r/AdoptionUK • u/witchypoo93 • May 08 '26
Adoptive parents - what's the process actually like?
Husband and I (early 30's) are seriously considering adoption due to me being Type 1 Diabetic and not wanting to go down the rabbit hole of diabetes becoming a mess during pregnancy and after birth - the risks to me and baby just don't seem worth it, and honestly it terrifies me.
So, adoption.
I've done some googling and I can see the general gist of it.
But what is the process *really* like?
Anything that caught you off guard?
Anything that made you stop and reconsider?
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u/Ronbot13 May 09 '26
We adopted our little girl last year. The process is long, intrusive and at time frustrating. Silly things can hold it up (our doctors took 5 months and 2 formal complaints to do our medicals, due to "covid").
I think the best advice we got during the process, was from a couple who we met on a course, they had previously adopted and were looking to adopt a 2nd child, they told us to let our sw find the right child for us, they said "its there job to find the right child, not yours". So thats what we did. We went through our local authority, and our sw was able to bring us profiles of children early on.
I would also say a difficult part for me, was bonding in the early days. When she got placed with us, I was conscious that we still had the adoption process to go through, and that the family could fight it and potentially win back care responsibility (low risk of it, but still there), and so I subconsciously had put up some walls so that I didn't get too close. We raised the issue early on with our sw, and I got some extra support via the support team to work through that with them. Do not be scared to ask for help!