Trout

iTrader: (1)

I think I am stretching the bounds of NSR here but am intrigued to see if anyone on here is adopted or is an adopting parent or foster parent.

I guess the two things that intrigue me are as a parent what motivated you to take on another child and anyone who's adopted did you try and contact your birth parents?

Hysteria1983

Not me personally, but both my patents are.

My father because my grandma had a heart condition.
Not sure about my mum as she is in her 50's and only known for 5 years.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Wow - that is late in life to find out. How did she respond to the news?

It is also strange that two adoptees got married. Myself and Truda are both adopted.

fast bloke

We would love to foster. We both came from families where your uniform was 3 sizes too big, so you could get through a few years without needing a new one, but we both had brilliant parents who gave us the opportunities to have a better life than they could have dreamed of. I think there aren't many kids who get this opportunity, but if we fostered, there might be one or two more. Unfortunately we were turned down as potential foster parents because neither of us wanted to quit working. (I am self employed, work from home and never have an obligation that I can't cancel with 5 minutes notice - what else do they need. Every time I think about this, it annoys me immensly)

dpb

So they want you to be at home and do **** all

tony de wonderful

I've a direct bad experience with this sort of thing, and would probably advise people not to contact their real parents unless they are truly mature and not expecting anything.

SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

My other half is adopted when her mum remarried and she is the most down to earth, loving person going. (well okay she is a bit nuts and has some serious OCD issues, but apart from that )

When we get married, we are talking about me adopting her little one but it all depends on various factors.

I know of many people who are adopted and they are all without exception, really nice people

njkmrs

I am one of 5 kids and my parents also adopted my 5 cousins after their mother (my dads brothers wife ) died shortly after her 5 th child was born .
Their father could not work and look after them so my parents took them in to stop them being split up in other homes .So 10 of us in a 3 bed terrace was quite cosy .

Hysteria1983

She took to it pretty bad at first, mostly due to her age, and never being told. There was an immense amount of issues, and even at her age she had to have counselling because of the nature of the info with the personal circumstances.

On a positive note, the fact my dad is adopted, and under more positive circumstances, there was the ability for my mum to understand it better.

My dad was never interested in finding his makers. His mother and father were always there for him, and loved him so much, he was their world.
I have a beautiful picture of my dad on the front of a photo album. It's Christmas day in the early 50's. He is dressed as a cowboy. There is a little snow on the ground and he is just so happy. It always overwhelms me when I look at it. He was so happy, and even though they didn't have much money, I know he never wanted for anything.

Trout, I can truly understand how you would love to give that to a child.



http://i974.photobucket.com/albums/a...3/9c2524df.jpg

Trout

iTrader: (1)

That is a pretty narrow view of experience.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Hysteria - that is a great story - and great to share.

I find it a fascinating subject and have personally known where my birth mother is for the past year but have not made contact. Maybe one day soon.

tony de wonderful

Maybe, but what do you expect? Why do you want contact?

Hysteria1983

My dad has know who/where they are since he was 17 but he was not interested in any contact.
My grandparents were very open about it. Despite them being quite religious and old fashioned, they were also polite, accepting, open, caring and wonderful people. I don't think my dad wanted to know anything other than that.

I will have to catch you on FB for a chat Trout. I can tell you my mothers side.

Chris L

Haven't posted for a while but I saw this and thought I would comment.

As someone who is due to become a father in a couple of months, I have the upmost respect for anyone considering adoption. We had decided this was an option for us if we hadn't been able to have kids.

My only experience of fostering / adoption is through some very good friends of ours who decided to adopt a few years back. They very bravely agreed to take on potentially troubled kids - which requires an even higher level of dedication. The hoops that they had to jump through and the processes involved were mind boggling. It took well over a year to complete. My friend's wife actually became a qualified child councillor as part of the process.

Now I should stress that this example probably shows the extremes of what can happen, but after all the processes they adopted 2 kids - brother (about 6 years old) and sister (about 2 years old). They were described by the child protection services as 'potentially the next baby Ps' - which gives you some idea of the appalling treatment they had had to endure from their natural mother.

This was over a year ago and our friends knew it would be an incredibly difficult journey. The boy especially was mentally scared beyond most people's imagination and they realised that he would require some form of help probably for the rest of his life.

Despite all of this they pressed on, they were promised a huge amount of support from the local council & child protection agencies. Despite the promises, they have been practically abandoned.

The boy has proved to be so demanding that he has pushed them to the end of their tether (the boy attempting to push my friend's wife down the stairs was the final straw). There could be many reasons for this, but it has nearly cost them their marriage. A few weeks ago they finally accepted that they couldn't cope with the boy and he is going back into full time care.

The girl is recovering and starting to respond well and they have taken the decision to at least provide one of these kids with a decent start in life.

So I guess the lesson to take from this is be prepared for an uphill struggle. You'll need patience and resolve and huge amounts of dedication if you want to see it through. I doubt that you will exposed to anything as extreme as I have detailed above (I hope not for your sake).

On the plus side it is hugely rewarding - to see the difference in the little girl who has become our friend's daughter is amazing. Good luck if you choose to do it.

fivetide

iTrader: (1)

I had a mate find out at 40 something he was adopted and he went off and found his birth mother. It was an emotional experience for all of them. It wasn't that he was ungrateful to his mum that brought him up, he just wanted to know the score really.

