Tag Archives: Adoption

Can I REALLY Love My Adopted Child?

Can I REALLY Adopt and Love a Child?

I Secretly Feared I Wouldn’t Love My Adopted Child

I think every adoptive parent thinks  What if adopt a child but can’t love them? This nagging fear that sits in the dark corner of your mind, usually in your most vulnerable moments.  Its a very personal question but also a natural question and one i asked myself many times.  

Its a fair question though. Would i just be a hotel keeper making the beds and providing the food and comforts but nothing else. Would our adoption be without that special bond.  That bond that unities you and your children for life. Could i adopt?

If your thinking this then keep reading for our experience.  This is our story of moving past that fear and building a connection that’s deeper than genetics.

 The Dream, To Adopt

The dream for us, like for so many, was simple: we wanted to be parents. We had this vision for our life that was so clear it felt like a memory we just hadn’t made yet. We imagined tears, laughter, bedtime stories… all the beautiful, chaotic noise of a house filled with children.

But our path to that dream was not a straight line. After years of trying to start our family biologically, we found ourselves at a crossroads—heartbroken, but not defeated. And that’s when we started talking about , could we adopt?



Is an Adopted Child Second Best?

At this point I tried not to think of adoption as a second best but that’s difficult as it wasn’t our first choice. So was it a second choice?  We yes it was but to adopt isn’t second best. Adopted children aren’t second best.  This is something you need to work through and be comfortable with.  If you want to form a meaningful and deep life long bond with an adopted child you can’t think of them or as second best.

The application process takes your mind off questions.  You must be sure otherwise you won’t be successful.  The process was arduous.  Paperwork was a mountain, the home studies felt invasive, and the waiting was frustrating and annoying.  Adoption for us wasn’t a perfect process.  We were so focused on the process of getting a child that we rarely stopped to question the feeling. We just thought that once we got the children parental love and bonding would happen and things just… click.

We were more ready for the practical challenges and less prepared for the emotional roller coaster and complexity that was waiting for us.

We thought love would be the easy part. It turns out, for us, it was the hardest part.



Meeting Your Child

You work so hard and wait so long so when that day arrives its difficult to believe. Its overwhelming. This is really happening.

I remember walking up to the house and looking in and our new family was sitting on the carpet looking like small children do but a little lost, little scared and a little excited.

It was  surreal moment.  Different to when new parents hold their new born but no less over whelming. I don’t think any parent birth or adoption forgets the first time they see their child. To adopt is an amazing thing.

Lets not forget the adopted child.  all the emotions the new parent feels must be magnified by a 100 for an adopted child.  New home, new safe space, new rules, new parents.  It must be very scary.

We had a 3 day handover with our new family which helped us get to know each other a little more as this was the first time we’d met.  In the UK now i believe they meet before the adoption and spend time together which is better in some ways i think.

Coming Home With an Adopted Child .

Bringing our children home was even more surreal. Suddenly, OUR quiet house wasn’t all ours. There were little children in the bedroom just as scared and nervous as we were.

I think that’s a key point whatever doubts your having are natural and your child will be feeling the same no doubt.  Its a very confusing time.  Life feels like someone else’s.

Love and attachment may not be instant for any child.  In hindsight I wouldn’t beat myself up about this but at the time there is a feeling of detachment and this is understandable.  Its unrealistic to bring a new family, children, into your home and expect everything to click.

It’s not just about us. I had to learn that adopted children, no matter how young, are on their own profound journey of loss and grief. They’ve lost their first connection to their birth family, a reality that shapes their entire world. They don’t come to us as empty vessels waiting for our love; they come with a history and a need for security that’s been shaken. Their hesitation to trust isn’t a rejection of us, but a defense mechanism born from their own trauma. Our new children  weren’t holding back out of spite; they were just trying to survive the biggest change of their life. I was so wrapped up in my own fear of not bonding that I wasn’t fully seeing their fear of not belonging.

Both children and parents have to settle. Feel their new reality.  That’s why adopters should keep everything low key.  Don’t introduce new people.  Don’t go on lots of day trips. Don’t push feelings.  Low key means building the foundations of strength. Making the home.  Adopted children take time. That can be months years or never.

Fearing you’ll never form the bond with an adopted child but them it happens.

