The desire to be a parent for many is both a primitive urge and an instinctive feeling.
If you have spent years endeavouring to produce a baby but, for whatever reason, you are unable to bear your own children the “conventional way”, then adoption from the Care System is an option.
One of the cruellest byproducts of infertility is that someone else (social workers, adoption panel members, judges) will be the people deciding whether you are “suitable” to adopt.
You know you would make great “normal” parents and that is what you desire at a very core level. However, unlike most of your friends and family your path to parenthood is the road less travelled. It seems so unfair.
The grief in not producing your “own genetic children”, will probably be with you for the rest of your life. Not as the searing agony it once was, but as a dull ache which can occasionally flair into a stabbing pain; especially when poked. Adoption will not remove it completely.
One of the tough realisations is that the children available for adoption are not nice healthy babies, but older children who have been removed from their birth families by the courts due to maltreatment or neglect. This is something you need to understand and fully accept if you are to progress successfully and get satisfaction from adoptive parenting. Your expectations must change.
Understanding the legacy of childhood trauma will allow you make robust decisions for yourself and for the children you consider. For any prospective adopter, facing hard truths at this stage will help future proof you and your children.
If you are considering a sibling group, please watch this video. The dynamics and bonding (healthy or traumatic) of a previously maltreated sibling group is complex. You need to learn how to see beyond the presenting behaviour.
You may find that investing in the Trauma Triggered Behaviour Online Course is one of the best decisions you make. It has much unique material.
