I suggest you read my earlier posts.
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[News] Tom Daley announces baby news
- Thread starter goldstone
- Start date
I suggest you read my earlier posts.
Why do you care about stuff like this though? How does it affect you or anyone apart from the couple and the child? If those three people are ok then what is the problem?
Robinjakarta
Well-known member
SOME ex-smokers. Or smokers. Or non-smokers. Or judgemental people.
Vegans ?
This thread seems to be running in parallel with some very glib comments along the lines of 'oh just adopt instead'.
Having initially said I wasn't going to indulge one particularly insulting comment about the potential "fad" that is my family, I have changed my mind and will explain what, as an adoptive parent, is/was my journey through this 'fad'.
I'm not too sure what I expect from this, but I hope those of you that get to the end will at least understand that the process isn't one to be taken so lightly.
We were a comparatively young white working couple, with our own means.
We decided to adopt instead of expensive IVF treatments partly because we met as residential social workers, working in a children's home, so we were hardly going into the process blind.
I remember also at the time a C-list celeb was touting their frankly harrowing story of multiple failed treatments and near death experiences with IVF.
I'm going to describe our journey through the process.
There are others on NSC who have also been through this, everybody's story will be different, every local authority will be different, I'd like to think their experiences with be better, I hope they are not worse, chances are there will be a lot of similarities.
This starts 11 years ago so some of the timings will be a little off.
For work reasons we were required to go through a neighbouring local authority and choose Portsmouth.
We attended half a dozen suitability sessions, before they decided we were able to continue with them as potential parents.
What then followed was a year of almost weekly 'parental classes', a pooh tonne of work, introspection, all aspects of our personal life assessed and reassessed.
An extensive list of character references had to be supplied and interviewed, including a doctor's report.
Much like an army boot camp at any stage you can be pulled from this process with no going back, that was a very stressful year.
When we made it through to the end of that we were presented to 'panel' a jury of 14 professionals who then assess us, our assessment and decide if we are capable of being parents.
At this point we both, esp me, crumbled in front of panel.
It was a horrific car crash of an interview, I fell apart the stress of the situation and all that had gone before, think endlessly falling through a black coffin shaped hole, that we me in front of this jury.
The panel didn't want to approve us, this lead to the only time Portsmouth had our backs, and they pushed us through.
It took the rest of the day for them to conclude in our favour, we found out while drinking in Chichester, I was still visably shaking from the experience some 3 hours earlier.
So now we are able to adopt.
If you want a baby (we didn't) you'd better be good at waiting.
There is a professional magazine entitled Be My Parent, where local authorities advertise the children they have suitable for adoption.
'Be My Parent' is a whole other chapter I ought not to go into now.
A further x amount of months passed in limbo.
Finally who became our children appeared on the horizon, a nothing couple of sentences next to a cute photo. (The authority in question couldn't afford more than the smallest possible 'advert').
Unbelievably the whole vetting process all but started again.
We were interviewed, assessed and reassessed.
When this authority decided we were suitable, we then had to be presented to another panel of experts who again had the final say over our fate.
Thankfully this time I genuinely knocked it out of the park, to this day after some 47 years I can honestly say this was my moment, it was the best I have ever been and ever likely to be.
So after probably more than 2 years of incredibly hard challenging and stressful work we got to meet our children.
A few weeks and visits later we bring them home.
One of the points in their favour was the fact that they had remained in the same placement since being removed from the birth parents.
This turned out to not be bonus we had hoped, in a very busy home our children had never been 'challenged', they appeared to have just bumbled along spending seriously long days in nursery or watching TV.
When challenging behaviours first began to appear, the 3 authorities in question (ours, theirs and our placement) all said the other should be funding our post adoption support, so nobody did.
Support has eventually arrived some 5 years too late for me, and my greatest fear is that it's too late for my children as well.
Trying to deal with our children, their trauma, their anger, their mistrust, their rejection of us, alone has been all but impossible.
It's taken a massive toll on us.
