r/Adoption

I’m hoping for practical advice on finding the right kind of therapist for my husband. Some context first:

My husband (American, adopted as an infant) grew up with covertly narcissistic, controlling parents. At 17, both parents explicitly threatened to kick him out of the house when he tried to tell them not to alwas tell him what to do. After that point, he essentially stopped pushing back on anything — he became the “good son” who manages their emotions, predicts their needs, and avoids any conflict. He’s now in his 30s and still does this. The parents have be micro managing his whole life until now ( 36 years old!)

I’m currently in late pregnancy with our first child, and his mother has been escalating her controlling behavior around the birth and postpartum period. My husband recently did something he’s never done before — he set a clear boundary with her about delaying her visit so I can recover, and when she responded with a guilt-tripping message, he publicly backed me up. This was huge for him.

A few weeks ago I suggested he see a therapist. His first reaction was “I can handle it myself,” but he’s since come around and agreed he wants to go. I think he’s recognizing that he doesn’t want to bring these patterns into how he parents our child.

What I think is going on (not a diagnosis, just pattern-matching):

• Likely C-PTSD given the chronic, relational nature of the harm

• Strong fawn response — he reads and meets others’ needs but struggles to identify or express his own

• Possible alexithymia — emotions feel muted or hard to name

• Difficulty initiating emotional expression in our relationship (he’s incredibly responsive but rarely initiates)

My questions for this community:

1. What specific credentials, training, or modalities should I look for? I’ve read that EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, IFS, and Schema Therapy tend to work better than standard CBT for complex trauma — is that consistent with people’s experience here?

2. Does the adoption piece require specialized expertise, or is a strong complex-trauma therapist enough? I don’t want to underweight the preverbal attachment stuff.

3. How do you screen therapists in an initial consultation? What questions actually surface whether someone genuinely understands covert narcissistic abuse vs. just having read about it?

4. For those who’ve done this work — how long before you noticed real shifts? I want to set realistic expectations for both of us, especially with a baby coming.

5. Any advice on supporting him through this without becoming his therapist myself? I’m aware I’ve been doing a lot of the analytical work and I want to step back into being his partner.

Thank you in advance. I know this is a long road and I’m trying to set him up well, especially before the baby arrives.

My husband and I are starting the process of adopting from foster care through a local adoption agency. We couldn’t be more excited to join families with our future adoptive children! We have decided to focus our attention on older children and sibling sets, as our local agency told us during an introductory training that these groups have the highest need for adoptive families.

1. If there are any adoptees who read this thread, I would greatly appreciate anything you are willing to share about your experience and what you wish your adoptive parents had known from Day 1.

2. Adoptive parents - what do you wish you had known from Day 1? Any advice? Words of wisdom? Things to be cautious of? I want to know it all!

3. My parents and my husband’s parents want to do a family “media club” surrounding adoption, so we can go into this with as much awareness and sensitivity as possible. Do you have any books, podcasts, content creators, etc. that you’d recommend?

I remember in middle school there was a boy in my class who was the oldest of four children. Him, his younger sister, and the second youngest brother were all the biological children of their parents. However the youngest brother of that family was adopted.

I know the most common reasons parents adopt is because of infertility or because of being a same sex-couple (myself, I always thought if I ever become a mother I would adopt because I have a phobia of pregnancy and I am not bothered of the idea of having a child that doesn't look like me). So I was and still am curious as to why a family with already a lot of biological children would then adopt another one. I never ask that family why because I didn't know them very well and I figure it would be a kind of rude thing to ask, but the question has stuck with me for a while.

I'm not sure if this is relevant context or not, but I remember the parents of that family being an interracial couple (East Asian and white) with the children being white-passing biracial. The toddler they adopted was visibly full East Asian. Maybe that's weird to say but I figured I'd mentioned it because I know interracial adoption is a source of ethical debate so I wonder if race has anything to do with the decision making.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had some info or theories that could satiate my curiosity, or if anyone had personal experience being a parent or child in a similar family situation.

It’s crazy to me to think that in 1994 I was born and already had debts to the world.