The first few months were a blur of emotional challenges and lingering doubts. Was this what i expected. is this the rest of my time. Your living together but not living as a family yet.

We were on our best behaviour and the children in fear mode to be themselves.  Its a weird hotel like state where your under the same roof but not sharing life together.

Life continues until moments of light happen.  A knowing smile from your child.  A shared moment or a moment of hurt or emotion and they come to you.  It may take time. Longer for one parent than the other, especially if that birth parent had a abusive/neglectful relationship with your child.  That history projects onto you. Birth mum or dad.

These small moments of real communication when they let you in and you let them into your life start to build and you feel the distance shortening and an understanding and bond forming.  You care for them.  Not just in a practical sense in a real I CARE FOR YOU, I LOVE YOU.

There are still moments of feeling like a caretaker for someones else child but don’t push these feelings. These feelings are natural and forming a REAL bond can take years of building trust and communication but it happens. To adopt a child is a huge process and don’t underestimate how long it can take to form a connection and bond.

It can be a touch holding hands, them wanting to be held by you. There will be set backs, one step forward three back.  Our set back was playing with them and feeling like we could pick them up.  We played planes and lifted them high and low, then suddenly by accident banged their heads.  It was tears and emotion. It was a trigger to a past life in their new life.  We explained and apologised but here lived body behaviour sent warnings and they regressed backwards.  We felt terrible and knew it was a set back but set backs happen. Life (and adoptive parents) isn’t perfect. If your going to adopt you have to be prepared for setbacks.

You keep going and time and love build a bond.  You become more like you and so do your children.  Our children went from quiet children who never argued with each other to arguing and fighting.  We thought this was a bad thing but it was them feeling safe enough to be able to argue.  A good thing. When you adopt a child its not always straight forward.

Building a Love Deeper Than Genetics

That was years ago. Looking at our family now, that time of fear and doubt feels like another lifetime. Our relationship isn’t a fairytale of perfect, effortless love. It’s something much more real and, I think, much more resilient.

Our bond isn’t one we just fell into; it’s one we fought for. It was forged in the quiet moments of choosing patience when I felt frustrated, of choosing to be present instead of distracted. It was built through thousands of small choices: bedtime stories, inside jokes, getting through disagreements, and celebrating tiny victories. And it turns out, this is so common; I’ve learned that emotional bonds in adoptive families can be just as strong as biological ones because they’re built on a foundation of shared life and unwavering commitment. You can adopt a child and feel real love.

The fear that I wouldn’t love my child has been replaced by a connection so deep it feels like it’s part of my DNA now, even though I know it isn’t. The love I have is quiet, steady, and fierce. It’s a love I understand so well because I had to learn it. I had to choose it, day after day, until choosing it became my instinct.

Ask an adoptive parent about their children and if they say  ‘I wish I’d given birth to my children’ they’ve formed a bond greater than mere DNA.  They’ve reached a a place of love and being together.  I can’t ever imagine life without our children.  I stopped thinking of them as adopted children years ago. they are just our children who we happened to adopt.  Adopting is a huge part of our life but it isn’t our life. Our life belongs to us and we shape our destiny together bonded by love and care.

We talk openly about adoption in our home. We honor our child’s history and help them understand all the parts of who they are. Their identity isn’t a threat to us or our bond; it’s essential to it. My love for them isn’t less because they are adopted, its just love. We did adopt but that isn’t our only story.



You Are Not alone

If you recognise this story or feeling, if you’ve ever felt that secret fear or struggled with the guilt of not feeling what you think you’re “supposed to,” please know you are not alone. It doesn’t make you a bad person; it makes you human. To adopt a child takes a lot of courage and love and you feel with all that there must be an immediate bond but human emotions aren’t always that simple.



Conclusion

Please, hear this: Your feelings are valid. The pressure to have an instant, magical bond is huge, but it’s not always reality. Connection takes time. Be patient with your child, and just as importantly, be patient with yourself.

You’re building a bond that is stronger than fear, deeper than genetics, and more profound than you can possibly imagine. Keep going. It is so, so worth it.You decided to adopt and with that comes a great deal of work and sometime heartache.




 

Being a parent is difficult but there is help available.

Being a parent is hard, we know were parents. that why we created CosyChats.com to help other parents by providing much needed personalised parent support.

