Fed up of seeing the response ‘why don’t they just adopt?’ to tweets on #IVF #Surrogacy #infertility I had early menopause (28). My first choice was adoption. Here’s what I had to submit to.
Waiting list of two years to be assigned a social worker.
Twelve week adoption course one morning midweek no choice on dates 4 hours per session miss one no matter what reason do not pass go do not get approved husband and I both had to attend every time.
Full medical height weight breasts examined the works. If over weight, any history of chronic illness or smoker automatic you fail to pass.
Had to discuss full sexual history with a stranger, our male social worker. Including all the emotional details of our one miscarriage which I hadn’t even discussed with my best friend. Any reluctance to ‘share’ seen as not emotionally ready to adopt.
We had to submit our home to complete inspection. We had to promise to lock our horse in it’s stable or our yard would have failed the safety standards. Having a pet dog was very nearly enough to fail us. Had to submit photos to show it was toy poodle.
We had to submit all of our financial records bank accounts tax returns everything we had to demonstrate over 40,000 euros in savings to pay for the adoption plus no debts and evidence we could support the child after all the initial costs.
We had to list every single address we had ever lived at. As I had interned and completed residency overseas I had to negotiate obrisining police clearance in these countries for those periods.
We had to have two friends interrogated by the social worker as referees.
Husband had to summit to talking about his sexuality this amounted to are you gay? No. How do you know? Are you a predator? No. How do you know? On loop for about an hour.
After all of this we were approved. Passed with flying colours. Only for our country to sign The Hague convention which shut down adoption for the next ten years.
Adoption is not and should not be the default choice for infertile couples. Adopted children need the best most secure A1 parents. People need to understand adopting a child is like winning a gold medal at the Olympics.
Adoption is easier in some countries but nobody ‘just adopts’.
