Parents Labeled 'Greedy' For Adopting the Kid Their Sister’s Friend Was Trying To Adopt First

Aug 13, 2021 by apost team

Deciding to start a family can be filled with feelings of excitement and happiness. Whether you choose to get pregnant and grow your family that way, or you choose to adopt, it’s a life-changing decision to have a child and raise them. Choosing to adopt can be a lengthy process, as it’s important to make sure that the child you are adopting fits with your family dynamic, and that you fit with their personality, too.

For one family, they found a 7-year-old boy that got along with their family absolutely wonderfully. It seemed like a perfect fit and a great way for the family to continue to expand, but it was a bit more complicated than that. The married couple had previously adopted the husband’s niece and were looking to adopt another child. After being introduced to the wife’s friend’s sister, it seemed like everything was falling into place.

The sister, Jill, was also trying to adopt, so she and the couple met up a handful of times to discuss the process together and also meet the young boy Jill was trying to adopt. After it didn’t work out on Jill’s end, the married couple ended up finding the little boy later on through their adoption agency. They had been a great fit, so they decided to adopt the boy without telling Jill. This has since caused a huge divide within the couple’s family and friend group as many people thought they were wrong for adopting a child that one of their friends had been trying to adopt, but they have continued to defend their actions.

The husband of this dynamic posted to Reddit back in April 2020 to talk about the adoption process and experience he and his wife went through a few years ago with their son Henry. He explained that he and his wife had adopted his niece, Katie, when she was 3 years old, and by the time she was 6 years old, they decided they wanted to adopt another child. His wife’s friend introduced them to the friend’s sister, Jill, who was also in the process of trying to adopt. After knowing Jill for about two months, she had found Henry, who was 7 years old at the time, and went forward with the steps to adopt him. However, not everything went as planned.

The original poster (OP) explained that he and his wife took Katie to the park and arranged to meet Jill and Henry. “Henry and Katie instantly got on,” he explained. “Henry was a great kid but very hyper, presumably because he was excited to meet Jill.” Henry’s hyperness had been a bit overwhelming for Jill, and she asked the couple to watch over him “while she took a breather.”

After spending the day with Henry, the married couple realized that he was a great fit with their “existing family dynamic,” according to OP. A few weeks later, the family found out that the agency had rejected Jill’s application to adopt Henry, as the little boy had refused it himself. Fast forward a few months and Jill found another child she was trying to adopt, while the married couple was still looking. 

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After getting invited to an event “where several prospective parents/families meet the kids,” the family was reunited with Henry. “...It was coincidence or luck depending on how you look at it,” OP wrote. Henry still remembered the family and they still got on extremely well, leading to the married couple officially adopting him. OP explained that Henry said Jill lacked patience, while they were “a bit more flexible.”

The couple chose to not tell Jill or the friend that introduced them to her, but eventually posted an updated family photo on social media, resulting in many people seeing it and sharing the news with the friend and Jill. OP wrote, “Jill replied to our post that she’d considered us friends and we’d adopted ‘her son’ out from under her,” but the couple never felt like they were really close friends with her, so they didn’t see anything wrong with their actions. OP further explained on Reddit:

“We clarified the timeline immediately but our friends were shocked at us and we received several messages saying they couldn’t believe we’d done that and saying Henry should essentially be seen as off limits to us because he’d rejected Jill, some even calling us ‘greedy’ because we already had my niece while Jill had no kids.”

Several Reddit users responded to the post showing support for the couple and their adoption. One user wrote, “The child did not want to live with her. She needed a ‘breather’ the first day they met.” Another chimed in, “Also, Jill doesn’t get to call dibs. Henry is a human being!” The comments continued to be flooded with people expressing their support for the couple and their decision to adopt the 7-year-old boy.

Do you think this family was right to adopt the child their friend’s sister tried to adopt first? Let us know, and be sure to pass this along to your family and friends, too!