Parent support that can help you navigate the pitfalls of being a parent. Learn in an empathetic and understanding from the huge experience and knowledge parents on CosyChats have.

CosyChats is a personalised parent support Service that can provide support to parents across a wide range of parenting issues including adoption and sharing experiences of parents who decided to adopt.
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No detail or pictures can be shared to protect the adopted children’s privacy and right to a wonderful new life where physical abuse or violence is not part of their life anymore.

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What’s It REALLY Like to Be A Parent Of Adopted Children?

What’s It REALLY Like to Be an Adoptive Parent?

Every adoptive parent ask themselves this question I think. We certainly did but there are so many layers to this question. How will your life change. Will your children accept you, even love. Will you love them or even accept them. Will it be the worst or the best decision you ever made?

What’s It REALLY Like to Be an Adoptive Parent?

Its such a huge question its difficult to convery in a simple blog but lets have a go.

Its really life changing. It really is. Its a huge and often overwhelming journey.

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Adopted children come with so much baggage. Things that are known and things that aren’t.  You think you are prepared for this but your not.  You think you’re equipped for this but your not.  Prepare to be totally lost, confused and doubting yourself. Life before adoption is very different and in so many ways far more simple.

Adoption should not be undertaken lightly. By this I mean are you prepared to upend your whole life?  Dedicate your life to your children. Bring up someones else children. Children that you will come to love dearly but have been damaged by someone else. Your children have had the worst start in life and there was nothing you could have done about it. If your not ready for this adoption may not be for you. This blog isn’t meant to scare you its to make you think and go into it with your eyes open. So you can’t say i didn’t know and blame someone else when your waist high emotional waste that’s splurged from your children.

Adoption is by far the greatest, most challenging and life changing thing we’ve done.

So what’s It REALLY Like to Be an Adoptive Parent?  It tests you and your relationships. It can disrupt and turn your life upside down.  It becomes your life.

There may be no happy families.  Just a family that can stay together. There may not be bonds and happy memories but despite all its challenges adoption is the most amazing thing we’ve done.  It touches emotions you didn’t think you had.  It creates bonds that didn’t seem possible and that can be the best and worst thing. Its difficult to say What’s It REALLY Like to Be an Adoptive Parent as it changes. It can be amazing one minute and then totally overwhelming. Its certainly varied and you’ll never be bored.

You aren’t and will never be the birth parents.

You will never have that birth bond or experience. You are the adoptive parent. That can be one of the most gut and heart wrenching things.  As much love and attention you give your adopted child you may never repair their early trauma. That child may never truly be able to trust or bond again.  The damage may be too great.  You need to be prepared and accept (sometimes small) degrees of success.

Can you Bond With Adopted Children?

In some ways its like buying and moving to a new house.  Sometimes you just know and other times you have to build and make it your own.  Adoption is similar, you can form an attachment pretty quickly but is this a true bond?  A true bond takes years of understanding and being together.  Its not just you its the child as well.  Their trust and acceptance may take much longer.  You may feel you don’t have any bond with your adopted children even after years of being together. You need to be prepared for this.

Just because you have done so much, given up so much doesn’t mean it has any real impact or affect.

As your adopted children get older and understand their journey more this bond may dip as they seek their birth parents but its surprising how much of a emotional connect can form.  How much your  adopted children become your children and yes their not your birth children but in every other way they are your children.  They are part of you like a jigsaw. You are a parent, an adoptive parent yes but a parent no less. In our eyes and amazing super hero (adoptive) parent.

You and them become intertwined in life.

Adoptive parent form safe spaces to allow bonding to occur.  This can be difficult and challenging but over time bonds form.  Sometime very deep rooted and hidden in the child. The child can push back and hurt those closest to them the most but there is a connection in all that darkness.

So yes bonds can form  but it takes a lot of hard work. A lot of trust and commitment. With so many up and downs along the way.  For us the life changing,  demanding and toxic moments have brought us closer together. Repairing past trauma can be incredibly hard and emotionally draining. adoptive parents take on a lot.

The biggest question you may ask yourself.

Adoption is not a next step for people who cannot have children.  Being an adoptive parent is far more than that.

