[LJR1974]

I know the adoption would be allowed to continue, but is there any way that a pregnancy would affect your adoption?

Would you need to get a homestudy update, for example?

Just curious, TIA!

[DeeVee]

It depends on your agency and where you are in the process when the baby is born. In our case, I found out I was pregnant 4 days after we got out of PGN (surprise!) So, it didn't affect our process at all.

Some agencies have a clause in the contract stating that the adoption will not be allowed to continue if you get pregnant (our current placement agency's contract has a clause like that, but our previous agency did not). And if the baby is born before your process is completed, you'll need a homestudy update, as the number of children in the home has changed (it's pretty simple, usually just one page).

[ej-momtobe]

I know of no obligation on your part to disclose a new pregnancy during your adoption. As long as you were upfront disclosing anything you knew about at the time in your homestudy and agency application. If it were me, I would say nothing. (additional paperwork never speeds thing up.)

[KayV]

I wouldn't mention it either. Why should you? No one would ever know if you didn't mention it. PGN doesn't care how many kids you have, so it's mostly your agency that cares.

KayV

[mommytoEli]

read your contract with your agency and homestudy agency....some contracts stipulate that you must divulge this information. (although....i would not have chosen an agency that did...just in case )

[JuliaC]

I found out I was pregnant about 6 weeks after we accepted the referral of our youngest son. We told our case manager when I was 12 weeks along (our agency was very supportive). We did not have to update our homestudy or any other paperwork. I was even able to visit twice but unfortunately I was not able to go on the pick up trip with DH because I was 37+ weeks at the time.

[The Winns]

We found out I was pregnant while we were in PGN. This comes under the "don't ask....don't tell" policy. While the head of the agency knew, we did not tell the attorneys in Guatemala, nor did we update the homestudy. I do know of a family in our church that was adopting from Mexico and got pregnant. They made them go all the way back through the process beginning with an updated homestudy.

[AngelQT]

Don't know if anyone has said this yet....

But....


I HOPE A CONGRATS are in order!!!!

[LJR1974]

Thanks for all your responses. I did take a second look at our information packet (we used the same agency for hs and placement) and it says after accepting a referral we can continue the adoption or stop it. I knew that already. Obviously we will continue.

It doesn't say anything about when/if we need to disclose a pg or if it would be necessary to get a hs update or anything else. However, in the homestudy section it says that you must disclose if something happens that would change your homestudy (like an arrest, or job change, or moving). Pregnancy is not mentioned in that paragraph (although I don't think it's meant to be an exhaustive list). Maybe this is just my opinion, but I don't think a pregnancy should necessitate a hs update. A birth would, since a new person in your home... but a pg is not a guarantee.

What I'm trying to dance around here is... yes, I am pg. But, this is my 5th pg and we have no living children (outside of the one we hope to bring home from Guatemala). 1. I don't want to go through a big song and dance, pay extra money, etc, etc for something that may not work out. 2. I agree completely with ej and kay in that add'l paperwork has never sped anything up. We are in PGN and I don't want to interrupt anything, and we hope the adoption would be complete by the due date anyway.

But I have an interesting complication. My cousin works for our agency. She works as a consultant for another country (not Guatemala). If/when I announce the pg to my family, my cousin will know, and then I'm sure our consultant will know. Uggghh.

[Tiggysgirl]

Well, congratulations and I hope that you have a safe, healthy pregnancy AND get out of PGN quickly! I would talk to your cousin about it. I would explain that because of your pg losses, you'd like to keep this private - for family only until you are very confident that the pg will be successful. At that point, hopefully you'd be out of PGN and it won't matter much.

She may even tell you that being pg won't matter.

Good luck!

[annaguat]

A BIG congrats!

It al depends on your agency. Ours was ok with it with our last adoption but the social worker did let me know if she found out she would have to update the homestudy. Between the lines I felt she was saying make sure I do not find out if you do. We did not.

With our first adoption 3 yrs into it and waiting nearly a yr for after our children were assigned, the social worker wanted to know if we used birth control and told me in no uncertain terms we would not be allowed to finnish if we got pregnent. I thought it was utterly cruel. Anna

[Candace3]

Congratulations!!!! I can relate to your feelings! I also had a previous miscarriage before getting pregnant during our adoption. We actually didn't tell anyone for a while. Maybe you can wait to let your cousin and other extended family members know until you are into your second trimester because at that point you may feel a bit more "safe" with the pregnancy! How far along are you? Well, good luck and Congratulations!!!

edit to add: oh yeah, we didn't have to do anything when i finally did tell our agency. no extra paperwork, nothing but a congratulations from our agency!

[LJR1974]

I'm 13 weeks, but we lost our first pg at 23 weeks. Definitely can't hide it that long. I won't feel confident until after the birth.

I'm so relieved to hear most people did not have to do any additional paperwork.

[kathleenmarie]

Ditto!! I wold keep quiet as long as I could!

[JenRo]

I became pregnant during our adoption and decided to tell our agency because I wanted everything to be above board; if they DID have a policy about it --I wanted to know asap. I didn't want to get further along in the pregnancy/adoption, growing more and more attached to both babies only to discover that our agency would allow one and not the other. It's a personal choice but full disclosure made me feel most comfortable.

The agency's primary concern was how did we feel about the pregnancy/adoption and did we want to continue forward with the adoption? There was no doubt that we did want to continue forward with the adoption and they were supportive of that fact.

No additional paperwork needed for us.

Congrats and wishing you all the best!!!