Wednesday Nov 11 2009

Sometimes it seems that adoption is the preserve of the rich and famous. Angelina Jolie and Madonna are probably the most famous celebrities to have added to their families by this route.

And some of the most famous celebrities were themselves adopted, including Blondie singer Debbie Harry, actress Marilyn Monroe, country and western singer Faith Hill, and one of the founders of the Apple business empire, Steve Job.

While the agencies involved welcome the publicity given to the issue by celebrity adoptive parents, their main concern is to get more ordinary families to give children in need a fresh start in life.

At any one time in Northern Ireland there are around 50 children available for adoption.

It is a process which can take at least a year to complete and involves, quite understandably, careful screening of the adoptive parents.

For agencies hoping to find adoptive parents for children, the task is far from easy. Part of the reason is the gap between the sort of children adoptive parents ideally would like to take on and those who are available.

Around 60% of those surveyed recently said they would prefer to adopt a baby, but relatively few children under the age of one are available for adoption.

Around 60% of children are under five years of age when an adoption order is granted, but that means that 40% of those available are over the age of five.

A quarter of those questioned said they would be unwilling to adopt a child aged over five and almost half of respondents said they would prefer to adopt a single child rather than a sibling group.

Around one in three of those questioned would be unwilling to adopt a child with behavioural problems or a child with disabilities.

The expectations of potential adoptive parents and the reality of the children available is a cause for concern, according to Frances Nicholson, director of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, which has been running an office here since June 2006.

She says: “Because of historical trends, people still think of babies when they are considering adoption, but in reality the children available are often a little older, and we need people who are willing to consider adopting an older child, maybe a sibling group, a disabled child or a child with developmental uncertainty.

“Quite often in Northern Ireland that uncertainty stems from a birth parent abusing drugs or alcohol during pregnancy or in the child’s early months of development.

“Perhaps the child has had to be moved from the birth parents’ care because of the abuse of alcohol or drugs or it is a feature in the child’s background.”

The BAAF works mainly with children separated from their birth families and tries to find families for those children who can no longer live at home.

A recent development has been the adoption of children from abroad. Every year between 10 and 15 inter-country adoptions are granted to Northern Ireland couples, who have to undergo the same process as those adopting children from within the province.

What’s it like to give a child a New Home

‘Our first Christmas with the boys was more than rewarding, it was magical’

Tim Page, a project manager for BT, and his wife Ruth, a paediatric occupational therapist, from north Down (pictured above), adopted two brothers of early school age who are now teenagers. They say:

Adoption changes your life forever and we’ve had many great moments over the years since we became parents of our two sons. We were married about 15 years ago and chose to adopt. We contacted Social Services and asked how we would find out more about adoption and, by chance, there was an information evening about to be held nearby. We learned about many things and I remember even now how it was stressed that the needs of the child were the most important consideration. We then formally registered our interest in adopting and we had to wait until we got a slot for home assessments to be carried out.

Home assessments consisted of about 10 evenings with a social worker in our home — it was a searching process which involved asking us about a whole range of issues including our family upbringings, our own personal development, how we planned to run a home and our reasons for wanting to adopt. It was an understandably thorough process. We were interviewed together and also separately. One of the questions we were asked was whether we’d be prepared to adopt a sibling group and we said yes. We liked this idea because the children would be company for each other.

The day we were accepted as adoptive parents was a very big one for us. Then, we had to wait — and we waited 18 months. We were presented with the option of adopting a girl or two brothers. We went away for a weekend together and talked it over and decided to adopt the siblings.

On the day we were to meet the boys a social worker picked us up and we went to the foster carer’s home. It was set up that we would arrive first and then the boys would arrive home from school. We heard the boys coming in through the door, saying: ‘Are our new mummy and daddy here?’

One of the top days of your life is when you meet your children. There is a strange mix of emotions: delight, surprise and thinking: ‘Can I do this?’ That first week we had a series of introductions and by the end of the week we were able to bring them to our house. It all happened quickly and they were with us within a fortnight. The boys called us ‘new mummy’ and ‘new daddy’ for a couple of weeks … then they dropped the ‘new’.

It was coming up to Halloween when the boys arrived and we had to enrol them in their new primary school before we’d actually met them. We went to the headmaster and said: ‘We’d like to enrol our new sons but we haven’t met them yet’ — which was surreal.

The poor children had left their home, their school and everything changed for them — it was a big change for them as well as us.

There were adjustments for everybody. We both initially cut our working hours to part-time which, while it meant a reduction in income, was necessary because the boys needed time with us. There was a settling in period which lasted about a year and was quite challenging. For instance, when we’d go out somewhere the boys would get upset in the car because they’d think they weren’t coming home again.

We were given a life book for the boys which had been started before they came to us. This recorded their journey and although they don’t look at it any more they did in their first few years with us. One day in their early school years their class was doing a ‘who we are’ project for which everyone had to bring in a photo of themselves as a baby. However, we had no photos of them when they were babies. It didn’t bother the boys too much but we cared a lot about it. It brought home the issue which is often attached to adoption of the sense of loss which children can suffer.

