FertilityZone

Hi, BillyBean and welcome to FZ
Unfortunately, I am not able to answer your questions but I do feel that your question deserves a thread of its own in order to get the attention it deserves.

Good luck, Hun

hiya

i have a little bit of knowledge but not much.

i started the adoption process then decided to give icsi a go which resulted in my little boy however i met an amazing couple who have just adopted a wee girl so this is what i know from them.

the process nomally takes about 18-24 months (i'm sure it could go either way as well) they were lucky there was a wee girl waiting so the process took 16 months, they had 3 initial meeting days to go to then about 15 or so visits from social work, like you say they want to know everything and there dog was even given an assessment lol, now there is a cooling off process of 16 weeks where they can hand the child back then once that date passes the social work push for a court date to make it official, they aim to do that in 8 weeks after the 16 week dead line, so at the moment she isn't officialy theres, they took her to be registered at the doctors etc and were told she had to be reg under her birth name until its official.

the couple were going to take the wee girl to ireland over christmas to visit family and were told because it was ireland the social work would need to get permission from the birth mother,totally crazy.

i suppose if you were able to stay in britain to carry out the process then go for it however if you have a partner they will no doubt want to know/meet him so not sure how that would work.

sorry this hasn't really answered your question but hope it has helped slightly

good luck

x

Hi BillyBean,

It's upsetting to hear that you haven't had any positive advice from the social workers you've spoken to so far. Have you been contacting your local authority or a voluntary agency? It might be worth getting in touch with adoption UK for some information.

Myself and my DH are just coming up to the end of our homestudy. We first made our initial inquiries a year ago and are hoping to go to panel to be approved to adopt in a couple of months and then the wait begins to find a match. This isn't going to be what you want to hear I'm afraid (although I'm not an expert and hope that you will hear differently) but my gut feeling is that it will be unlikely that an agency would take you on at this time. I see you said you'll be in the UK for another 12 months but the whole process is likely to take longer than that. Also, the key theme we've heard repeated again and again throughout our homestudy is 'continuity'. The children in the care system are sadly a product of disruption and every effort imaginable has to be made following a placement to keep things as normal and constant as possible. We're currently renovating our home and our SW is quite concerned over the fact that rooms are going to be changing and urging us to get as much as we can done before we go to panel. When I questioned as to why she said that the child needs to feel secure and although it won't seem anything to us a room changing could have quite a big impact on the child! I can imagine what the reaction would be about moving to Australia so soon after a placement. Your partner would most definitely need to be involved assuming you live together and would be bringing up the child together. Even significant past partners need to be interviewed. I also see you say you're caring for a sick parent. I'm sorry to read this and sadly I think that will also play a part in whether you could begin the process as you have to be as stable as possible in your own life emotionally. There also has to have been a certain time lapse since your last IVF treatment. This varies between 6-12 months depending on your agency.

When you say there are no children to adopt in Aus does this mean there are no children in the care system at all? Have you spoken to anyone over there? I'm just wondering that even if there are no children if you are still able to go through the adoption process there with the view to adopting from over here? Not sure if it's at all possible with this country but I know if we were wanting to adopt a child from abroad we still have to do exactly what we are doing now to get approved before finding a child in another country.

As I said I'm not an expert on the matter but just someone going through the process and airing my instincts. By no means do I think you should give up and the fact that you are willing to provide a home for a little one (or more!) is great. Try contacting adoption UK and hopefully you'll get some better information. Any other questions just shout. Wishing you loads of luck!