The downsides to having a baby (and it’s hard to find some, because I’m the luckiest woman on earth to have recently adopted a baby boy, now 9 months old) is 10p, 12a, 2a, 4a, 6am feedings, usually complete with a wet and/or dirty diaper. The costs for adopting a newborn baby are often horrendous!!!!! (I was really lucky through private adoption).

There will be home studies done, where a licensed social worker will visit the home several times. There will be questions brought up about your siblings who have passed (and by the way, I sympathize with your family’s losses, losing a child is very, very emotional, hard time). They will ask many details like how old they were, names, etc. That could be really hard on your parents. Please realize, adopting a child will never take the place of your brother/sisters. Try to get grief counseling before even trying to adopt, to make sure every one of you has come to these terms. It wouldn’t be fair to drag a child into this, to have it not work.

f the baby was truly unwanted, such as abandoned in a public place, then he/she would benefit from being adopted by a loving family rather than going into the foster system or being sent to an orphanage (in the US children don’t usually go to orphanges, but they do in some other countries). The baby will (hopefully) get a loving, healthy environment that meets all of her physical and developmental needs. Adoptive families have to undergo background checks and other screenings, so the baby benefits from that extra safety net. (People don’t have to get background checks to get pregnant, so you might be able to say that the chances are lower that the parents will turn out to be abusive or “bad,” although that’s unfortunately something that can never be completely guaranteed in any case.

If the baby was “given up” by a teen mother who was pressured to do so by her parents and/or mentors, than it might not be as beneficial to him or her, since he or she was actually wanted and loved and might have been better off with the original family.

The downside could be that the baby might feel left out growing up because he or she doesn’t look like the parents, and later in life he or she might feel sad because his or her birth parents abandoned her or gave her up. When she gets older, she might want to know more about her ancestors and medical history, but that will be hard to find out. It will be hard to fill out forms in the doctor’s office about family medical history. Sometimes the baby might not even know what his or her ethnic/racial background is.

The benefits to the parents could be that they have a new member of the family to love and watch develop into a person over the years. They could share thier resources with another person and pass along thier morals and values.

The downside to the parents could be that the baby might resent them when he or she grows up because they are not her real parents. The baby will probably decide when she’s older that she wants to find her real parents, and that will be emotionally hard for the adoptive parents to go through. It might hurt thier feelings or they might feel jealous. If the baby looks different than them or is a different race, other adults might stare or make rude comments or ask prying questions. Some extended family might not want to accept the baby, especially if it is a different race or adopted from a different country.

Overall, there are just so many variables involved that the experience would be different in every situation.

That being said, I see the obvious benefit being raising and loving a child and helping them reach their full potential.

The downside could be problems your parents did not forsee that may come from raising a child with different genetics. The child will not look like them and may be very different in personality and have differing strengths, weaknesses and talents. And if your parents are thinking of adopting internationally or transracially, well that adds a whole other layer: different culture, traditions, etc…

While I don’t consider differences a “downside”, I do know that some adoptive parents and even the adoptee may see it that way.

I suggest the whole family does as much research as possible before they begin the adoption process.

Good luck.