By Laura Witjens, Chair, National Gamete Donation Trust
Nearly every would-be parent going through fertility treatment has heard this casual question from someone, the assumption being that adoption is not only easier than treatment, it’s the ethical thing to do. Leaving aside the fact it’s just as ethical for people who can have kids naturally to offer a loving home to a child who’s in care, how easy is it really to adopt?
It’s a myth that there is an abundance of young cute children waiting to be adopted. The majority of adoptees are older, many are traumatised and quite a few come in a ‘sibling group’ who can’t be adopted separately. Fewer than 5% are less than a year old and only parents under 35 are ‘offered’ baby adoption. Many couples have spent their 30s waiting for or going through fertility treatment and are reaching an age where they would not be considered suitable.
Furthermore, the qualifications to become adoptive parents are stringent exactly because so many are traumatised and older. If that doesn’t make things hard enough, many adoptees are mixed-race and the majority of adoptive parents are white; the policy to match the ethnicity of parents and child means it can be virtually impossible to find a home for children from a mixed race background.
People who are already parents will know that you grow into parenting, and even then it’s riddled with anxieties, worries and failures. To think that people who have had to go through infertility treatment, and have no experience with children in most cases, are the best ones to help traumatised children – possibly from a different ethnic background – is naive and not a view supported by many in the field.
Over the years I have dealt with patients who wanted to adopt but were forced to go through surrogacy, foreign adoption or accept childlessness because of the red tape, because they had no previous experience with children and had realised they couldn’t deal with a traumatised 6 year old. It is very, very sad but adoption is not the easy solution it appears to be.
NOTE:
Since I wrote this piece the government has announced to change the guidelines for mixed-race adoption. Good move. Surely it’s better to be raised with love, regardless of race, than end up in social care.
Tags: adoption, fertility treatment, gamete donation, NGDT
SEED: Sperm, Egg and Embryo Donors 
February 28, 2011 at 12:06 pm |
Having been a foster carer,an adoptive mother and a mother of a child conceived by donor insemination, this is a subject I feel very close to. over the years we fostered nearly 30 children aged between 1 and 12 and although this could be very rewarding it was also extremely hard work! most of the children that came to us were short term and although they had problems they didnt see us as a replacement for there parents.We were there to help them through a bad patch or as respite care,so there weren’t the issues surrounding us not being mum and dad! Most of the problems during this time came from the social workers, alot of whom didnt even have children of there own and who left the office at 5pm despite the fact that alot of issues occur at bed time!They would say one thing and then do another and the so called support network for theese children was very hard to find. This became even harder when we finally adopted one of the children in our care.she had been with us since the age of 5 and two years later was put up for adoption,1 of six children but all the other siblings were living with the assorted fathers. We had to jump through hoops for the adoption to happen as well as all the usual red tape was the fact that “foster carers cant adopt” Apart from the fact that statistics show that children under the age of 5 are the most likely to be adopted, between 5 and 7 it possible but harder to find placements and once a child reaches 8 the chances of adoption is very unlikely. By the time we adopted the child she was 8. this didnt stop me wanting a child of my own, for whatever the feelings are towards the child you adopt you do not have that early years bonding and nothing you do can make up for that. I was lucky enough to have my daughter shortly after the adoption and to this day have to say that it was the best thing that has ever happened to me. From the moment she was born I considered her something very very special and the fact that she was a fertility baby made the gift even more special, we had been through so much to have this baby that every moment, every sleepless night and even every dirty nappy was a moment to cherish! We tried very hard to have equal feelings towards both girls but I knew deep in my heart that I didnt love my adoptive daughter the same way as my own and anyone who says you do hasn’t really done the soul searching, nothing can make up for the bond of mother and baby, the closeness you can only feel for the child you have carried and loved for 9 months, that you have given birth to,that you know you will love no matter what! For the first 3 years we all lived happily and both girls were as important to us and treated the same by all family and friends. Then we moved house, in fact we moved 200 miles and this was when the problems started. Our adopted daughter did not want to go! I know it can be hard to start over to make new friends but we had given all this alot of thought, she was about to start a new school anyway and it wasnt the same one as her friends from primary so as far as time was concerned we felt this would be the best, before she had started secondary school. She settled well and made lots of new friends,she was given alot more freedom as we now lived in a small country town as apposed from a large built up new town and for a while it seemed that she was begining to like life here. Then she had contact with one of her siblings who had just established contact with the birth mother, and this is when the troubles began. Most adoptions theese days are open adoptions which means that contact with the birth family is maintained and although this was the case here the birth mother had shown no interest until now, this started a chain reaction of events that nearly ruined my life. All the adoptive child had on her mind was going back to live with her birth mother,We knew this couldnt happen all the time the child was under 18 and we tried to explain that and said that if she still felt that way at 18 we would help her, but she would not have any of it. For the next year my life was hell, she would lie, steal, destroy anything we gave her and the house and even ran away from home twice, on the second occasion we had to get the police involved! We contact Shropshire social services as we were told when we adopted that a life long package of support went along with the adoption, only to be told it was nothing to do with them as we had moved out of the area and the local social services weren’t interested as we had adopted in a different area. It seemed as if there was nothing we could do and no help at hand. This went on for over a year and and although social services became involved we were given no help. Eventually when she told the social worker that she no longer wanted to live with us they found her a foster placement. So much for all the help and support that is meant to be in place with adoption! I had continually asked for help with a very disturbed child and told nothing could be done, I asked for a little respite care but had been told there was no such thing ( very odd as this is what we had done as foster carers) but when she said she wanted out they found her a placement the very next day! Shortly after this my marriage broke down, not saying that this was the cause but I feel sure it contributed to it. Since then I have had very mixed views about adoption. I know that not all are like this, but a very high percentage of adoptions do break down especially with older children. As your article says many couples have spent years under going tests and medical treatment so they will not be offered younger children, very unfair as just because you are a few years older doesnt mean you cant cope with a small child, and often parents who have been through all the ups and downs of treatment will make the best parents for a baby or young child as they really want it and havnt had the privilege of having a baby of there own. Anybody going through the decision making process of adoption or donor insemination, my advise would always be go for the insemination, if this fails think long and hard about adoption. Any child placed with you will come with “baggage” I know that these children deserve the chance of a good life, but not at the expense of your own. There will be problems and the help is not allways at hand. No child comes with a hand book, but older children come with a past, you dont only take on them but there past and birth family as well. Anyone who says “why dont you just adopt” has never been there!
February 28, 2011 at 2:12 pm |
Dear Sally
Thank you for sharing your very intimate and emotional journey. It must have been enormously challenging and confusing to experience the emotions as you’ve clearly done. I admire you for your willingness to give your love and care to less privileged children. You are an exceptional human being which makes the ending even more heart breaking.
Although every story is unique and not all adoptions go wrong, it’s safe to say that all adoptions are demanding, even more so than ‘normal parenting.’ To know that an (dare I say biased?) organisation is vetting and checking you is in itself daunting.
I just wish more people would realise the facts before they mouth the usual comments about adoption.
Laura Witjens