Our adoption dreams were shattered

TRIGGER WARNING: Some people may not consider me to be truly Childless Not By Choice because my 7yr old son, Angus, died 22 yrs ago from the severe disabilities that he had from birth. Since my divorce from Angus’ mother I have been married to two women who have not been able to have children for medical reasons. There are no photographs of Angus in this blog as Alison “lost” them all during our divorce. So I only have one photograph of Angus and I consider that to be too precious and personal to share on-line.

Here are some throw away figures about adoption to put our story into context.

In the UK (2017) there were 72000 children in the “care” system and only 5500 were adopted. In Australia (2016) there were 30000 children in care and only 209 domestic adoptions. Also, in Canada there are 30000 children available for adoption within the care system, however, the rules on adopting vary considerably between states and territories and it is difficult to pin down any accurate numbers of domestic adoptions (you can get them for international ones though). The USA has 36 prospective adoptive parents for every available child.

As you can see adoption is difficult at the best of times and when faced with difficult choices is, sometimes, not an option that you would necessarily want to take. The difficulty is that very few people understand the adoption process and the pitfalls that surround it. Also, if you approach adoption from years of infertility treatments you are often already worn down by that experience. You may not have the emotional resilience needed to go through the process of adoption.

We’ve talked to enough people who went further through the process than we did and it sounds more like a fight than a process. Finally, you  may not have the money to afford it either. (private adoptions can cost anywhere from $10,000 upwards towards 6 figures)

Adoption is not a panacea for infertility. It’s a way to build a family and share your love with a child whose parents simply weren’t ready or able to be parents. While a child can perhaps soften the pain, disappointment and frustration stemming from infertility, s/he can’t make it disappear. This is something that the world seems to be unaware of/never thought of.

However, we did look into adoption a little over 10 years ago. Here’s our personal story …

When we looked into adopting, over 10 years ago now, we were advised that we would only be matched with a severely disabled child because of my experience of being my son’s primary carer for the last five years of is life. We were also advised that we would be asked if  we would be prepared to adopt a disabled child and that if we gave the answer yes but only a minor disability it would have been a show-stopper. When we were looking into adoption this would have precluded us from becoming prospective adopters; even given my past history.

Let me put this into context a bit. I’m talking about life-threatening conditions here. Not a hair-lip, not hearing problems or a child who was visually impaired. I’m talking about the “big guns”. The children with a very short life-expectancy who deserved a loving home in which to enjoy their short lives. Because I had experienced seven years of getting up in the morning and knowing that this might by Angus’ last day, they felt that I should put myself through all of that again.

This was devastating as we didn’t want to go through the heart ache that would occur when they died. Yes I know that Nicci hasn’t been able to have children and it sounds selfish of me, however she has seen the after effects on me that lasted for quite some time into our marriage and she didn’t want to put me or her through that. I met Nicci 6 years after Angus died and I was still waking up 3 times a night to make sure he was all right. It wasn’t until we had been married for a couple of years (12 years after Angus’s death) that it had reduced to once a night. She tells me that I still, on occasion, wake up to make sure he’s all right. Now this isn’t a gentle waking up, not quite being sure of where I am and, in my half-awake state thinking he’s in the next room. No, I fling myself out of bed and stumble to the door calling out reassuringly “It’s OK, I’m coming!” and this is after 22 years of grieving.

Things have changed a lot since then luckily and we’ve been told that the situation would be handled differently now. We would be assigned a Social Worker who would find how caring for Angus had affected me and why I didn’t feel I could go through all that grief again. Which is great news: however, we are getting older and now would only be matched to a teenager, based on the age difference between eldest parent and child. To be honest we’re now not ready to be thrown into the deep end of looking after sulky Kevin or Perry (showing my age with Harry Enfield) from day one so our shattered dreams of adopting will remain shattered. Instead we’ll focus on creating a new, beautiful and courageous existence. Just the two of us: with the addition of three dogs and two cats!

Nicci is delivering a webinar on behalf of “More To Life” tomorrow. Click on the image below to register

In CANBACE friendship!

If anything I have written resonates I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I appreciate that this can be a difficult subject to speak openly about. If you don’t want me to publish your comment on the website please let me know. I will keep your words private.

Click the image below to read Brandi Lytles CNBC Story…