They have changed me into a person I no longer recognize, I have lost so much of myself trying to make up for their foundationless early life.
I could easily go on but I'm clearly straying away from my initial point.
Please don't say/write 'oh just adopt' as if it's on a par with which sofa you're going to buy, and don't ever tell me or anyone else, rich or poor, celeb or boring bloke, went through all of this just for a fad.
Peace out.
Having initially said I wasn't going to indulge one particularly insulting comment about the potential "fad" that is my family, I have changed my mind and will explain what, as an adoptive parent, is/was my journey through this 'fad'.
I'm not too sure what I expect from this, but I hope those of you that get to the end will at least understand that the process isn't one to be taken so lightly.
We were a comparatively young white working couple, with our own means.
We decided to adopt instead of expensive IVF treatments partly because we met as residential social workers, working in a children's home, so we were hardly going into the process blind.
I remember also at the time a C-list celeb was touting their frankly harrowing story of multiple failed treatments and near death experiences with IVF.
I'm going to describe our journey through the process.
There are others on NSC who have also been through this, everybody's story will be different, every local authority will be different, I'd like to think their experiences with be better, I hope they are not worse, chances are there will be a lot of similarities.
This starts 11 years ago so some of the timings will be a little off.
For work reasons we were required to go through a neighbouring local authority and choose Portsmouth.
We attended half a dozen suitability sessions, before they decided we were able to continue with them as potential parents.
What then followed was a year of almost weekly 'parental classes', a pooh tonne of work, introspection, all aspects of our personal life assessed and reassessed.
An extensive list of character references had to be supplied and interviewed, including a doctor's report.
Much like an army boot camp at any stage you can be pulled from this process with no going back, that was a very stressful year.
When we made it through to the end of that we were presented to 'panel' a jury of 14 professionals who then assess us, our assessment and decide if we are capable of being parents.
At this point we both, esp me, crumbled in front of panel.
It was a horrific car crash of an interview, I fell apart the stress of the situation and all that had gone before, think endlessly falling through a black coffin shaped hole, that we me in front of this jury.
The panel didn't want to approve us, this lead to the only time Portsmouth had our backs, and they pushed us through.
It took the rest of the day for them to conclude in our favour, we found out while drinking in Chichester, I was still visably shaking from the experience some 3 hours earlier.
So now we are able to adopt.
If you want a baby (we didn't) you'd better be good at waiting.
There is a professional magazine entitled Be My Parent, where local authorities advertise the children they have suitable for adoption.
'Be My Parent' is a whole other chapter I ought not to go into now.
A further x amount of months passed in limbo.
Finally who became our children appeared on the horizon, a nothing couple of sentences next to a cute photo. (The authority in question couldn't afford more than the smallest possible 'advert').
Unbelievably the whole vetting process all but started again.
We were interviewed, assessed and reassessed.
When this authority decided we were suitable, we then had to be presented to another panel of experts who again had the final say over our fate.
Thankfully this time I genuinely knocked it out of the park, to this day after some 47 years I can honestly say this was my moment, it was the best I have ever been and ever likely to be.
So after probably more than 2 years of incredibly hard challenging and stressful work we got to meet our children.
A few weeks and visits later we bring them home.
One of the points in their favour was the fact that they had remained in the same placement since being removed from the birth parents.
This turned out to not be bonus we had hoped, in a very busy home our children had never been 'challenged', they appeared to have just bumbled along spending seriously long days in nursery or watching TV.
When challenging behaviours first began to appear, the 3 authorities in question (ours, theirs and our placement) all said the other should be funding our post adoption support, so nobody did.
Support has eventually arrived some 5 years too late for me, and my greatest fear is that it's too late for my children as well.
Trying to deal with our children, their trauma, their anger, their mistrust, their rejection of us, alone has been all but impossible.
It's taken a massive toll on us.
They have changed me into a person I no longer recognize, I have lost so much of myself trying to make up for their foundationless early life.
I could easily go on but I'm clearly straying away from my initial point.
