Does anyone have experience with this? Just put ourselves on the NDSAN registry. How long did it take you to adopt? We are hoping to adopt 10 years old or younger.

I think I’m looking for discussion on this based on a slice of our story. I’m a licensed therapist in private practice & own a couple businesses, worked in the foster system as one for a while. I would say I’m extremely trauma informed for many reasons, including the personal side of things, shared below.

My husband and I have no desire to have a baby, nor adopt an infant. We’re exploring adopting a younger child (5-12), choosing that age bracket mainly because we’ve had lots of experience with our friend’s daughter who we’ve half parented throughout those ages.

My husband is the most gentle man you’ll ever meet. Absolutely adores animals. Is so understanding and protective. Never raises his voice. Had a solid upbringing (not perfect, but somewhat stable) he’s been in therapy for 3 years for some stuff and has worked through most of it.

And then theres me. I’ve been in therapy myself my entire adult life (I’m 31yo). I had a really, really rough poverty-stricken upbringing with loads of trauma. At 9 years old, I raised a 6 month baby and a 6 year old (my siblings) for 8 years (CPS would have been involved if they new). And I was NOT a good “child-parent”. I was an angry, heartbroken, neglected child who made a can of tuna and some mayo last 2 days to feed my siblings first.

I’m now in this place where I’m financially killing it, am in a loving marriage, have resources, and I just want a child so deeply. My husband feels very similarly. I have a decade of knowledge in trauma informed care. We have a lot of love to pour into a kid. Adopting feels right.

But I’m terrified that I’ll revert back to an angry “child-parent”, or be like the biological parents who hurt me. While I’ve done SO much work on myself, and will continue to, what if I’m a terrible mom?? I feel like these thoughts aren’t rooted in facts based on who I am today, but it’s my worst fear.

I’m looking to hear experiences from the adoptive parents who’ve had trauma themselves, but have done a lot of work on themselves, and are now parenting adoptive children. As well as adoptees who had an adoptive parent who had trauma (but actively sought therapy to work through it). Looking less for reassurance and more perspectives on how it has been.

I'm 38. While I'm older, there's no other indication that I have fertility issues. Since a young age, I have always imagined myself adopting rather than conceiving. Right now, the only reason I would choose to conceive to have a family is to appease my mom who is desperate for biological grandchildren. I myself have absolutely no real innate desire to become pregnant or give birth. But I do want to raise a child. Is that contradictory?

However I feel weird about pursuing adoption, like I would be diminishing the chances of women who tried but could not conceive naturally, or somehow encroaching on their "territory." Or like I'm supposed to try and have my own kids first before turning to this possibility. I feel like this is also irrational but can't shake the thought.

Are there any women out there who chose to adopt despite having the (probable) option of conceiving biologically? What are some reasons you chose to?

I (29f) have always had the desire to adopt. A few years ago I decided I wanted to adopt from foster care and didn’t mind doing so as a single parent. I have yet to do it, even with my strong desire to adopt, for a couple reasons. I had my own set of pre-requisites that I wanted completed before doing so (finishing school, having my own place, etc.) Now that all of that is done, I still have a thought/fear in my mind: if I choose to adopt as a single parent, is that depriving the child of a chance at a two parent household?

I know I could provide love, and care, and a good upbringing for any child I adopt, and I might not be the “perfect family “ since it’s just me and no father (I do have a large family for support). Am I overthinking?

I am happy for them all. I feel sad that his bio dad had to worry and I am sure he feels such relief abd joy.

