Another baby....NO!!!! It'll go in the flusher!!!!!!

[Jayzmummy]

DH and I have been considering for some time the possibility of extending our family.

Sadly the guys birth mother has given birth to two other children since the guys were placed ith us and good old SS "Forgot" that the boys were placed with us. Hence the guys little brother and sister have been placed elswhere...but thats another story and we will have to pick up the pieces in the years to come when and if the family ever decide to reunite.

Birth Mum has now been steralised and so us waiting for any further natural full siblings to appear is no longer an option.

Our adoption social worker has for the past year been telling us about a child who is in foster care. This child has SN's and is currently being freed for adoption. The baby is now 7 months old. SS knew the baby would be removed from the care of its birth mother at birth and SS were seeking a family to match this child to before it was born. Every time they try and match the child our names keep coming up.

We have discussed with DS1 the posibilty of a new addition and he is so desperate for the baby to join us.....J however wants to hear nothing of it. he said he would "put a baby in the flusher"...his word for toilet.

I must admit we are both unsure what to do. Whilst we both want another child we are not sure whether we have the energy to take on a child with SN's.The baby has hearing difficulties.

My main concern is how it will impact on J. he is going back to school in Sept and i dont want him to feel like we have pushed him back to school, for his place to be replaced with a new baby.

I know that many of you have younger children and was wondering how your chldren coped with a new addition? How difficult is it to have two children in the family with SN's?

My family think I am mad!!! "this should be a time when I am getting my life sorted" and "not taking on more trouble"....I just love my mothers choice of words, NOT!!!!!

I just have this feeling inside that I want to extend our family.....3 is just such a round number. Its what I have always wanted. The biological clock is tick, tick, ticking!!!!!!

Personally, I would concentrate on the job in hand so to speak.

They say your name keeps coming up, I would have very little faith in that, in a system that didn't throw you up as the logical placement for the boys siblings.

My DH is deaf and it is not the end of the world, but I would seriously question whether you are being manipulated.

Sorry, hope this does not sound too harsh.

Will not re read will just post and hope.

.

if it feels right and you feel Jay will 'come round' (dont know if thats the right phrase to use) then i'd say look into it further.

LGJ.
The reason we were not thrown up for placement of the other siblings is because birth mum was using a diffrent name and was living in a different area....so no one at the SS dept knew she had other children until it was too late. We could have stopped the adoption but how could we have removed the older sibling from the place he knew as home and from the people he was calling mum and dad? When baby 2 came along it was the most logical thing to place the baby with its older sibling so at least the two younger siblings have a chance of growing up together, just as my boys are. We have indirect contact with the other family so eventually when and if the time comes that they want to have contact it will be easier to find each other.

I am just interested how other families with SN children cope when a new addition arrives.

Ds2 was born a few months after Ds1's first SALT assessment. I was nervous about what to expect tbh. Ds1 hated loud noise and his ASD traits were starting to become more obvious.

When we brought ds2 home from the hospital ds1 was fascinated by him. Within a few days he would gently rock ds2's pram if ds2 was in it and crying. He didn't seem to mind too much about the crying, although he would put his hands over his ears now and then to block out the noise. I thought the jealousy and annoyance would kick in once ds2 became mobile. It didn't. Ds2 is now 2.4yrs and although they do fall out with each other from time to time they clearly adore each other. Quite often one will trot over to the other to give them a spontaneous hug or kiss.

It can be very difficult having 2 with SN but we are very lucky that both boys seem to have similar needs and nothing clashes too much IYSWIM.

Have you thought about contacting somewhere like the RNID to ask about the realities of a baby/child with impaired hearing? What level of deafness does the baby have? There may also be the possibility of cochlear implants/hearing-aids to help boost hearing. My hearing loss is now classed as moderate (previously mild) but even with ancient NHS analogue hearing-aids I can hear quite a lot.

we were a little nervous how dd1 would cope with dd2 especially as she had a lot of one on one from me for a time before the birth. Dd1 has downs syndrome. Dd1 just seems so adaptable. She was brilliant whilst I was in hospital for the week - she stayed with my mum and SIL - she didn't really know them that well. Dh made sure he saw her everynight and put her to bed and I saw her every second night.

SHe was a little perplexed at this shouty, crying thing. In fact everytime dd2 cried - she would put her hands over her ears.

However - she adores dd2 and it is funny watching her be a little mother. She tries to help me and dd2. We have not had any jealous behaviour really. The only issue we had - in the early days when it seemed dd2 was feeding 24/7 - dd1 got fed up with being told to wait one day and bit my arm as I was feeding dd2 - but that is it.

We have a little sisterly annoyance - now that dd2 is mobile - well sort of - she gets a little annoyed and snatches back anything she thinks is hers from dd2. Other than that - so far so good.

hi -my ds2 was very anti the whole idea of his baby sister coming along and he when she arrived (he was 3.5) he had a lot of jealousy and bad behaviour -huge temper tantrums, regressing with self help skills etc. BUT it did settle down and while they do still compete alot for my attention they are beginning to enjoy each other too. he is very protective of her when he's not the one making her cry!! I think it is always hard for the middle child anyway -the oldest doesn't lose any of his status with a new arrival but the youngest stops being the baby.

p.s ds2 is adopted too with siblings elsewhere -which I find it really hard. We wanted contact the other family did not we have just one photo of the siblings. It makes me sad ds2 won't have some information about them as he grows up.

I wish you well with your decision...I really hope there is someway to win J around. I would love to adopt again but doubt SS would consider me sane enough now Sorry this is such a ramble

Thanks for your replies. It does help hearing how your little ones have adapted. I think the problem we have is that there is going to be such a huge age difference between J and any new addition. He has been the youngest in our family for quite a while now.
My sister, who has AS, is going through the adoption process herself at the moment and she told J that by christmas he may have two new cousins....it didnt go down well at all with J...he told her to get a dog instead!!!!
Will give it lots of thought and Im sure what ever is meant to be will be.