Please don't say/write 'oh just adopt' as if it's on a par with which sofa you're going to buy, and don't ever tell me or anyone else, rich or poor, celeb or boring bloke, went through all of this just for a fad.
Peace out.
Top, top post. I wish you and your family all the very best.
I have two sets of friends who have adopted - both went through a nightmare selection process too. It seems as though that’s a common experience. I was the employer of on of them and the local authority interviewed me face to face for an hour on my thoughts as to the suitability of my employee as a prospective adoptive parent. Some of the questions were, frankly, unbelievably intrusive.
Adopting is absolutely not the easy process that those who have no experience of it think it is. It takes a massive toll on the parents, and subjects the child to, typically, two years more of uncertainty about where they’re going to live and who their parents will be. It’s a very flawed system. Safeguards have to be in place, obviously, but so does consideration for the child’s long term mental health.
Thunder Bolt
Silly old bat
Which is why a friend of mine, who is single, never married, has adopted two girls, making a fantastic job of bringing them up on her own.
Top, top post Stat.
I'm party to a lot of this because Stat was in contact with me during the adoption process - his experience mirrors the one we had, except there was only one authority involved. We were luckier insofar as there was only one foster family - and it was a very good one. While it took two years for us too, I don't object to this - we could have adopted sooner as we turned down two sets of kids, we wanted ones that felt like the right match.
But that doesn't mean that we haven't experienced a lot of the trauma that Stat has had to cope with. When one adopts kids, one adopts very damaged ones - the only question is how much damage is there. It really isn't the easiest process and those people who thinks it's some sort of fad, should take a hard look at themselves.
That's why there are highly-trained, highly-skilled professionals to do that job and make those decisions. But they are not left open to accusations at all, because they are not soiled with the same kind of prejudices you are.
Bold Seagull
strong and stable with me, or...
Hell of a post SB, puts some things I get stressed about into perspective, best wishes to you and the family, is Stat Jnr still getting out on the bike? Hope to see you round the ESL for Swans, I'm in the NS for tomorrow as the buggers wouldn't let me have my own seat*!
*that isn't true as I could have got it...
Back to the point in hand:-
[tweet]964408111401283584[/tweet]
Again for me it's easy to work out how I feel about a particular story.
If Littlejohn & The Daily Mail are prepared to do a full page against something...
...I clearly agree with the opposite opinion.
[tweet]964408111401283584[/tweet]
Again for me it's easy to work out how I feel about a particular story.
If Littlejohn & The Daily Mail are prepared to do a full page against something...
...I clearly agree with the opposite opinion.
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You're always eating drinking AND talking when we pass, we leave you to it!
Yeah I know when life has got on top of me, cycling stops, the little white arrow with a green background becomes ever more prevalent and I'm picking 'fights' on here with all and sundry.
In very rare moments of clarity I wonder if they are also disassociating from the real world!
Christmas was yet another near breaking point but as Strava proves we are trying to get back to what I loosely call normal.
Off to Flip-out in a minute - I didn't like my knees anyway.
GT49er
Well-known member
Completely agree - veritably the voice of reason. Unfortunately, that's not enough for the more aggressive 'progressive' element.
Creaky
Well-known member
That’s the first opinion page by Littlejohn I’ve read in years and surprisingly I agreed with much of which he wrote!
My only criticism of the article is the lingering feeling I have that had the subject been a mixed gender couple who were paying a surrogate mother to bear a child for them then it would never have been written - certainly not in such great length.
darkwolf666
Well-known member
Don't you just love the way people do this, talk complete sh1t, get called out about it then they say "it was just a bit ov baaaanter, want it".
That's the point, isn't it - RL's 'argument' against 'breeding machines' could easily be written about surrogacy without the sexuality of the parents being brought into it.
If the question is "should we allow a woman to be a surrogate?", surely your answer should either be Yes or No, and not "well it depends whether the parents are straight or gay".
Cristiano Ronaldo is a very talented footballer, he is also a ****.
You meanwhile, are just a ****