The most memorable experience in our whole life as adoptive parents was our first Christmas with the boys. We watched them come down the stairs in the early hours of the morning, walk into the living room and see the sacks of presents with their names on them. They were absolutely amazed. They turned around and said: ‘Are these for us?’ I can hardly find words to describe it — it was more than rewarding, it was magical.

Another great experience was shortly after we had the boys and we had to go to court to legally adopt them. We knew that the court proceedings themselves wouldn’t make an impact on the boys but we wanted to make the day special in some way.

So afterwards we took them to Aldergrove for a ride in a helicopter and we even flew over our house. They remember that to this day.

Holidays have also been a great highlight and family gatherings.

One of the boys said the other day that he loves the extended family getting together — it’s a big thing for him. We’re delighted to have seen our boys grow up. They’re both different but

they’re close to each other. “

Alan and Mary Brannigan from Co Down have two adopted children, a boy (6) and girl (4). They say:

There is a lifetime of happiness to be gained by adopting a child. It’s certainly the best thing that my husband and I have ever done.

We had tried for a family and it just didn’t happen.

We endured years of failed fertility treatments and it was then that we thought about looking into adoption.

New Year’s Eve of the millennium, December 31 1999, was a day I’ll never forget — we had our first interview as potential adoptive parents. Initially we were going to adopt from South America and had got as far as enrolling for Spanish lessons to help us through the process.

However, the more we learned about adoption we quickly realised that there are lots of children here in Northern Ireland who needed adoptive parents so after researching intercountry adoption for more than a year we decided to adopt here.

Looking back we were extremely lucky to have been allocated a really great social worker who did our home assessment and in essence brought our little family together.

The whole process was straightforward although it did take some time.

What was great was that at the end of it we knew that one day we would get to be parents and we’d have a little boy or girl who would be ours.

Within a year we had completed all the form filling and had been approved as adoptive parents — and then we began to wait.

For me this was by far the most difficult part of the adoptive process: when you so desperately want to be a mum, every day that you aren’t is hard. Eventually, we got a call — and our life from that moment on changed forever.

The day we met our little boy he was 22-months-old.

I’ll never forget that first meeting. Our emotions were all over the place on the way to his foster carers’ home. What if he didn’t like us? What if his foster mum didn’t like us?

The minute we saw him sitting in a big armchair playing with a toy car, all our worries and fears disappeared.

He was beautiful and he was full of fun and mischief.

A couple of days after first meeting him we were allowed to show him our home.

We’d brought home a couple of his own toys from his foster family so that he’d recognise them and it would make it easier for him. It was great to be able to spend that time with the foster family as well because we got to know their routines. Even things like the brand of washing powder they used was important for us to continue at home because the smell would be familiar to him.

Very soon, the little boy came home with us and he really felt like our son.

He quickly became part of our extended family. As far as we’re concerned he was absolutely the right match for us — I believe he was destined to be ours.

We’ve never had any troubles or concerns with him at all. He’s just a typical wee boy.

We had him exactly a year when we applied to adopt again to find a little brother or sister for our son.

This time, we were told about a little 18-month-old girl who was available. After a similar introduction period she was ours with

in just 10 months and we brought her home 10 days before Christmas that year. Our little boy was included in the meetings this time — as part of our family it was important to make sure he was happy with everything that was happening.

When you want to be a mummy you dream of doing all the things like pushing the pram and changing nappies — and because our children were so young I got to do all that. I really wanted to experience that part of being a parent.

It is amazing to see our little boy and girl together. They absolutely adore each other and are very protective of each other in the school playground and wherever they go.

We’ve all been away on holiday together as a family and we do all the parties too — Christmas, birthdays, Halloween.

Birth mothers say that once their baby is born they forget about the labour pain. I suppose we would say we’ve had a similar kind of experience — it was very painful waiting but when the children arrive you forget the loss and heartache you went through.

You see your little boy and girl you so desperately wanted. Both our children know that they’re adopted. We’ve done a ‘life book’ for each of them which is available to them. My little girl stumbled across baby photographs of her brother recently and wanted to know where hers were.

We have hundreds of pictures taken since she came to us and some from her first 14 months so we were able to go through them and explain that she grew inside her birth mummy’s tummy. It’s all kept very simplistic but at their level of appropriateness. As adoptive parents you get a full history of your child — social workers find out as much as they can so that we can tell the children as much as we can. We always emphasise to both of our children that their birth mummies loved them very much and they asked to meet us to make sure we were good people and the right mummy and daddy for them.

I would say to anyone thinking about adoption to pick up the phone and find out more information — you will never regret it.

It’s the best thing you could do. Life for us has never been better.

Our home is filled with laughter and love, tears and tantrums.

Just the same as every other family around us.

For more information about adoption log on to www.baaf.org.uk and www.nationaladoptionweek.org.uk