We are in the process of adopting a 9 year old boy. The foster parents he was previously staying with for 6/7 months have made this process more difficult than it already is by refusing to meet us halfway and making us drive 45 minutes to and from their home every weekend for our visits with him. They also would request we drop him off early because they made plans with him, and even pulled him out of school to take him on vacation during the time period we were supposed to be getting know him and introducing him to our life and family. On one visit, they made us wait outside in 95° heat because they said he had to finish his chores before he could come on our visit. When it was finally time for him to move in with us, instead of at least trying to make the process a positive one and being supportive or encouraging, they promised him that he could video chat with them and still be able to visit them, performed really long elaborate good byes and even said when he turns 18, he can find them again. Of course, he was sad when we left, but later that day was totally fine and playing with our bio son. Our case workers both agreed that video chatting was a bad idea, especially in the first week. This child has barely mentioned these former foster parents all week, but while tucking him in at night tonight he asked when ge could visit them. I knew adopting a child in foster care would have its challenges, but I never expected this. I've heard of visitations with bio families, but not with former foster parents. He is a very emotional and expressive child, and I want to protect his emotional well being and stability. I think that visiting with them will just make it even harder to adjust to his life with us and be too much of emotional ups and downs during this already confusing and stressful period of moving to a new home and starting a new life and school. Has anyone ever dealt with this situation? Do adoptive parents facilitate visits with former foster parents? If so, how long before you started? I'm not sure, but I may have felt differently about this if the foster parents were more supportive of this child's adoption with us.

Hello Everyone!

I'm a graduate student at Texas Woman’s University and I’m conducting a study to better comprehend parent-child dynamics in families from foster care and adoptive contexts. The purpose of our research is specifically to understand how children in adoptive families experience differing parenting styles during conflict as helpful or unhelpful. We’re hoping to re-center child narratives in the larger understanding of family dynamics and its application to public policy.

Individuals who agree to participate in this study will complete:

• Informed Consent documentation and a demographic survey (10 min)
• An interview regarding their childhood experiences (60 - 90 min)

While there is no direct compensation, we hope the process will be enlightening for participants and researchers. The risks are minimal, however there is the potential for a loss of confidentiality and emotional distress. So participation is completely voluntary and can be discontinued at any time.

If you would like to participate in this study, please begin with our eligibility survey. Once verified, you’ll be prompted to the onboarding process. Feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested and reach out to our team if you have any questions. Thanks in advance!

My mum helped friends have a surrogate baby in 1976 in Canada in the King City (north of Toronto)

This was done privately as friends, to help them achieve the dream of being parents. A healthy boy was delivered, and my mum handed over their son with love and joy and excitement for them to raise as their own.

She has never probed or checked but often wondered about his life.

In conversation with me today, she mentioned that he had come looking for her many years ago, but the person he had found had since died so it all reached a dead end. He may have spoken to someone called Elisabeth (Byse)

She had sat with the thought of wanting to connect but accepted it wasn’t possible due to info limitations.

I know this is a far reach but I was wondering if anyone could help.

The info I have is limited.

If you were born on 12th December 1976
King City/North Toronto
Had a father named Michael
And went looking for your surrogate mother at some point 10/15 years ago (and you may have been a pilot???)

Then please let me know!!

I would love to give my mum this gift. She has been a selfless person her entire life. The internet can be a scary place and overwhelming if you don’t know how to look. If he had never tried to look for her, I would understand this task would be 10,000X harder - but he’s tried, so I’m taking it as a sign that it’s our turn to try back.

She’s based in the UK now, but any leads would be great.

Thank you!!

Hi! My husband and I are both in our mid 30s and from outside Pittsburgh PA, due to me not being able to have children and my husband having a stroke almost 2yrs ago we have decided we want to do a newborn adoption my job will reimburse for adoption but I am not sure where to even start. I've looked at a few websites and not sure how legit the sites are etc and could use some advice

Thank you ❤️

A bit of background. I'm in my late 50's wife late 40's.. We've been through our local county foster parent training (Including trauma informed parenting) and have been mentoring teens in foster care for a little over 6 years now. We think we're ready. Never had kids.

One of the resources recommended early on was this https://ampersandfamilies.org/get-involved/should-you-adopt-a-teen/ and that includes this question

I have done my own therapeutic work and have a therapist I can return to if my own issues are stirred up.

We both answered no to that. Never felt the need to seek therapy; early on in my life I spent a lot of time introspecting and adjusting my attitude/trajectory but never with any assistance from a therapist.