My mom and dad were in a toxic relationship that affected my safety- and my sense of security daily.
before I was three my grandparents saved me and raised me. They did every single thing that
they could, to make sure that I turned out okay.

they never let me feel like I didn’t have everything everyone else happen in a lot of ways I felt like I had more. they made me feel like I was worthy

and as an adult now I’m 32. I chose a wonderful husband, who is compassionate and cares for me deeply. I have a sweet and beautiful poodle who also shows me love every day. We just bought a house in a beautiful area with a view.
a chandelier, a fish tank and every single thing that I could ever want in my life.

i’m sitting here at my new dining room table, with my dining room chairs looking at the fish tank and my poodle and I guess I’m just in my feelings for a moment because I never thought I would have any of this but at the same time, my grandparents made me feel a sense of belonging, security, and deep love.

We have an open relationship with our adopted child’s birthmom. She and a daughter live in another state. Recently birthmom went to jail for I don’t know how long, and I don’t know for what. She just said “something in her past that caught up to her.”

Of course she lost her job while she was in jail. The friends who looked after her child while she was in jail, stole from her and damaged her car.

We sent her a couple hundred dollars when she first got out of jail to pay her child’s after-school care tuition cost and replenish some groceries.

Today she texted me. She said the car was going to cost more than it was worth to fix it, so she’s without a car. The new job she got didn’t work out, so she’s without income. And she says they are about to be homeless. (I haven’t asked what “about to be” means — if they are late on rent, or already months past due, or what).

She hasn’t asked me for anything yet. I’m sure she’s hoping I’ll offer to pay rent. And/or, if her kid can come stay with us awhile til she gets back on her feet.

I want to help and support her. But I don’t want to be taken advantage of. So I was hoping to get some outside opinions.

This is my first post here and I’ve tried to be plenty vague for anonymity, but yall please tell me if this isn’t vague enough.

I’ve recently started dating and I am so good at leaving. I don’t even try, just the moment something feels off or if I hurt a person in some way, I leave. I wonder if it’s bc of my birth, someone left me, so it was designed in me to?

ENGLAND. i have a 5 year old daughter and her bio father is not on the birth certificate and he never wanted to meet her untill last week. Her step father is in her life since she was 2 and she see him as her father. He would like to adopt her. Would the bio father be notified about this? The bio father told me he will make my life hell and he will take her away from me. The fact that he was never in her life will count? Thank you

So as the title says, grandmother already adopted 2 of her daughter’s kids. Mother is an addict, and grandmother cannot take another child. I was asked through a church if we would be willing to adopt, and my wife and I both said “yes” although, we aren’t prepared and quite frankly don’t know what or how to start.

The info I have is this: mother and father are both addicts, baby tested negative for drugs. Mother/father do not want baby, grandma cannot house another child. Mother is willing to “sign over” baby to us. I’m not sure that is the right verbiage.

These are my questions.

Where do we start as far as legal advice?
Can the mother legally surrender the baby to us?
Suppose grandma leaves baby with us, how to we go about adopting?
And finally, what will this cost? I’m under the impression there’s probably a few court fee’s but I’m completely oblivious to the actual cost. I’m in CA.

Sorry I'm like, rage typing. My kids are napping and my fiance had to work and my foster parents are busy reporting shit and I have nowhere else to put my feelings. I don't know if this is even the right sub really. I love yall and you've always been nice in the past, so I'm here. Hope it's okay.

I'm going to try and give as much background as possible. Basically my life story at this point cause I really don't want pointless comments.

I'm 17. When I was 12 my parents had a baby. She was born addicted to meth, at home, and miraculously didn't die. They were not interested in looking after her. Had her and left her with me within hours. I was then "homeschooled" so I could stay home and look after her. She has a plethora of health issues and they didn't want people knowing.

My boyfriend at the time, now fiance, supported me best he could. But we were twelve and thirteen. His parents nade several reports to CPS. We only saw one social worker. She was born in 2020 and I think the fact that we were clothed, fed and had all of our basic needs met put us way down on the list of priorities.

Reports had been made before too. We were in fostercare before my daughter was born but they got clean and moved and then relapsed. Whatever.

When I was thirteen I got pregnant. Playing mommy made me feel very grown up. Didn't tell anyone until I couldn't hide it anymore. My in laws were very supportive and got me on birth control after I gave birth.

We were so neglected my daughter wasn't even vaccinated. She gir her vaccines with my son, which is what finally kicked a doctor into helping us. Fourteen with two babies (and my sister who I had 24/7) finally started setting off alarm bells. Not to mention how sickly my daughter clearly was.

So we get help. We see the singular social worker, shit lays low for a while. Beginning 2025 find out I'm preg again. Removed from the home shortly after. My brother tried to kill us. He now lives in a group home style thing.