The first point is you need to be sure and committed.  I don’t mean to wanting children.  I mean to having your life pulled apart by adoption.  To being tested emotionally and physically (adoption is draining).  Think of an SAS training program where the mental desire to continue progresses candidates. Through extremes, total exhaustion and insane challenge which take people totally out of their comfort zone. 

You must be able to  progress whatever the challenge because you are changing a child’s life and you have the potential to do more harm than good.

If your not totally committed you could be letting the child down even more and there maybe no come back from this.

Broken relationships that cannot be repaired.  The most damaged children are those that have been in numerous placements and foster homes.    Neglect it so damaging and your child can push back and test you to breaking point, just to prove you will be there for them forever and a day. Being an adoptive parent is a job for life.

So if you start adoption you must be prepared to see it through.  You must have the mental and physical determination to suffer whatever and continue.

Just like the winners on the SAS training program, there is no champagne or prize, Just an embrace and well done but this means more than any trophy or medal.

Adoption is often so much turmoil and hurt without much reward.

Adoption is not a bank your efforts collect interest in and are repaid.  Think of a bucket with a hole in it.  You may have nothing to show for all you effort, apart from the love (possibly) and affection of your child. Which for us is worth more than anything.

If you think you can suffer all this potential upheaval in you life. Putting your life, career, holidays and dreams on hold for these children. Who don’t care and don’t show emotion (masking is very common) then adoption maybe suitable for you.

Adoption is truly a life changing thing to do.

In all its moments of pain and trauma there are nuggets of reward .  Moments of joy and progress.  Moments of love and caring.

These are the moments that we cling onto. The small success that give us hope there is progress.

Every adopter thinks, have we done the right thing?  They’re not being true to themselves if they don’t, its a natural reaction.

Adoption is not right for so many people and that’s absolutely fine. The bravest thing to do is not to adopt if your not willing to make the sacrifices. Not willing to put in the effort and love for often little return.

So should you adopt?

Take a deep look into yourself.  Are you committed and prepared to upend your life.  To suffer extreme emotional stress and pressure knowing the child is testing you to see if you really mean what you say.  Can you be that committed. Can you last the tests and torture.

The rewards are huge but the sacrifice and journey can be so damaging but only you can decide if your able to make the journey and see it through.

If you ever meet an adoptive family I hope you congratulate them on what they have achieved.  Small successes often take a huge amount of work and emotional investment.  Adopters often don’t get thanked and they should.

Every adopter we know is an ANGEL for their children!.

 

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👍🏼Access to a wealth of Parenting Experience and Knowledge.

👍🏼Your own personalised 1-2-1 service.

👍🏼A safe space free from judgement and shame.

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👍🏼Being understood and your needs heard.

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👍🏼Meetings are on online so you can join from where you feel most comfortable.

CosyChats is a personalised parent support Service that can provide support to parents across a wide range of parenting issues including how to connect with your adopted children and spend quality time together. How your adopted child’s past shouldn’t define who they are and the person they could become. How to build a happy relationship with your children.

Two hands alongside each other to suggest adoption support matters and is needed

How To Get the Post Adoption Support You Need?

Getting the Support you need post adoption is vital but don’t think support is easily available. Its not.  

From a Family who have adopted three children.


The Adoption Support (ASF) fund

The Adoption support fund is designed to cover essential therapeutic services for children who have been adopted. To improve their live chances.
The ASF was at risk totally but has been agreed with reduced funding. It is likely the ASF will be at risk again in years to come

ASF Funding decisions have a dramatic and long tailed impact on families of adopted children. You need to be prepared for this disruption



An adoption families experience. 

The Adoption Support fund, funds therapy for our 3 adopted children. Each of our children had a very difficult start to life including suffering neglect distress and significant trauma.
 



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I will talk generally. Their early life experience has scrambled their minds.




  They have difficulty concentrating, learning, sitting still and focusing.




For years they were in a permanent state of fear. Learning and being attentive are difficult.




They have complex emotions and feelings often expressed in anger and hurt to those closest to them.




  Adoptive families are bonded by love, but this love is pushed incredibly hard at times. Therapy is very (vital, lifesaving, imperative) important to us.

