Supporting Birth Children Waiting for an Adoptive Sibling

Part two of a three part series on supporting birth children through the adoption process, for part one preparing your children for panel, click here.

Following on from our panel, the real balance began. We wanted to continue to be open with the boys as honesty and openness is a strong theme within our communication with our children, but we didn’t want to get their hopes up if things didn’t go ahead.

In my post – a piece of me – I describe the emotional impact of not being matched with children you’ve felt were right for your family. We did not want our children having to manage this mix feelings so early on in the process.

We therefore made the decision to answer openly if they asked questions, but not to tell them about every potential match if they didn’t while ensuring also we kept the confidentiality of the children we were reading about. This way we could ensure they were included, but at the pace they were happy with. If we felt that it had been a few weeks, we might make mention to our adoption plans, but we also felt it was really important that this didn’t become the sole focus of our family, so that they knew and understood that our family unit as it was then, the four of us was still just as stable, secure and focussed on them as it always had been.  

As the children grew older their interest in the process changed. Our eldest, now 9 nearly 10 was fully on board having had a wobble about having a new sibling when he was about 7 or 8. He would now ask questions and would specifically ask if we had registered an interest in any children. We would share the little that we could, and he would talk about whether they might share his interests. It was now the time of our youngest to have the wobble, our was suddenly unsure. He, like our eldest had done, interestingly at the same age, would comment that he liked our family as it was. My husband and I continued to carefully consider whether adopting was the right thing for our family and continued to firmly believe that it was.

One of my biggest concerns throughout the process had been how it might look for our youngest. For our eldest, he remained just that, the first born, his position in the family wouldn’t change. Yet for our youngest, he wouldn’t just be the youngest anymore, there would be someone new taking this role and we were really keen to ensure this wasn’t a negative experience for him. We spent lots of time building him up, raising his independence, encouraging him in his ‘brother skills’ – kindness, encouragement, fun! And talked it through with him when he was ready too.

We supported their questions, talked through excitements or worries and started to practically prepare. As they sorted through their own belongings that they had grown out of, they chose to put things in the spare room for when we adopted so that the newest member of our family could one day enjoy it – of course it meant that when we came to sort the room, there was a lot to sort through! but that didn’t matter because it was an important part of preparation for them at the time.

Over the nearly two years, we continued this delicate balance of preparation to become a family of five and enjoyment of our children as a family of four. It was really important that we didn’t push this time aside by simply waiting for our new family to start.

In all honesty, this is difficult. So much of your focus and conversation is about adoption.  Your lives need to go on hold – we were told that from the beginning of the matching process to placement can be as little as 3 months, therefore planning became difficult. There were weddings we couldn’t RSVP with certainty too, football tournaments for our eldest booked six months in advance that we couldn’t commit to, or postponing our usual summer holiday with friends just in case our plans suddenly changed. It’s finding the balance so that ‘adoption’ doesn’t become the reason your children don’t know their plans or commitments when others ask, or when they miss out of things because you simply couldn’t ensure it would be possible. Its tough, but its also part of building resilience and patience in yourself and in your children.

Of course, once it looked like we were heading towards being matched having been put forward for our matching panel, this all changed and we began sharing more specifics with the boys about our hopefully soon to be newest family member. We were suddenly more aware of albeit vague time scales, we had a plan forming and could now see a potential end in sight. We knew this next part would bring change again, but it was a huge step in forming a more concrete future for our children – it would be different, but it was progress and this was good.

When able, we shared information about our new little one, his likes and dislikes, the few photos we had and started to build a picture of him. We knew his age and some of his interests and started preparing the house with the boys at our side. We wanted them to be as involved as possible in the preparation of their new sibling.

We made sure to have one last long weekend holiday together as a four, enjoying the beautiful sights of North Yorkshire. Eating out every night, playing games together and enjoying the outside and each - others company. This I would suggest was the single most important part of preparation we did.

I asked my children what we did that helped them in this time, they said that they were pleased to have been kept informed and felt they could talk to us about it at any point. One day I will share with them much more detail about the process, but for now, I feel glad that they felt able to talk openly about this significant time in their lives.

Coming soon - part 3 - Supporting Birth Children from Transition and beyond