Anyway, I'm kind of grateful in a sick sort of way because he finally got us out. Parents rights were terminated a little after I had my second son.

Before I had him we had hell. We were all being shifted around. I was seperated from my daughter and it destroyed us both. My in laws friends were retired foster parents and agreed to reopen their home for us. So we were reunited.

My sister hated the babies so she went elsewhere. Adopted, living a good life. I'm with my foster parents and my three kids. Currently 5, 3, 9mo.

My parents have had another baby. He's in the NICU. Had a whole thing with our caseworker basically asking if I want to take him on too. My fiance and I ultimately decided yes. He is my blood so he is my baby. End of.

While the baby thing is happening my fiance and I are trying to get approved for "solo weekends" which basically include my foster parents letting us have the house with all three kids. We can't at the minute cause our daughter isn't legally ours. As soon as we get the all clear we can have one.

If we get approved it'll make her adoption much easier later on.

So we say we want to take the baby. We're so serious about it that when I found out I was pregnant, again, I aborted. Five kids is too many.

Yes we were using birth control. Maybe stress makes me extra fertile.

So I tell the social worker we want him. We want to be approved for the weekends so we can have a smoother time once I'm 18.

All this and I finally feel okay. I'm calmer today. Daughter was at school. Middle sons were with grandma. Me and my fiance go to see the baby. He's doing really well.

New social worker on shift for a different baby. Not even ours. Gets talking to us about him. Ask about our daughter.

And this bitch. This fucking bitch. Goes "Well don't you think you should let them be adopted by people with more resources? Don't limit either of them because of personal reasons." Paraphrasing, blah.

And I swear to god she said it like I was a terrible person for keeping my own babies. They're mine. No one is going to look after them better than me, and their dad, because that's exactly what he is to them both.

I have been through so much. I have fought every fucking day for half a decade because no one helped us. People like her. And now she wants to tell me that I'm not the best thing for them? Fuck off. Without me my daughter would be dead. Without my my son would still be struggling to gain weight. He only improved once he was on breastmilk. My breastmilk, because they couldn't find anyone else to donate.

I have put everything into these kids and some bitch of a social worker thinks she knows whats best for them because of what? My age? I'm physically seventeen sure but I've been a lot older for a long time.

And I know someone is going to tell me I'm being immature. And she's right. But my kids aren't seeing this. They're napping while I'm seething. And when their sister gets home we're all going to go to speech therapy because that's what we do every Tuesday. And we will be fine.

But right now I'm angry. And my feelings are in the world.

(I wrote this a couple hours ago. I feel fine now, and I wasn't gonna post it, but I decided to anyway. Edited for clarity in some places so if nothing else I've at least got this post to reference back to when people want to know my story or whatever the fuck).

My adopted brother was recently offered a job he was really excited about but for some reason he mentioned being adopted. The hiring company has a race based preferred hiring process so even though he qualifies through either set of parents and they shouldn’t even know he’s adopted because his birth certificate was changed they’re demanding he provide his bio moms birth certificate before he can be hired.

His mom was incredibly abusive, he has zero contact with her for a reason. Any ideas on how I can help him get a copy without contacting any of his bio family?
We’re in California, they don’t have the same last name, we know where she was born and our dad went to the vital statistics office in that county. He was told no.

I’m 17F in the UK and honestly I feel like my whole life has been built on lies and I don’t know what to do anymore.

I was placed into foster care when I was 1 because of domestic violence, drug/alcohol issues and my dad signing me over while my biological mum was fighting for me. I was meant to be adopted by another family first but that fell through and then I was adopted around age 4/5 by my current adoptive family.

Growing up things seemed okay and I was very close to them, but once I became a teenager my mental health completely spiralled. I started self harming, became suicidal, developed severe abandonment trauma, dissociation issues and unhealthy attachment/dependency problems. For nearly 5 years I’ve been in and out of trauma and mental health struggles and I never fully understood why I felt so abandoned and unwanted.

Then in summer 2025 I finally got in contact with my biological mum following a very traumatic event of someonw I cared for cutting contact and my adoptive family completely not understand or helping, so I reached out online.

