friend offered adoption

I have a friend who just found out she can never have kids of her own. I have been talking with my fiance and since we already have 3 of our own we agreed that if she is willing we will have a baby for her. I just want to share the joys of motherhood with my friend so she can experience all of it firsthand. I dont expect her to pay for anything except the legal adoption papers. We plan on paying for the medical ourselves and everything. I am wondering however How do we go about doing this if she lives in england and i live in missouri? Do i fly there with the baby or fly there to have the baby? or does she come here to finalize it all?

I have a friend who just found out she can never have kids of her own. I have been talking with my fiance and since we already have 3 of our own we agreed that if she is willing we will have a baby for her. I just want to share the joys of motherhood with my friend so she can experience all of it firsthand. I dont expect her to pay for anything except the legal adoption papers. We plan on paying for the medical ourselves and everything. I am wondering however How do we go about doing this if she lives in england and i live in missouri? Do i fly there with the baby or fly there to have the baby? or does she come here to finalize it all? MY ADVICE TO YOU... sit down with your friend and ask her what it is she is expecting. See if you can figure most out on your own so when it comes time for the paperwork there are no suprise fees for you to pay.

:thanks: Thank you very much for your advice. I hope all works out for you. I would have to say luckily for me my friend lives very close by. Your reply has definitely helped take out some of the fear that I have been facing. Once again Thank You!

PLEASE do not do this to your child. (Adoptees, please weigh in here.) It is one thing to be placed in another family due to a crisis situation, it is another to know that you were born to be separated from your family. Adoption is about finding families for children that need them, not children for families that want them. Please put yourself in your child's place. There are losses in adoption. This child will be losing his/her whole family in order to provide "the joys of motherhood" to someone. Can you imagine what it would be like to be that child?

I would be devastated to know that my first mom and dad created me simply for the purpose of making another couple happy. It is hard enough to know that my first mom couldn't parent me.... I'm not an object to make my adoptive mom and dad happy. They were there to provide a home when I needed one, I'm not their daughter to fulfill their needs.

Lil, your heart is in the right place, but there are other ways to help your friend. First, you don't seem to know, or at least asknowledge it here, what the nature of their infertility is. If it's just an egg issue, my issue for instance, maybe you could offer to donate eggs to her and she could go through pregnancy. If it's an uterine issue, maybe you could be her surrogate using their embryos. If it's male factor, perhaps your fiance could donate for them. However, as a woman w/ IF, it would completely freak me out if a friend of mine said "Oh, we'll get pregnant for you, and give you the baby." It's been completely freaky to have people offer eggs and surrogacy for me, so I know that would make me really freaked out.

My husband and I were invited to dinner with a friends. Halfway through they told us they wanted to have a baby for us, because the wife enjoyed pregnancy. I was floored. My husband and I had decided to adopted due to infertility issues on my end, and we had done treatments once (which were successful) we just did not want to go through that again. It was the most uncomfortable conversation we had ever had. We told them we wanted to help a baby who needed a home, not create another child just for our own happiness. Our relationship has been strained since.

I have a friend who offered to do this for me too. I had no idea what to say, and didn't know if this was a common or unusual situation! So many things about it made me kinda uncomfortable. At first glance, it seemed like the answer to our prayers, but as I thought deeper some issues started to come up. She says she would not want the child to know that she was the birthmother yet would still want to be my friend, so this would require me to lie to the child! I just don't like the thought of that at all. And as I read the posts before mine, I think of those issues as well. I only wish it could be this easy, but it just feels wrong in so many ways.

This is a planned adoption and not a surrogacy in case anyone trys to imply that it is. As an adoptee, when I first found out who my bmom was there was a family member that attempted to convince me that this was a planned arrangement and quite frankly, try as I might , I just found it so mind boggling. I simply cannot imagine intentionally creating a life for the sole purpose of giving the baby away. Human beings are not gifts that are created to supply childless couples with children. They are gifts from God. I have more respect for a woman that finds herself in an untimely pregnancy and faces the gut wretching decision to place her baby than a woman who intetionally creates a baby only to hand over to another couple/parent. While there is such a thing as "tradional" surrogacy, there are simply not enough adult children to speak of their feelings. A good number of adoptees experience enough feelings of rejection and go through life with issues and those adoptees were not inetionally created to be adopted. I suggest you read the experiences of the bmothers here before you embark on such an arrangement. I would be devastated as an adoptee if I had been a product of such an arrangement. I thank God that I am just a regular adoptee that was adopted by the best family in the world. Also, there are many women in the surrogacy community that have daily regrets after going through with an arrangement like this. Please research, research and research some and rethink this. IMO this would be exremely selfish on the part of the adults. It is dehumanizing. Babies are not meant to be created and gifted to someone. This is an arranged adoption and certainly not what adoption is. EZ

I feel that I need to clear a few things up on here. The adoption that I origionally created this thread about is not a gift in the sense that everyone is talking about. My friend had a relationship with a guy who wants nothing to do with the child and she would, knowing me personally, rather me raise her child knowing that she can not accomplish this under current conditions in her life. I also have been adopted and while I am glad for the better life I agree that it is hard for everyone in the situation. Another thing about this birth is that children and youth have been involved with her and they also are telling her she cannot keep the child. So once again this is not one of the types where she is having the baby because of me. I just felt that needed to be verified.:eek:

I don't think we were addressing your situation, we were talking about the one below you. Your friend needs counseling. Placing a child for adoption is often a permament solution to a temporary problem. Regardless of what the people around her are saying, she will be the one that has to make the decision. IMHO you need to advise her to seek counseling and then step back. Open adoption is HARD work and I would have never placed my child with a friend. It would complicate a relationship far too much.

I am currently going through a very similar situation it is still new to me but seems to be promising. Like the person above suggested I would definatly have your friend go to counceling. I am extremely excited and have to remind myself daily that this is not 100% yet, myu friend still can change her mind until TPR. I searched for lawyers in our area who do open adoptions he has been very helpful. you should be able to find a lawyer that will give you a free consult to give you the breakdown of costs and tell you what the process will be for you in your area. I would definately like to keep contact and compare notes on how things are going since our ituations are so similar...

Thank you for helping me with the information you have given. I would love to stay in contact to see how things are going. I hope all works well for you. I will definitely look into the lawyer thing.:thanks:

I absolutely could not have placed with a close friend (or any friend) - or relative for that matter. I think that your friend needs make sure she gets counseling from an unbiased source and that she understands the implications of the placement. Best of luck to you both.

Neo, back to YOU since this was your post. My DD was adopted from a friend. We used to see her alot before DD was born and now she has pretty much taken off. She is much younger then us but my DH has known her since she was born and I've known her 10 years. She is very unstable and got pregnant while just having "fun" with a friend. She knew she could not take care of a baby, she is mentally unstable and functions way below her actual age, she also knew if she kept her that DD would have had the same if not worse life that she had. She has been in and out of residential treatment for 5 years and is actually back in right now. Anyways it has worked out well. She said she wanted 2 visits a year, we would have allowed more then that however she didn't even take the 2 last year. We send photos or drop them by on her door. I honestly wish she would have a little more involvement but given her age and that this was 100% her decission I would never try to get her to do more then she wants. You did not say when she was due but our DD was due in August 07, we did not obtain and attorney until May (we found out in Feb.) when we knew it was decided and a sure thing. Yes she still had the option to change her mind but she was a minor, her want all along was adoption but her mother went back and forth on wanting to keep DD herself and in the end realized that would be the worst thing for HER daughter.