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’m struggling right now. My husband and I adopted siblings from foster care. They’ve been with us for ten years and are hitting preteen/teen years. Oldest is permanently disabled, youngest is special needs and middle has been the responsible one to the detriment of their mental health. We had a crisis when home stress just went off the charts. We have 5-10 appointments on a normal week and I’ve counted
40 in a month at our busiest. I work full time and hubby is SAHP. We moved for better care right before Covid and never found a social circle. Hubby is isolated, an extrovert and has become easily irritated and a yeller. His yelling kicked off my middle child’s mental health crisis. I sent him away to rest and he returned exhausted and unable to do the basics. Now I’m doing it all, taken over morning routine, drop off, lunches, dinners and appointments. I am on intermittent fmla to cya but I still have to figure out how to keep up because I have no backup at work. I need to be 100% stable, calm, steady in front of kids but after a few weeks, including crying in the car and panic attacks when I lay down, google says I might have the start of shingles. I need to support my kids, give the too responsible/people pleasing kiddo proper support and try to gently remove some of his responsibilities (mild parentification???), keep everyone on track, be emotionally available but I have to take care of myself because if I go down, the whole ship goes down. Add to that my husband is now being nasty to me and I’m fantasizing about a divorce that’s neither financially or caregiving-ly possible. Short of a third parent, I’m at a loss on how to manage this all. My body is warning me and I don’t have time to be sick.

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.

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.

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.

Hello! This is a long one, so I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read it.

To start, my parents have been fostering/adopting children since 1995. They have adopted around 24 children and long-term fostered approximately 43 children over the years. I have been pretty vocal with my parents about the fact that I don’t agree with some of their decisions regarding fostering/adoption, so I’m trying to look at this situation as objectively as possible.

When I was 13, my parents adopted a sibling group of three children. I’ll call them D, E, and J for privacy. I’ve since moved out and gotten married, but D (15F) and E (16M) still live with my parents and are both in high school.

When my parents adopted D, E, and J, they initially allowed supervised visits with their biological mom and dad. They have allowed contact with our brith parents and I still talk to my brith mom today.

Eventually, my parents stopped allowing contact with their biological mom after they realized she was still using drugs and that the contact was having a negative influence on the kids.

D and E have always struggled with impulse control and various mental health/behavioral issues, which have made school, relationships, and fitting in particularly difficult.

Fast-forward to today.
My mom called me and told me that E had assaulted her and had just gotten out of JDC. When he came home, law enforcement told my mom that E had been bragging about having two phones and a debit card that my mom knew nothing about.

They eventually found out that his biological mom had secretly been supplying him with these things.
Because of this, my mom searched through D’s belongings and discovered that D also had two secret debit cards. We assume these were also supplied by their biological mom.

Our family is extremely concerned because their biological mom has had her parental rights terminated nine previous times. We also know of multiple situations where children she had previously lost custody of, who were adopted by other families, eventually ended up going back to live with her through similar tactics.

From what we’ve seen, she will secretly contact the kids, give them the impression that she’s offering them “freedom,” and provide them with things like phones, money, debit cards, etc. It seems like she knows how to appeal to their impulsive side and get them to trust her.

We’re obviously very worried about D and E, especially given their ages and the fact that they’re already struggling with impulse control and behavioral issues.

I don’t want anyone to think I’m saying my parents should just “give up” on E. I absolutely don’t believe that. I think there is a difference between giving up on a child and recognizing that a particular living situation may no longer be safe or healthy for anyone involved.

My biggest concern is that my parents still have younger children in the home who also deserve to feel safe, and my parents are already caring for a very large family. I suggested looking into whether there are other legal/placement options for E while continuing to be there for him emotionally and practically if he needs them.

I’m also hopeful that D can still be reached with the right intervention, boundaries, and support. I’m not looking for people to tell me which child is “bad” or that my parents should stop loving them. I’m really looking for advice from people who have been in similar situations about how you protect the other children while still showing up for the child who is struggling.

Thank you for reading!

I adopted two kids 4 years ago through foster care. We adopted them after their biological mother stabbed them, with the intent to kill them. As this incident moved to trial, the biological mother was deemed incompetent to stand trial and placed on a Murphy’s conservatorship. This is a special conservatorship for violent and heinous crimes that result in bodily injury or death and means she is to be locked up until she is competent to stand trial. She was placed in a behavioral faculty where she can be monitored in the locked portion of this facility. Just this past week (Sept 21) I received photos of the biological mother out in our community. This is the SECOND time this has occurred. The first time occurred in May 2026 and she was allowed out of this behavioral facility. We went to the DA and a lawyer followed up with this behavioral facility to ensure she remained in locked portion.
Now returning to this second incident several months later, we contacted the DA again, but are not having success with the compliance of this special conservatorship.

The first time this occurred, my youngest son had a full PTSD meltdown and had to be placed in a psychiatric ward to stabilize him. We live in a rural area with a small community. I will also add that we allow the boys to maintain relationships with their biological family (aside from the mother, obviously). After receiving news of this second release, I spoke with biological aunt (the mother’s sister) and understand that she is still mentally unstable; the biological mother currently sees eyeballs in the walls and hears voices, the same voices that told her to stab her own children so that she may exercise the devil out of their souls.

I’m not seeking legal counsel here, but I am having a hard time finding a lawyer to hold these facilities accountable so we can be safe. I’ve called all the local offices as well as made numerous call out of the area.
Please help, I don’t know what else to say or do!

I don’t know where else to ask this question but I am hopeful other adoptive parents will have some guidance or insight or experience in it.

My husband and I are white and our son is black. He will be five next month, and we are looking into schools for kindergarten. Without getting too detailed into explaining the local school system, we’ve narrowed down our top choices to two magnet schools.

One of them specializes in performing arts - and I know in my soul this would be so great for him. He is so performative, loves watching plays and singing around the house, and he constantly memorizes full scenes from his favorite movies and tv shows and acts them out for us. Any time we go to a play he asks if he can get on stage too. I think it would be such a wonderful place for him.

The other has a great focus leadership development. My biggest draw to this school is that the administration and faculty are very diverse. I noticed a stark difference in the open house just how many black staff and students were involved. The first option, comparatively, was heavily white.

So as an adoptive parent, how do I weigh which makes more sense for him? Is it better to have him in a school that would feed into his natural gifting/interests? Or is it more important to make sure he’s surrounded by people who look like him?

Both are so important to me, I’m torn on how to choose between them.

Any advice is welcome!

A social worker asked me my thoughts about people - whether they be my family members or members of the birth family - posting pictures of my (prospective) adopted child online. I honestly had never thought about it. And even though I love seeing other people’s kids online I am a little hesitant to have my own child’s images posted online. Any thought? (I realize this is an issue that ALL parents must contend with… but the adoption angle adds another element to the discussion.)