Anybody else adopted ?

We know about Ragged Blossoms adoption and Kelly give us updates now and then, but has anyone else been through the adoption process themselves ??

Love :smt049

This a very old post but I have been through adoption- we adopted DS in 1994 - officially in 1995 - our 5th wedding anniversary by huge coincidence.

He was 13 months old and in newborn adoption program . Mother relinquished him @ 9- 10 months . Adoption agency took a while to find him a family because he had another couple of siblings also adopted and maybe other reasons they didn't say.

They needed to check these avenues first but most much older and next youngest was adopted by Q Family services - not sure if they asked them.
Someone else had declined him for no damn reason other than his age - thankfully for us.

We went for info night and applied in end of Oct 1993 - and were assessed, interviewed, did a course and in waiting pool By April 1994. Took less 10 months.

The waiting list as some people call it doesn't exist as such.We thought the same too but friends of SIL adopted a boy (6wks old in 1993) too after a short wait.

Once in waiting pool - they picked 2-3 prospective families and present them to birth mother (not in our case though) for her to have her say or chose if she wished. Our friends were picked to be J's parents because of something simple like they had a dog and english backgorund like birth father.

Our DS is caucasian,blue eyed and light brown hair - these sisters have SE asian father and this father kept 2 sons but not his daughters. There was no resemblance. They are now in 20's. Ds eldest sister is in 30's also adopted as infant. This sister wrote once and wanted to met DS but when we posted letter back agreeing - it wasn't given to her and a year went past before she got it - she had little kids of her own. We've never heard anything more in last 6 years.

We write to Q bro - so DS can have relationship later if they chose (W is 3yrs older).DS birth mother to my knowledge has never inquired into his existance or any other of her many children.

We always wrote to this brother yearly of our own choice - but took a few years for laws to change for direct contact. At first was through Q Family services.We have never met in person this brother yet. When DS was a 2yr old we met one of 2 sisters and her adoptive mum (nboth girls adopted in same family but other was sick).

By law (?) we are supposed to send a yearly update of Ds for his mother but after the first few years they said she never came for anything and all addresses were changed. So they didn't worry.

We have a beautiful heartfelt letter she wrote him (some of it blanked out by adoption agency for legal identity reasons) and a poem - and crumbled photo of her holding him as baby (we didn't crumple it) and engraved ID broch.
I will give these to him one day when he is older. Plus a newborn hospital small photo too he has seen.

Her basic 'story' was also written down in a little booklet for him. She had a tragic upbringing as a foster child and abuse from foster mum - what we were told and she disclosed.

I am so grateful she did this for DS like she said - she loved him and knew she couldn't do it alone and she wanted the best for him. I hope she was right. She was BTW in her late 30's. She had mental illness from tragic life I supose and ended up in tragic relationships. The social worker told us she didn't agree with adoption in many cases - they counsel for birth mothers to keep generally ! (but in DS case she did exceptionally so)

Our Ds is normal (though it didn't matter) and very sproty but not so academic.
that's my story !

Trish, thank you so much for sharing your story. What a strong a caring woman you DS's biological mother must be to have chosen this path for him, to realise she couldn't look after him as well as she would've liked. I am so happy your DS has been able to be adopted by such wonderful parents, you and Matt. :)

Kazz
We are lucky ones actually - can't imagine what our life would be like without him.

This is story about lady I met after we adopted DS - her DD had same foster mum as my DS - but she was tiny baby there before my DS.

My DS though same age was fostered later. Lady got in contact with us when she found out about us and we lived close 'ish'.They had a bit of a support group and she was kind of keeping numbers up.

Then by coincidence she moved next door to one of my best friends (school 25yr friendship) a few years ago so she still knew where we were -and when we visited friend (not being mean but other difficult issues I didn't want to be involved with)

She visited me at work today. I know my friend must not have told her about ~Charlotte~ and today I didn't either - since it didn't come up!
I feel guilty but she is just not the person I wanted to disclose too at my work.

I thought my friend might have told her when I was pregnant but maybe not :smt102 - she tries to avoid her too I think. If Lady had of known she would have said something. She is nice person .

Today she said her adopted DD is one of many children (over 10) adopted and 2 babies stillborn -can you imagine one mother having this many babies by choice and adopting them all -eldest is 24 youngest about 7.

She said elder girls are trying to put whole family in touch - they had a family reunion a few yrs ago.

My DS is apparently last of many children too - but I doubt if they will all meet up.

Just on cost someone in another post wrote 10 years ago it cost us $5000 or slightly more - but they declare a lot of it as counselling etc. parenting course fees and court document lodgement costs - solicitor too.