It worked out well. Apparently he was given up because at the time his mum wasn't married and his biological dad refused to support her and her parents wouldn't help really. She refused an abortion and went for adoption. She was very glad to see him and afterwards she went on to have a couple more kids so he has brothers, nephews and neices and an entire extended family he never knew existed before so it can work out well. I would expect the worst though and anything from there is a bonus.

5t.

Terminator X

iTrader: (7)

^^ My biggest bone of contention re adoption. As a parent I'm not sure I could handle the moment when the kid(s) want to get in touch with birth parents ...

TX.

Terminator X

iTrader: (7)

My understanding is that the first 6 months then the next 2.5 years are THE most important times for a child ... if they've been f*cked up during that time there is little hope for them rings true that the boy is a challenge whilst the girl may pull through. Loving home = decent kids then adults.

TX.

hodgy0_2

fantastic, great story

and i can see where you get your can do, get up and go attitude from

(most people's get up and go has already got up and left)

I am one of 5 and have 5 kids -- but had we found it difficult to conceive I would have no hesitation in adopting/fostering

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

I know of a member on here who has adopted 3 children, all of whome are autistic. It's very demanding and in fairness he and his wife do a brilliant job. Not to mention having a wheelchair bound (was in a nasty car accident) biological son as well. I have the upmost respect for them having met them personally (him, his wife and all the children).

My best friends lives with his mum, step dad and their 2 adopted girls. They are 10 and 13, a little mischievous but very well behaved overall. My mate who is 24 gets on with them as if they were his 'real' sisters.

If you have the financial means and time to cope with adopting a child/children then I wish you the very best of luck David.

njkmrs

Thanks Hodgy .
We are only here once so make the most of it !!!!

Alg

I was adopted at 6 weeks old and told as soon as I was able to understand.
My Mum (not my birth mother) died when I was 21 so I then decided to find out who my birth mother was just to satisfy my curiosity.
I had to go to an interview with social workers to establish whether I was likely to cause her harm. Getting through this, they told me she'd been in touch with them in the past and was happy for me to seek her out.
They gave me her address, she was ex directory so I drove to her house, knocked on her door and introduced myself as the child she'd given up 21 years previous. Cue floods of tears from her. As we hugged on the doorstep I looked over her shoulder into the house and straight at a sagging shelf laden with Watchtower booklets.
Her whole family was raised as Jehovah's Witnesses. Great!!!!!!!! Not!!

Anyhow, we kept in touch for a couple of years and she even brought my original Father down to see me, until she started calling me by the name she'd originally given me. I asked her politely to stop doing so and she then told me my Mum and Dad had obviously brought me up incorrectly.
I stopped phoning and writing to her from that day on. She sent others from her church round to see me but I've never seen nor spoken to her since.

I'm still in touch with one of my half brothers who was ex communicated or dis-fellowshipped for ******** some other church going bloke's wife.
He's told me a few things that his Mum (my birth mother) used to do to him as a child and I'm glad I didn't have to endure the same stuff.

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

Abuse ?

Hysteria1983

That doesn't sound good, nothing against the religion aspect of it, but it must have been hard to hear anything negative that happened.

Alg

I don't want to say too much but all kinds of stuff really.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Even thought you have direct 'bad experience' then it may be more useful to share than judge, especially on behalf of others.


As for making contact - as I said above I have known for some time and have not made contact.

What I do know however is that I was forcibly taken from my birth mother at a few days old. She was 16 and the place where I was born was notorious for taking babies away from the 'fallen women'. I have had contact with people from that service and the non-paying mothers to be had to sleep in the attic on the floor with no heating. I was born in February.

So I do have a little curiosity simply because of the circumstances.

The bigger driver of potential contact is something else entirely. I had my own kids relatively later on life and since them being born I find it hard to comprehend that as a parent your child being taken away and not knowing what happened to them. If anything I have sense of reaching out to say everything turned out really well and I have two very cute kids.

I am guessing you are not a parent and without that it is not a sense you can have. You can think it, possibly understand it, but unlikely to empathise with it.

As it stands I am totally ambivalent about meeting her - we have ended up in very different parts of life from many perspectives and I would be very surprised if we had anything in common other than being parents.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

I guess I struck lucky then as I was taken from my mother (she was 16 and from a very rough council estate in Middlesborough) when I was a few days old.

For the first 11 months of my life I lived in a Dr Barnado's Children's home. In the 1960s these were fairly harsh institutions. It was only then that I was fostered.

I guess there is no hope for me now.

You are right I am totally f*cked up

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Indeed!

We can get tongues wagging

Hysteria1983

May I just say, my mother was also forcibly taken from her mother also. Unfortunately due to her mother being un married, it led to a lot of other awful things to happen.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Sounds pretty similar stories - and people think the old fashioned ways were better!

It was an awful thing to do - and I say that even though personally I may have fared much better in life because of it.

tarmac terror

iTrader: (2)

I know what you mean mate - neither my wife nor I are adopted, but we were talking about this just last night. We both wanted two children, but had never dreamt that we would have twins. Since they were born, we have been thinking about the possibility of adopting or fostering more kids, simply because it is incomprehensible to us, that any parent could let go of their kids at such a young age. We are in an awful situation at the minute, because while we would like to offer a fair shot at a good life for other kids, we must be conscious that we have our own two children to consider in the equation.

Kids definately change you - I have gone from being an outwardly emotionless lump of stone, to something much softer. Is it for the better - who knows.....