.

i think if she is serious in this course of action you should speak to as many people as possible and make sure you all have a lot of counselling

until not so long ago it wasn't that uncommon for babies of single parents to be adopted by their grandparents/aunts etc.

My dad's youngest brother is actually his sister's eldest child who was adopted by my nan, similarly I was at school with a girl who had been adopted by her grandmother. In both these instances the families are still close and neither of the birth mothers have had issues being close to their children yet not having a mother-child relationship with them.

While of course some parents do change their mind I think it's important not to assume that this woman will change her mind based purely on our own views. After all most commenting on this thread have our own children and therefore the concept of handing over one of them to be adopted is inconceivable to most of us. Many, many women give up babies for adoption every year for many reasons, and for a lot of those women it is the best thing for them and their baby, and they do so without regret.

In the US open adoption is quite common where birth parents and adoptive parents form a relationship before the baby is actually born and those parents do keep in touch after the adoption has taken place. So I don't necessarily think that if you were to adopt your friend's baby it would signify the end of the friendship.

First and foremost I think your friend would benefit from some counselling to help her come to terms with the situation she has found herself in, and to decide what she really wants to do. If she really does want to give the baby up for adoption, and you really feel that you could adopt this baby, then you can consider the longer term prospects, but obviously you'll need to keep in mind that your friend may change her mind once the baby is born, and this is something you would need to make her aware of - that you will accept what ever decision she makes. After all, your friend doesn't need to feel pressured into giving up her baby because she knows how desparately you want one, iyswim?

If I was giving a baby up for adoption, I would rather give it to a friend who I knew would take care of it, and love it, where I knew I would be able to know how it was doing, than giving it away to strangers and never having the chance to see it again. Similarly if I had a friend in this situation I would rather be the one to adopt the baby than see it be taken off to who knows where.

Good luck.

I know a bit about adoption, because I post on an infertility website that has a section for people who have moved on to adoption.

The adoption procedure is a long drawn-out process. Potential adoptive parents have to go on courses, face a panel, be approved - it can take a year at least. There are many adoptive parents who have been approved and are waiting to be matched with a child - a waiting list for children as such.

If your friend wanted her child to be adopted, it would go to one of these waiting parents. It's not legal to choose a friend and have her adopt your child I'm afraid.

The situation is slightly different if the birth mother is a relative, but it's still not straightforward.

Fostering is different, but you still need to be assessed by social services to be acredited as a foster-carer.

However, informally I think people can do whatever they like. There's nothing to stop a birth mother leaving their child with someone else to look after - after all, no-one would know. It wouldn't be legally formalised though, and the birth mother would still get all the letters about checks and vaccinations and so on.

It's a minefield. I'm so sad you hear that a baby is being born who isn't wanted, I hope a happy solution can be reached.