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Hi Mumlou,Our three birth children were 9, 11 and 13 when we set out on our adoption journey. They too were very very keen on us adopting, and we definitely did it 'together' as a family rather than them just going along with it. They promised to do all sorts of things to help...and all of them kept their promises through thick and thin. They were 11, 13 and 15 when out first AS was placed, age nearly 5. That was 11 years ago, and he is a teenager and they are in their twenties and no longer at home... but they still support him and us.We didn't stop at one more MSG me if you want any more information.BB

Thank you so much to all who have sent me private messages. I am enjoying reading your stories and have replied. I am very grateful for the words of encouragement given. x

From where I am now I would probably say give it a miss.We adopted a 6 year old with 4 birth children between the age of 9 and 16.It was tough in the beginning-felt like I was parenting 2 different families but along the way it had its good times where dd seemed to be bonding with all of us and difficult behaviours reduced. However it did become cyclical over the years. There would be periods of passive aggressive behaviour towards me along with a lot of charm towards hubby.In the earlier years she had a notion that the birth kids could move out and her sibs could move in.I so wanted it to work and each of the bkids at times begged me to send her back.In retrospect now, knowing about her ability to manipulate and lie i think things may have been tougher on them than I realised. I loved her, I loved them and my heart was totally torn. I believed with enough consistency, appropriate parenting etc it would all work out. I still remember times when I thought "we have arrived". How stupid was I!We put dd into care before christmas as she would not abide by family rules to keep herself safe. The SWs we dealt with at the time were utterly appalling (and remained so) and did not take seriously dds vulnerabilties-"she is 16 she can make her own decisions". At that stage we would have had dd back though we would have needed support for it to work-not from the undermining, unqualified, naive, lying SWs we were dealing with though. Unfortunately dd has burnt her bridges now and we could never have her back. She has made it clear she wants nothing to do with us.Although she is gone she is inflicting pain and damage on us from a distance, fueled by her lack of conscience and empathy. Reading this now I realise how hard and cold I must sound but I have cried so many tears for my dd.I have grieved that she could not stay with her bfamily.I have cried over her difficulties in forming good relationships. I have worried about where her lying and stealing would take her.I have cried over her lost childhood and her inability to see how much i love her, that she could be safe with me.My advice if you go ahead? Keep a daily written record of your childs behaviour. Keep close contact with school and try to have detailed records of his/her behaviour there. ALL corespondence with ANY SW make sure you have in writing or follow up emails and keep all this safe incase you need to call on it in the future. Assume the worst as to what your child may have been through and prepare for that.Prepare yourself for the worst that you may go through.If you adopt an older child do not legally adopt until you are sure. Do not believe the lie that once they are with their forever family they will settle down-that is when the trouble will really kick off.Realise there are SWs for whom your child is a "problem" who needs to be shifted on. They will not be working in your childs best interests-they will be working in their own or their departments best interests.Do not expect them to be experts and realise that their focus will be on the childs needs and you will be expected to sacrifice the needs of yourselves and your other children for this child. DO NOT DO THAT. I don't think it does an adopted child any favours to believe that they are the only person in the world that matters and the rest of us are just pawns to be used and abused.I know I have probably ranted a bit there. I have to say our SW who took us through homestudy was very good, but sadly left and there was another one who seemed very helpful at the time but may be covering her back now.On the positive side hubby and I are stronger than ever but it wasn't till dd went into care that we realised just what stress we had been under-having to lock everything away before she stole it, and bracing ourselves against the lies and manipualation. Our bkids are all doing well-they have been resiliant, but I think we have effectively played russian roulette on that front.I could fully understand how some bkids end up with real problems with their parents because the adopted child causes so much havock in the family but remains there.On the negative side I don't think we have been able to help dd become a more stable functioning emotionally healthy person.Because she is such a good actress she can appear to be these things for short periods of time. Instead we have managed to contain her and stop her getting pregnant or too far in to drugs, stealing etc-I actually console myself with that as quite an achievement.Wishing you all the best with your decision.ndf