How to Get The Adoption Support You Require

As you will read in this Blog adoption support is challenging. There are some amazing people working to support you but not everyone can be amazing. The system can be slow and cumbersome. There are other deserving cases that merit attention ahead of yours. Social are workers overworked and often limited in powers. Therapists can vary. Getting the right ones is vital but even then they can’t go back in time and change the experience your adopted child has suffered.

So here’s the truth on adoption support

You need to fight for most things. You need evidence and to build a case. Being the emotional parent who needs help doesn’t really cut it. You need to document events and prove support is required. You need professionals on your side fighting your cause. You need determination and steel to keep going but even with all this. The sad reality is that you might not get the help you need. Your child might not get the support they need and this is heartbreaking and saddening.



I don’t want to paint too bleak a picture but as you’ll read by the delays to the ASF funding, these delays, waiting lists and shortages have a real and significant impact on adopters and their children.



I can say keep fighting for your children don’t give up. Or I can say save you energy to put into your children. Don’t rely on services that may be set up to fail. CAMHS is patchy. CAMHS has long waiting lists and good people but also people who hide behind waiting lists and being overworked.



I would say fight for your children but be realistic. Don’t expect miracles and don’t rely on post adoption support. Be realistic about what support you can achieve and what you as a parent can do to support your child.

I Hope with every fiber in my body you get the post adoption support you need because you truly deserve it but read on to our experience and prepare yourself for the scenario that you don’t get the support. As least your eyes will be open.

Adoption is an amazing thing but post adoption support isn’t the safety need you may be expecting.

Adoption and our our family

We go to a specialized adoption agency linked to the charity Barnardo’s. Our funding equates to a given number of hours for therapy, but the involvement of therapists is so much more than that.




 They have attended meeting, presented a professional opinion and been able to present a professional opinion based of therapy sessions supporting what we see at home. This has been invaluable.  




Two of our children now attend a specialist school for children with anxiety, the other is in mainstream school but in a nurture department. This much needed additional support has been achieved with the support of the adoption support fund and the ability it has provided through therapists and therapists attending meeting. Without it our fight would have been much harder and the impact on our family greater.  




I wouldn’t underestimate this negative impact as at times we have been at crisis, police and paramedics knocking on our door, such was the risk of self-harm being raised.  Adoption Support.



The impact of our therapists has been life changing. 

Therapy does not stop. It is much needed and as our children grow, they experience very difficult times and emotions. Often these can be overwhelming, harming and dangerous and therapy supports us all through this.   Many adopted families suffer, and couples break up due to the often-immense pressure.  



Breaks in therapy can be very damaging.

We can’t control what happens when. When our children (and family) may crash and burn. When we need therapy the most. Therapy deals with very emotional and deep issues often where the child doesn’t understand their own feelings or actions. The trust between the therapist and subject does not happen overnight. It needs to be built over time.  

Adopted children have been let down, trust and bonding is a huge issue. Delays to therapy funding are damaging in themselves. We have stopped our therapy sessions and don’t know when they will re start. We will have a period of ‘getting back into it’.



Delays are unnecessary. 

Adoption Decisions need to be made sooner and quicker.  Delays should not happen. This is not the first-time funding has been delayed. Adopted children and families need support but often don’t get enough. We work with some incredibly dedicated people who go above and beyond for us, but we fight a system that lacks resource to support us.    




We receive no additional benefits or funding. At the point of adoption, we received £500 for cots etc. We love our children dearly. Their presence has changed and enriched our lives beyond comprehension. We don’t ask for or receive any additional handouts. Adoption makes sense financially and for society. It breaks the cycle of neglect. Provides a loving family to children who need it. Creates stability and is cost effective.   Children who are adopted come from the care system.



In financial terms it is far cheaper to fund adoption than keep children in the care/ foster care system,

but adoption is becoming less attractive. Less people are adopting.    Fewer children are joining loving supportive families. Less traumatic childhoods are being repaired.  Adoption delays.  Delays to the adoption support fund do not help.  They don’t help adopted children, adoptive families and children waiting to be adopted.



They present a picture of a government (s) that does not value adoption, adopters or adopted children.

This is not right.  Its counterproductive.    The adoption fund has faults and needs to be reviewed, so do it now ready for next year so there are no breaks in service, and we have certainty.  Adoption Support.



Place the power with the people who deal closest to the children. 

Who understand how best the money should be spent and what benefits the child the most. 

