Adoption

How to respond?

So after a lot of thought and talk, my husband and I have decided to adopt a slightly older child (2-6 years old) from foster care. We've only mentioned it to a few people, mainly close friends and family (many of whom knew we were interested in adoption already) but I was surprised at how many responded with some variation of "What if he/she hurts your own child? I could never risk that." What do you say to people who tell you this?
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Re: How to respond?

  • Congrats on your decision. Best decision we ever made.

    I would say something to the tune of , thank you for your concern . Like all parents, we will deal with things as they come up. Not all foster children hurt other children.
    Adoption Blog Updated 2/15
  • imagelizlemon2:
    Congrats on your decision. Best decision we ever made. I would say something to the tune of , thank you for your concern . Like all parents, we will deal with things as they come up. Not all foster children hurt other children.

     

    If I was in that specific situations I would respond with, "when my BIOLOGICAL sister and I were younger, we used to hit each other, pull each other's hair and say really bad things to each other....is that what you mean....you mean what siblings do anyways?"

    Why do people think these children will all act like murders or something? 

    7/18/12-1st RE appointment CD2 blood work taken. Told to move straight to IVF. Starting BC pills and FSH injections plus Lupron. Hopefully doing ET in September Off BCP March 2011 Started TTC July 2011 7 months TTC with no luck an then.... Diagnosed 2/24/12 with 2 Ovarian Cysts. 3/22/12-Lap to remove cysts, look for endo, and see if tubes are clear. 3/22/12-Diagnosed with Severe Endo(tubes are clear). 4/4/12-Post op OBGYN appointment. Told chances of conceiving naturally are very low, but told conceiving in the next few months is our best chance due to being cleaned out during Lap. Referred to a RE. RE said IVF is our only chance to get pregnant. Told only a 20% chance even with two put in. 9/5-Lupron 9/20 Stims(Menopur & Follistim) 9/30 Trigger time 10/2 ER 10/3 fert report-out of 7 eggs retrieved only 2 fertilized. Hello "Thing 1 and Thing 2!" Kinda sad there is none to freeze. Because only 2 we will have 2DT to get them back into a natural envionment 10/4 ET. Found out that only 1 divided. We love you "Thing 2." Thing 1 is now snuggled inside me and we are praying it will be our take home baby! **Did not even make it to my beta, the day before on 10/16/12 I got my F'in period** Such a stab in the heart. Nov 2012-Moving onto domestic newborn adoption! Can't wait for my take home baby. We will try IVF again after 1-2 years of a clear head. Need a break from infertility treatments/issues for my mental sanity! image
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  • I would be honest and give them a glimpse into your plan of how you are going to prevent this.  I don't mean to sound snarky by this next comment, but it is a valid concern that you need to make sure you are prepared for.  However despite the validity of the concern, it isn't really the business for random people to be asking you.  But if you choose to share your plan, I think it will show them that not only have you thought about this concern, you have discussed it and will address the situation in order to prevent this.

    Some examples could be not accepting children with extreme anger issues or those who have been sexually abused.  Or you may have a plan in place so that there are two adults around for the first few months so that if your daughter needs ot be removed by an adult that can happen while another adult is able to deal with the newly adopted child.  Or you may simple not allow the children together unsupervised until you have built trust.  

    When we were telling people that we were becoming foster parents, we had TONS of concerns (valid and not) thrown at us.  What about this?  Have you thought about that?  I feel that most people meant well, so I took it as an opportunity to educate them on how we were planning on dealing with this, that and this other thing they probably hadn't thought about.  Soon they realized that we were going into this prepared and stopped trying to figure it out for us. 

    GL! 

  • "We are undergoing training about this, and feel confident in our decision. I hope you can be happy for us,"
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