Hello mumlouWe have 3 birth children aged 23, 20 and 13 and an adopted son aged 8 1/2.My first reaction to your post was the same as nancydanfan....enjoy your family just as it is.I am conflicted when I hear about people with BCs adopting because we did it (4 years in) and I think objectively we are doing well. So it seems hypocritical to say...DON'T DO IT!When I first used to read these boards I thought that people were very cynical (apologies to all on here). I soon realised that was not the case at all.I have said many times on here that I wouldn't want the gap between youngest BC and AS to be any smaller (5 years). There is a general consensus that the bigger the gap the better. So depending on the age of the child you are considering, adoption could work well for you.Our children were positive too and I think they are all totally amazing. The older 2 are both away studying. Its our younger DD who has most to cope with.When your birth child is crying because she has just been spat on or hit and says 'I hate him, why did you adopt him?' that is pretty hard to take. On the other hand she is letting out the feelings she has and knows that we 'validate her feelings' and tell her we find his behaviour distressing too...its okay to express that.Its not all bad between them but emotional torture for her when it hits her that there's no permanent escape from him while she's still a child. We as adults can put up with all sorts of things. We (hopefully) have the emotional resources to cope...or have had up to now. Our birth child has not.Then there is the physical safety of everyone in the household. I'm talking life or death, potentially. I am not trying to sound dramatic. That is possibly a real threat in the future. In which case we know where our priorities lie.Our life sounds terrible doesn't it? On a day to day basis, actually we have a lot of laughter in our house and a rich life. My husband and I know that our AS was the right match for our family.Whether we would do the same again knowing, really knowing, what we know now, I don't think we would subject our DD to what she is suffering.HTHLarsti

just to say. We work very hard to mitigate the situation for BD. But that is conflicting for us.eg if we go to adoption camp, DD went once but now says she doesn't want to, which is fine and absolutely understandable. Last time she went up to London to spend the weekend with her older sister and they had a great time. They are both old enough to do that now, so that will probably become a regular thing.Adoption (for us and many others) involves so much time over and above normal parenting. Direct contact with sibling, appts of various kinds, courses we have been on...all take time and focus on the adopted child obviously. So for DD its not just her brother, but 'adoption' (which is a separate thing as it were).One or two positive stories....a friend of DDs said to her 'Dash is your sort-of brother isn't he?' DD replied, 'He IS my brother' not 'I wish he wasn't my brother' or any such thing.I posted on adopters good news about his birthday party this year, which DD was very involved in. I am proud of her!

I would ask who you are doing this for? I agree with the others who say celebrate the family you have now. An adopted child is very demanding and the lovely close bond you have with your birth children will have to be pushed back. These little children are mostly traumatised, grieving souls and therefore demand 100% attention. Our BD had grown up and left home before we even considered adopting. Not to fill a gap in our lives but to give an older child one last stab at "normal" family life. Only last night I had to hang up on my BD because LO was kicking off. At 22 she understands but has said numerous times there is no way she would have wanted to lose me to a troubled, angry sister if she was younger and still at home. Also, I hide the whole truth from BD. I don't want her to dislike AD so I don't tell her half of what goes on here. What if one of your BC can't cope? Disrupt?As it is, there are just the 3 of us at home trying to get through this (me, husband and AD)that's enough! At the end of the day, we love LO and we are making progress (slowly) but we're 10 months in and she is still angry about her last placement.I have friends who had BCs at home when they adopted, sometimes it works. But I think people coming into adoption should be made to read these boards in full before going ahead.

You may have read it already but if not have a look at AnnieB2013's thread which is similar to this one. Haven't had a chance to read all of that but it looks very useful.