She told me there had been letterbox contact my entire life that I was NEVER shown and NEVER told about. My adoptive parents always told me she never bothered to contact me or care about me. But she showed me the letters herself and she had written consistently. Some of the replies from my adoptive parents were honestly eemotionallyfucked and insensitive and in the final letter they claimed they had “asked me” whether I wanted to continue contact and apparently I said no.

I was never asked. I didn’t even know the contact existed.

Finding this out genuinely broke something in me because the main source of my trauma has always been believing my mum abandoned me and never cared. If I’d known she was trying to reach out all these years, I honestly think I would’ve grown up far less traumatised.

There’s also a lot of other stuff they brush off, including trauma from sexual assault. My adoptive mum also had an affair and tried to gaslight me into believing it never happened even when there was proof. I genuinely feel like I can’t trust anything they say anymore and the house feels toxic constantly, my adoptive parents argue constantly.

Recently my best friend got engaged to someone in the army, they are planning to get married in August, hes in the army though which means they qualify for SFA housing, and she’s offered for me to move in with them. Technically I’d be “running away” but I’m 17 so they can’t exactly force me to stay. My biological mum thinks it would actually be healthier for me because my current environment is severely affecting my mental health. We'd be waiting until August until I could move, so I'm not rushing anything either.

I feel guilty because they did raise me and there were good times, but at the same time I feel completely betrayed and emotionally manipulated. I don’t know if moving out is the right decision or if I’m just acting emotionally after everything I found out. I genuinely feel nothing good for then anymore, I haven't for a long time and I'm stressed and doubting what I should do.

What would you do in my situation? What should I do?

As the title says, I was adopted as an infant. I was given one of the best upbringings possible (my dad was a civil servant) although I had more than my fair share of family drama at home, the kind that is endemic to a upper middle class Indian household, but barring that, on the surface, it was a picture perfect life.

I’m 27 now, I sometimes wonder about my biological parents, my mother especially, makes me wonder what she must have endured that she had to let go of me. Part of me feels guilty about even thinking about my biological parents because my real parents are absolute angels.

I recently got in touch with the orphanage I was adopted from and submitted something called a “root search request” where they’ll be providing me details of my adoption and the circumstances I was found in and so on.

This is the first tangible step I’ve taken towards finding my origins.

As I wait for the files and details to come in, i can’t help but ponder over whether I should go looking for my biological mother?

Will it be right for me to spring up in her life 28 years later?

Will it do her more harm than good?

Am I being selfish?

She let go of me for a reason. Will going back to her scrape old wounds for her?

I’m so conflicted.

I want to know what she looks like, what her story is, I’m in a place in life where I can meaningfully help her if she needs it.

Please help me think through this.

Edit- I have spoken to my parents about this and they’re open to the idea of me trying to meet them

My wife and I had a cryptic pregnancy 6 years ago that we were not aware of until the day she gave birth. At the time the situation at home was tough both financially, as well as there being several terminal illness in the family. It was also at the peak of the start of the pandemic

We truly regret giving her up for adoption. We have been thinking about her day and night for the past years and we have decided we want to figure out HOW to get an update, pictures, anything

Our wildest dream is being able to get in contact with her family and possibly even meeting her and if everything works out being a part of her life

The real problem is this, we don't know who the adoptive parents are and outside of her name at birth we have no information about her at all. We didn't take her home because of space and the ill relatives in our home.

We signed rights away two weeks later via family court. I have contacted the lawyer the state provided during the process but she had no information available. I called the local cps office but they said the only thing I could really get was a redacted adoption record (which I already requested but who knows how much usable info it will have)

So if anyone here has gone through this, how do you get contact information for the adoptive parents and how do you approach the entire situation? we don't want to wait until she is an adult and maybe tries to find us. We want her to know our regret is real and we have six years worth of love we want to give her.

For reference this all took place in Texas

For context, I grew up very Chinese speaking. However in my country, Singapore, more of the kids are born to English speaking family. The guy i am seeing also is Chinese but he speaks only English in his family.

I (23F) want a baby girl who grew up with only Chinese in her life and bring her over one day, best if it was from rural, sexist areas in China! Those places still exist! It's atrocious! I want to give her a better life, I'm ok to adopt age 3-10.

However I saw China has given the rights to inter country adoption up. Is there anyways I can still adopt a baby girl from China in the future?

Hello all! I wanted to hear stories about people who might have gone through something similar. My husband and I (28f 30M) are strongly considering adoption to add to our family. In particular, we would be interested in adopting an older "waiting" child. I want to hear stories from others who have done similar.

