'AITA? My sister wants me to adopt her baby but I want a different kid.' UPDATED

"AITA? My sister wants me to adopt her baby but I want a different kid."

I know this is a little above this sub's paygrade but there's not many people I can talk to in real life so I'm turning to the internet. My husband had sh!tty birth parents, so he and his siblings were removed and put into the adoption system. They tried to keep the siblings together, but at the time they were put in, my husband and his full brother were far older than their younger half siblings.

The younger 2 (a baby and a toddler) were adopted almost immediately, then my husband was adopted at 10, and his older brother aged out at 18. The oldest 3 reunited, but they're still looking for the youngest.

My husband and I want to adopt. Ideally, we want to adopt siblings, so we can keep them together, and preferably older kids (10+) as we know it's harder for older kids to get adopted.

Obviously it totally depends on the kids we meet and who we work with as a potential family, but we feel very strongly about adopting older siblings and keeping them together (so if we were to really click with older but unrelated children or found a set of siblings that included children younger than 10 we'd adapt that plan for them).

The process takes a while, but we're nearly at the end of it. We've been approved as adoptive parents, and were matched with two siblings recently, but something happened with their birth family so the adoption was denied.

We've been told that they'll re-match us very soon, but we've been waiting to hear back for a while now. There was meant to be an open day at a local home but it's been postponed due to current events.

Enter my youngest sister. She's 19, in university, and pregnant. She was going to terminate but couldn't bring herself to do it. She reached out to us, asking us to adopt her child.

We're approved as adoptive parents, we have a decently sized house with more than enough room, she and the father would willingly allow us to adopt the baby, and it would be a very short process for us because we are basically good to go here. However, due to the reasons stated above, this isn't exactly what we had in mind in terms of adopting.

We're open to changing that plan, but there's also the issue of my sister being the bio mum. She says she can handle watching me potentially raise her baby, but I can't see this not causing issues, and feel like if she's going to adopt out she should do it with a couple who aren't so close to home. We explained this and refused.

Since then various relative, none of whom can take the baby for various reasons, have contacted us asking why we can't take the baby. We've explained and re-explained everything but we're getting called selfish/mean/cruel for "being picky" because we are at a place in our lives where we can have a baby and we're turning it down.

We thought about asking our friends who are also trying to adopt what they think but saying "my sister offered me a baby but we don't want it" would be pretty tone deaf when some of them have been waiting years for one, and that whole sentiment combined with my family's arguments has made us feel incredibly guilty, so we're turning to the internet. Are we TA?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

[deleted] said:

NTA, the fact that your sister is the bio mom could very likely create future conflict.

italy2986 said:

Exactly there is no way this wouldn’t cause issues emotionally for the sister in the long run. Seeing your baby grow up and call someone else mom and you’re the “aunt” could be very hard. What happens down the road if sister changes her mind and wants her kid back because she can’t emotionally handle it? That opens a new can of worms. Not saying that would happen but there is the possibility.

Info: we're in the UK, and my husband and I have both been in our current employments for over 2 years, meaning we both have full access to paternity/maternity leave, and we took adoptive parenting classes that included baby stuff so we are able to look after a baby, both in terms of competency and finances.

but we do feel we'd prefer an older child (preferably children) and we don't know if having a baby could affect our current adoption attempts. We want multiple children, as we're both from big families, and a baby in the house could cause an issue as we're trying to adopt older children (eg they might think we just want a free babysitter).

Intrepid-Camel said:

NTA. "We don't want a baby. We're not adopting a baby. We're adopting two older kids. Ask someone else." I would stay away from any further argument of, "We'd be happy to adopt a baby if it wasn't YOURS."

KatFrog said:

NTA You are doing a wonderful thing, adopting older siblings. Your sister's baby will be in all probability get adopted quickly by people who want a baby. (Not a guarantee, but a very good probability)

It's fine for her to ask and fine for you to say "No." You don't owe her an explanation behind the "no", though I congratulate you for telling her such personal information. But your sister is refusing to hear "no" and is harassing you. This seems to lend a lot of weight to your opinion that she's going to try to "side seat" parent the baby if you adopt it. Your family are assholes for trying to force you to accept the baby.

And supermouse35 said:

Not only are you NTA, you're being very smart about this. A lifetime of hassle from your sister isn't going to do anyone any good. Not you, not the baby, and not your sister. I love how your relatives who also refuse to take the baby are giving you sh!t about it. Maybe they should look in the mirror to see who's being selfish/mean/cruel about this.

She later shared this update:

I told my sister about our friends mentioned earlier, how they're a great couple who have been trying to adopt a baby for 5 years now, how they've fostered babies and taken all the classes and know what they're doing, how they live locally and are willing to have an open adoption, and again repeated that myself and my husband don't want to adopt a baby.

My sister said that open adoption to a "couple of strangers" wouldn't work for her, and a couple hours later said that mum and dad are going to help her out, so it looks like the baby will live with them for the next few years and my sister and her boyfriend will take over when they can.

Everyone now feels like I am somehow at fault for my parents not getting to enjoy the beginning of their retirement, but I no longer feel guilty as it's clear that was what my sister wanted all along - someone to raise the baby for a few years so she could step in as the mother whenever it suited her.