HiThis is very difficult. There is no way of knowing how things will work out for you. You can read all the paperwork on a child, talk to the sws and fcs and still you will not know what you are letting yourself in for. It may be that things work out well and you will be able to blend bc and an ac into a calm and happy family. It may be that you end up with a child who is so traumatised that you find yourself in some of the awful situations that others posters have spoken about. Ignore these difficult stories at your peril as one day it could be you. Sometimes however much adoptive parents try and are committed to their child it simply does not and will not ever work as these children can be too damaged.We have an ac and 3 bc. It is completely different to having a bc and however much you tell yourself that you are prepared it will still hit you at times like a steam train. We are extremely lucky that at the moment things are calm in our house. We have an adopted child who is able to function as part of a family, can give and receive affection and is a great little guy. Who knows what will happen in the future? It may be that things start to unravel and we find ourselves in a nightmare scenario. Maybe it won't and things will continue to be calm. Since we adopted I have come to realise that if you adopt and you have bc it is the biggest gamble that you will ever take with their happiness and the security and calmness within your home. Looking back we were pretty naive. We adopted because we wanted to give a hard to place child a family. Our bc were on board and still it was very challenging and difficult. I did wonder why we had invited all this into our home. You have to be prepared to put your ac before your bc. Are you prepared to do that? The volume of work and input that we have had to put in is phenomenal. It continues to be a lot of work but sometimes I just think we are so much better at handling the complexities of our ac.We did think that we would adopt again but now I realise that we have got lucky and I am simply not prepared to take the risk again. At the time that we adopted I thought that we were clued up and knew a lot about our ac. What a load of rubbish. The sw barely knew him and the fcs had such little understanding of key adoption related issues that we had and continue to have a lit of work to do.Our ac is wonderful and I love him so much. Are you prepared to take the risk that you might get what we have or you might end up with the nightmare that we all hope will never happen to us.I am sorry if this seems negative but it sounds as if you have lovely children and a settled and happy life. Essentially you are inviting a whole heap of challenges into your life. If you can cope with the worst case scenario then go for it but make sure you have an extremely robust support package in place and do not apply for the adoption order until you have all this in writing.Best of luck- you are on the right lines if you are asking the questions. I hope things work out for you in the way you want them to.

I don't have birth and adopted children (just adopted) but I do know several families who have both.What I would say to you is to be clear about the sorts of behaviours you could end up experiencing and how you would all handle them - and why you would want to do this.I have seen several people who wanted to make a difference to a child's life, which is great, but like others have said, the cost can be tremendous.Often this is not apparent immediately - so much depends on the age of the child when you adopt. But many traumatised children see siblings (any sort of sibling) as a competitor for resources - especially you. This is what makes mixing traumatised children and other children very challenging and is why it is often recommended that birth children be a lot older.My daughter is mean to her birth sister on a daily basis - she has had a lot (and I mean a lot) of support to address this and she is now 15 and nothing has changed. Sibling issues are massive in adoption. However, like others have said, often adopters will not be told about this. Often social workers will focus on the positive things you can bring to adoption - and it is true that there are many, many positive things you have to offer - and gloss over the negatives as they are so keen to find families willing to adopt these children.No one can know what living with a traumatised child is going to be like til they do it. I am not saying don't do it - what I would say though is that you are only at the beginning of the journey and you will all have plenty of time to find out more about parenting a traumatised child. Please do find out as much as you can and incorporate that into your family's understanding of what could happen - the sibling issue is a huge one and your children can currently have no idea what it is going to be like.With the advent of social media btw, there is much greater chance of the dysfunctional family members coming into your children's (and your) lives in some way. There is a lot to consider and you may find that the risks are too high - or you may see it as a great challenge. But certainly, this is a high risk activity and I would urge you to read as many books on early trauma and ongoing effects of it as you can.

I would just lilke to thank everyone that has replied to Mumlou. I have recently been very drawn to a Lo and despite all the promises to myself about not getting carried away and putting my head before my heart I really feel like Ive fallen hook line and sinker before even seeing the CPR. The Lo has a complex history and we have a BC. Your personal experiences and honesty have bought me back down to earth with a bump. I needed the reality check and I wholeheartedly thank you for that. Xx

Wig. Thank you for your honesty. As I've said before, reading these forums should be part of the prep course. Love to allX

Thank you to all of you for your honest and informative responses..I have done so much reading on and around the subject but I'm aware that very little of what I have read is as direct and honest as your posts. I did appreciate the time you all took to reply. best wishes x

Hi Have read all these posts and given it a little thought, bit difficult with my current hangover ! We have 11 yr old bs and 3 year old As and so far do consider us lucky to have found him and so far 'adoption' related issues have not surfaced yet. I am sure we will have issues to meet as he grows older and obviously there is still uncertainty as he is only 3. We have had issues with our bs, that didn't surface until he was aged 5 and it wasn't till he was aged 8 that we got a diagnosis of a specific learning need. I had to fight the school for a statement for our Bs and have fought and won battles over the past three years, so I definitely know I would do it again. When we chose our as we read and rejected many profiles and was happy with the information. We realise we had an excellent sw and the sw for our as hardly knew him, but we got answers that we're missing. t the moment I don't think the behaviour of our as is different to other children who aren't adopted, he knows his own mind and is very independent

IPAD froze!! good luck with your decisions.

