# Honest Answers



## SallyC (Mar 7, 2004)

After 6 years ttc I felt I couldn't cope with going through another IVF cycle this month as planned and have put it off until January 2005.  However adoption is increasingly on our mind (even if we ever do have our own 'miracle').  But there are questions in my mind that I wonder if anyone else has asked or thought about and I don't know where else to go to get honest answers.

Do 'normal' people ever have their children adopted?  I don't want to sound horrible, but the only time you hear about adoption is when children are taken off abusive or drug addicted parents.  I absolutely know that the children are faultless, but I have recently been doing an course which involved crime and criminals and there has been studies which show that there is a link between the behaviour of the parent and the ultimate behaviour of their child who was adopted and brought up in a very different environment.

Can children overcome the problems of their early life with enough love and support? I feel ashamed even asking the question as if I should not even think about it but I would rather ask and then understand what I need to change about my thinking than secretly have these worries and be constantly on the look out for warning signs.

Sallyc.


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## KarenM (Jul 30, 2002)

Sally

There are a whole raft of different reasons why children come in to the care system.  Not all are due to drugs or abusive parents.  Some parents may have learning difficulties and may not understand the right way to bring up children, others may suffer with health effects that mean they cannot care for their children appropriately, plus other reasons.  When you do the course you will find out a lot more about the reasons and as an adopter you have choices to make about the circumstances of the child you would be adopting, based on your ability to parent them i.e. you need to be able to explain to them throughout their lives why they came into care.

There will always be the nature v nurture arguement, it was something we were asked our beliefs on in our home study.  Being adopted does not make you different.  You hear about birth children who come from a loving and supportive home where their parents have no history of being involved in such things, committing the most horrific crimes.

If you decide to start your journey to adoption then there is lots of preparatory work to equip you with all the things you need to know about the process and how you need to apt your parenting style to suit the children's needs.  This will help you determine if adoption is right for you.

Good luck
Love
Karen x


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## everhopeful (Feb 19, 2004)

Hiya Sally

All I can really say is that during our prep course, we learned alot about birth parents and now I understand fully that it's not always a case of the birth parents not loving their child enough, infact from the case studies we've followed, it is quite apparent that birth parents love their children as much as anyone. They simply do not have the knowledge and capability to look after them and give them the stability they need. For example, if a woman has a baby, she would automatically either follow example from her own mother or father, or would do the opposite. Same as if you or I had any queries, problems, questions about anything at all, what do we do? We just ask someone. 
Some women (or young girls) grow up with no mother or father, no stability or role model. They simply do not know how to look after themselves, let alone a child. Alot of the children are not taken away simply because the parent does not care or that they are mistreated,  they quite often agree to their child being adopted, just to give them the full life of experiences and stability that they know they cannot give. And they still grieve for that child and do not stop thinking of them or loving them.

Obviously there are a lot of other cases where the SS have had to intervene, I just wanted you to know it's not always clear-cut. 

If you decide to go down this route, you will be given loads of information before hand, and there are plenty of us, to ask any questions to!

Must admit we found it a tough decision to stop the IVF and look at adoption, it can be very daunting when you start out. But once we'd moved on, the relief was immense and now I cannot imagine not adopting!! 

But best of luck, whatever your next step is.
Take care, and keep in touch 

x


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## Clarabel (Dec 17, 2003)

S/s do let you know of the circumstances the child has come from, and if you feel in any way that you can't take on that child (perhaps you couldn't bear to listen if the child opened up about past experiences, for example) then there is no shame in saying no to that child because they are looking for the best interests of the child. If a child has severe issues they often have some ongoing therapy and S/s give details of how to carry that on after the adoption with the same therapist. 

From my own study of early child care (I don't know if you are looking for a younger or older child) those who exhibit behavioural problems that are not related to a behaviour disorder often do so because they have no other means of expression - perhaps speech is delayed or they don't have a clue how to get out all the anger about what has happened to them. This can be overcome but it certainly isn't a swift process. The children need to learn alternatives - a child who has grown up being controlled by anger and physical threats and sanctions may need to be taught outright that this isn't appropriate and will need suggestions of what they could do instead; they need to learn explicitly those things which many children learn implicitly - it isn't helpful simply to tell this child not to hit, they need to be shown how else they might get the toy from the other child. Like any other learning process it will take time as the child may find negotiation frustrating, slow and unguaranteed whereas bullying another child seems to give instant results every time!

I think that the reasons you hear about for placing a child for adoption depend on where you are hearing them from -clearly the media has no interest in reporting stories of loving parents who place a child for adoption because they already have grown-up children and don't feel young enough to start a family again, or a family who has one severely disabled child already and cannot cope with having a second child because they wouldn't be able to give him/her the time when child 1 needs 24-hour care. The more you get into the process the more variety of reasons you will hear, and many of them will be parents with great love for their child trying to provide the best for them.


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