For context, I grew up in a single parent household with a mother who made it known that I was an accident and not wanted. I have been through lots of individual therapy to better understand my childhood, and it has given me a unique perspective on life, and what it truly means to be a family.

Neither my husband nor I have a strong desire to have an infant, and while it would be neat to see what our genetics produced, I don't think I would feel like we were missing out by not having a biological child. In short, what excites me about being the parent is the ability to show love to someone else and help them grow in any direction they want.

We wouldn't be adopting for another few years (5-7). I know adoption brings as many, or sometimes even more, challenges, but we are prepared to learn and grow. I also never really understood the argument that adopted children come with problems and therefore you shouldn't adopt. You can have a biological child with serious needs as well.

Has anyone else adopted older children from their states waiting children list?

I was adopted (international country to the US) by white people. I am a POC. I grew up in a predominantly white area but my parents tried to force me into learning about "my" culture and socializing with other adoptees from my region of the world. When I wasn't acting in the way my adoptive parents wanted me to like doing the hobbies they wanted me to do, I felt like I was never good enough. They wanted me to be their perfect little POC adoptee kid.

Now that I'm an adult living on my own I'm beginning to realize that my adoptive parents only loved the idea of me, and not actually who I was. I hate my birth parents and have no desire to meet them, and it's making me come to terms with the fact that people have only loved the idea of me, not me for who I really am.

I'm starting to resent my adopted parents just like I resent my birth parents. I feel like my adopted parents wanted the perfect little child, and if it was not me, another body double would be fine as long as the child behaved in the way that they wanted it to. As cliche as it sounds I feel like other people don't understand, or they don't want to take the time and listen to me. And I've tried 5+ therapists and after seeing unethical behavior, like pushing religion on me, so I quit therapy. It wasted my time and money.

Is this anyone else's experience? Or is it just me?

Im not joking I'm very serious if you want me you can have my ig pls contact me asap as in now pls

It seems like many are ether angry with or resent ether their adoptive parents or their bio. I don't resent anyone. The only irritation i have with my birth mother is she won't tell me (or cant) who my real birth father is. Her husband at the time was the man on my original birth certificate. However found out via dna it is not possible for him to be so. (A man 14 years his junior is. I found my grandmother via dna to find she also placed him up for adoption).

Other than that one issue I am not upset about any thing. I just got more people to love and more people to love me. I did go through a stage of well why didnt she want me as a teen until I met her. I find it hard to relate in some ways to other adoptees in that regard. I got an amazing family who even sold their home to pay for a life saving surgery. Who would go out to the ocean at 1 am because I could not sleep to take me swimming to wear me out. Who would be up all hours of the night the first 6 years of my life holding my hair back as I vomited or cleaning it up (the reason I needed the surgery). Now I also got more people who care. It sucks because I dont relate to adoptees but I also get the everyday person who tries to say I am not my parents real kid and they are not my real parents. (To me my adoptive are my real parents and bio are bonus family). It is a frustrating place to be. Nether side gets my veiws.

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Hello,

So I've begun to look into either fostering or potentially adopting... I grew up in a household with my parents there physically, just not mentally and I want to give a child a set of parents that are there for them 100% of the time. I was always sat in front of a television either watching movies or some kinda show, or playing my video games.

As a boy, that was on one hand very nice cause I had literally any gaming system I wanted as an only child... On the other hand it would have been nice if one of my parents feigned an interest in what I was doing.

I had to move back in with my mother temporarily due to a poor living situation and with that, continued lack of interest in spending time with me, and some therapy and working through my emotions realized that what I'm missing is my own family. I'm now in a much better living situation, working like crazy though but trying to get out of my current employer because it's affecting my mental health greatly.

My family is kinda absent for the most part (though I talk to my godmother a little bit), my wife's family is kinda absent from her life too... I can't have my own either, as I've gotten myself examined and after the deposit found that there were issues (to put it as PG as possible).

For adoption in the state of PA, there's classes you have to take from what I understand, I gotta talk to someone more about that... But considering I have some back issues that slow me down a little from a prior car accident would like to adopt a little bit older of a child - not too old, like 13-14. Is that outlandish thinking?

Even if I was able to have my own, I'd rather be able to give a child that's already here a loving and stable home with parents who care as opposed to just plopping them in front of a TV or computer and saying have fun! Curious to talk about this more and hear input from others, good or bad...