Thank you redoodles for taking the time to tell me your positive story. I wish you and your family all the best with your journey.togetherbest wishes x

My BS is 16, my AD is almost 4 - we are just over 2 years in. it is the best - absolutely the best thing we could have done. My children love each other totally and absolutely. Because of similarities in looks and personality people who don't know us think they are birth siblings - I had an amazing SW who knew us so well and really did find the perfect match. She can be an annoying little toddler, he can be an EXTREMELY annoying teenager - they have similar strops and tantrums over very similar things . Occasionally they fall out but my BS has never, ever said he regrets her coming - in fact the total opposite. Remember he went from being an only child for 14 years to suddenly having a sister under 2 - and he amazed me! He is a better brother than many of his friends who have birth siblings. I do not have rose-tinted specs, and am well aware that there may well be a time when adoption issues will cause problems that we as a family will have to deal with, but I know that with the strength of the relationship the children have now we will face them together.

Hi CarryonThank you so much for your lovely, encouraging and positive reply.Heart warming to hear just how well everything is going. I'm sure there are many positive stories out there and I remind myself of this daily. Wishing you and your family all the very best x

HelloWe haVe 2 adopted teens and a birth child, so the other way round from what you are looking at doing.The reality of taking on children who've suffered and hurt because of that suffering have wide repercussions They don't "get over" this sort of trauma in a year or so and have to sort of survive and live it out and sometimes heal a little.It's a lot of therapeutic reparenting, learning to trust, loving and having a really good go at making a patchwork of bits into a cohesive family.We like a giggle too! Parenting the two ac has proven to be very different for me now bringing up a little bc who is wired to understand cause and effect.Realistically the sats sat that its much harder to do this with bc as the disruption rates are much higher. So you need to think about protective factors in place Respite and support for bc being key I'd think.

Hi Mumlou, You have had many great replys and i think it is great you are getting advise from peoples various experiences it can only help you make your decision.I think it is such a unknown journey when you enter the adoption world no one can really describe the impact it has on an exsisting family until it happens. We have like you two BC (22yrs and 13 yrs)and are 4 months into placement with our 5 year old AC. We also had an incredibly comfortable family life and i can safely say adoption has been one of the most difficult times our family has coped with. Our BC were incredibly well prepared over several years and we had read just about all we could and really prepared ourselves but when adoptive children enter your life the effect is so different from expectation. Our youngest BC did not take to LO and that was a huge shock and the split loyalty felt is incredibly stressful as you have to be incredibly strong to cope with both childrens struggles to adapt to a new life. Also adopted children really do demand every inch of your time as they have so much to cope with from their past and you really do have to piece together the puzzle of their life and deal with their trauma and cope with things you never pre empted.This alone means you will need fantastic support but also to enable you time for your BC as you can feel very stretched emotionally and physically. I do not want to sound negative as there are many successful adoptions of children into families with BC but it is absolutely essential you wait and have the right match for your family. Do not get me wrong our Ac is a bright,gorgeous,loving,funny,brave LO but so different in character to our BC and us it can be exhausting meeting those needs or understanding certain behaviours. However things are calming and getting somewhere close to normal at times!! I am sure as many others feel at times i wonder what have we done, we had it so easy before and im not sure i would adopt had i known before the unforeseen impact on our birth children, but i know our little one is our child and needs us to to help her move forward and have the security of being cherished in a family. I wish you well in your decision and if the opportunity arrises try and take your Bc on some local adoption days to see how they feel. Your SW may also be a good person to chat with your BC as they may feel more able to talk with an independant person as they may not want to upset you or what is happening in their family.I think also keep them involved from the start so they never feel left out of the preparation for the new arrival. Sorry to ramble,hope i`ve helped a littleLove m-c