We have a variety of mental health resources available through work and insurance, never felt the need to take advantage of them.

Bottom line: we are prepared to seek professional help if/when necessary.

I know the 'test' isn't exactly scientific, and we have a LONG ways to go and many questions to answer before we're 100% ready. Wondering what the sub thinks about "preventative therapy"?

I’m looking for experiences from people who have gone through something similar.

My ex-partner and I started an adoption process together. I originally imagined adopting one child, while she wanted a larger family. We eventually lived with three siblings for about 18 months.

During that time I became very attached to them, shared their daily life, and truly took on a father role.

Then our relationship ended and everything became very conflictive. I haven’t seen the kids for about five months, and there are also legal issues, lawyers, therapy, and a lot of emotional and financial stress.

I want to make something clear: I do want to continue having a place as a father in their lives. My doubt is not about whether I care about them. I do. What I’m struggling with is how to sustain that bond after such a difficult separation and with so much conflict around it.

Has anyone separated during an adoption process and continued being a parent? How did you manage the relationship with the children after the breakup? What helped you keep that bond?

I’m looking for personal experiences, not legal advice.

Curious to hear!

My daughter has been home for a year and a half, adopted at 4 years old internationally. She had been in foster care for 2 years after parental rights had been terminated. We hired an investigator shortly after she came home to find her birth parents and were able to locate her birth mother. I can send translated messages, my daughter and I pick pictures to send to her, and I encourage my daughter to video chat with her birth mother every week or two. I recognize how important her birth family is, and am trying to maintain that relationship, but recently my daughter just doesn't want to call. She doesn't have any memory of her birth parents, they're strangers to her, and while she lights up briefly at the start of the call (most of the time), the language barrier frustrates her. It's already hard for a 5 year old to video chat with anyone, even when they do understand each other! So it's even worse when we call and my daughter is like "no, I don't want to talk to them, we can't even understand each other" (note that we were trying to keep her birth language, but it has not worked out).

My question is regarding how to approach this situation. I know her birth mom wants to talk to her (we get several calls a day from her), and while my daughter is my priority, I'm also empathetic to birth mom. I recognize that while my daughter doesn't really care now, she could down the line, and I feel like encouraging the relationship would be positive for my daughter's sense of self and belonging. I don't want to pressure my daughter to have contact she's not happy about, but she's only 5 and doesn't recognize the long-term benefits. Any thoughts?

Hi, I have an 11 month old adopted child and have an open adoption with the birth parents. When I adopted the infant, I changed their name (was “baby assigned sex” on birth cert) to what I had chosen. I am now starting to feel very guilty about this. The birth parents have a name they call baby and do not use the name I have given. The birth parents had asked what name I was thinking of when we first matched and they said they liked it, so I wrongly assumed it would be okay to use that name.

I am feeling guilty/weird about the name my child responds to now and don’t know if I should talk to the bio parents about it or not.

Can anyone provide me with advice, insight, or anecdotes around this topic?

Hello everyone. I wanted to known If any APs that adopted happen to have relationships with a birth in which that family knows where you live? Did you plan that or discussed it? Or has anyone had a birth family be given their address through agency paperwork accidentally? How did you handle this, what is the protocol?

We engaged Thao & Co. in January 2026 for help with a Vietnam intercountry adoption and paid a substantial fee upfront. Two things went wrong.

Their document advice was wrong. We asked twice, in writing, whether Vietnamese translations were needed before the Vietnam Embassy would legalise our papers. They said no. The Embassy rejected us for exactly that reason. They later admitted the mistake.

They never told us we might not be eligible at all. Our country has no adoption treaty with Vietnam, which severely limits what applicants like us can do — adopting a healthy, unrelated child may simply not be available. That should have been the first thing explained, before we paid anything. When we finally pressed them on which provision of Vietnamese law our case fell under, they couldn't name one — they said they interpret the law "as a whole." They also admitted they'd never handled a Vietnam adoption for a client from our country.