Adoption delays. The Impact of delays to Adoption Support Fund, funding.
 

Therapy sessions finish and we don’t know when they’re start or if they re-start.




Once new funding is agreed there is a backlog of applications for new funding.




The system is overwhelmed creating and processing applications.   




Applications must be approved, and another bottle neck happens, without guarantee your application will be approved.




More delays occur.




Adopted children require certainty, not uncertainty.




Crises cannot be meet.




Families are not supported.




Self-harm continues.




Other services cannot step in adequately.  




The world is on hold, but our children are not.  




Delays mean more therapy work must be done, relationships reformed, trust earned again, therapy takes longer, and money spent is less beneficial.




If there were no breaks and uncertainty therapy would continue, and the money spent would provide greater value.




Money would not be spent ‘starting again’.  




Due to delays therapists must consider their position. Delays means no funding, not being able to pay their mortgages.  Should working models change?  Go private. Our therapists love their work dearly, but these delays are unacceptable. They cannot have a career where every year they have such uncertainty.  Adoption Support lost. 



This is all so unavoidable.  To the government. Plan in advance.  Speak to adoptive families, social workers, therapists.  See what is required. 

Plan so there isn’t ever a break and uncertainty again.  Spending reviews cost money.  Adoption funding shouldn’t be hard to justify.  It makes social and financial sense.  So, what happens next year?  Delays are avoidable, costly and entirely self-made.  Not system should suffer or work like this.




Families and those supporting them shouldn’t be put through this each year but most importantly the children who have suffered the most difficult start in life, not being able to be cared for, suffering abuse and neglect are once again neglected.  Their needs are not being met, and I can’t understand or justify why.   More needs to be done.  Better planning. Less disruption. More clarity.  There is no excuse for this.    Make the next blog we write be a positive one.




Being an adoptive family is hard enough without this.




 

** The Adoption Support Fund funding has been reduced. This has a HUGE impact to families of adopted children’

DfE slashes Adoption Support Fund grants
 





Be in no doubt this will have a significant and immediate impact. £5,000 may sound a lot but therapy is often traumatic, demanding and emotionally challenging for all involved. Therapy sessions are not undertaken lightly or frivolously. Trust must be gained. This doesn’t happen overnight. These are not broken bones and the ‘repairing’ isn’t a quick process.




Our children have required specialist therapy for several years and this has helped them to get through very serious and significant events. Periods of darkness and despair that were overwhelming for the child and us as a family.




Adopters need support. Children who are adopted need support. This is not a choice its a fact. The reduction in funding allows more children to be helped but the help less effective. Its just watering down the help across more children. Better to accept the principle of help and provide it to those that need it.




Put the power in the people closest to the children. Build in safeguards and approvals by all means but make it local. Therapy for us is a round trip of 2.5 hours. Its draining and takes up a day of our time for an 1 hour session. We don’t undertake therapy lightly. Local decision making allows critical periods and events to be reacted to. If your child is self harming. Getting more desperate and despairing. Funding should be available to meet this critical event and time in the child’s life. How many children will suffer or worse due to inflexibility in the system.




For us there will probably be a shortfall based on previous years. We won’t have flex-ability to re act to critical events as we have done in the past. Our therapists are invested in us and already go over and above for us. I know they go well beyond what the current funding pays for but even for them there must be limits. Other children taking up time. Other critical events. We have been advised before (by other families) to call an ambulance. I understand how desperate families get but this is a last resort as this just adds to the pressure on that service and I’m not sure it actually gives any more leverage to getting help. Its a cry for help but outside of the ambulance what good will it do. I know that sounds pessimistic but its the reality in many cases.




It saddens me that adoption is not recognised nor supported sufficiently. This will made more people consider adoption less favorably. More children are likely to remain in care or fostering for longer. This cost far out weights the money saved in reducing the support fund from £5 to £3k per child. This seems shortsighted to say the least. Adopted children deserve more. Financially the case for reduction in funding does not stack up. The ‘cost’ is too great for the small benefit in funding.

Our adoptive family.  





We are unable to share personal details or show pictures about us.  Ours is a private life. Where we can strengthen our family bond and deal with the up and downs of life with adopted children. We are more than happy to answer any questions and talk privately contact@cosychats.com. 




Adoption Support Network 




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