monimom

Hello....Yes we had a birth daughter who is 8 and then the sibling group with a 9 year old girl, 6 year old girl and an 8 year old boy. Thank goodness my two 8 year old kids are in different classes! They are only 5 months apart and they both have competitive personalities.
Well our story is.... I have PCOS and the medication was making me sick...my hormones were crazy and we were all miserable! We signed up for the foster care/adoption classes. That first class had 30 couples and they went around the room and almost everyone wanted 5 and under. Something just hit us and we just felt like a boy around our daughter's age would be great........then with the long waiting we thought more about a sibling group. We filled out an application for adopt america. We must have sent out our homestudy 30x! We were picked with our first matching conference. So they sent their histories and paperwork in the mail and it just did not feel right at all. It tore us up but we could not get rid of that gut feeling that these were not our kids. A few weeks later we got a call saying there was a group of 3 hispanic kids and their worker was looking for an Ohio family. They were part of a larger group and their 3 sisters were already placed with an Ohio family. All in all our 3 kids are the youngest of a sibling group of 19! Yes you read that right, 19 kids from the same Mom. They were removed because of neglect. They were not fed, no toilet, no runnning water, they lived in what the worker called a hut. So we sent in our homestudy and a few weeks later learned that we were the family selected. That was in April and we finally started phone calls and letters in Sept. and met them at the beginning of October. They were in seperate foster homes for 3 years ( the last 2 years our son joined the youngest in her foster home). For our 9 year old she had to get used to everyone. She had a tough time at first just like our birthdaughter. But we are a little over 5 months in and we are doing great. The little one has a hard time with the loss. The birthmom had abandoned the family and her foster mother was the only mother she had ever know. Her grief has been hard. I have held her many nights and we have just cried together. But we get out the lifebook and she tells me the stories and our laughter always turns to tears. Now she cries because she misses them and not because she wants to live with them. She is in 1/2 day kindergarten so we have lots of 1:1 bonding time and I think that has been the key. Our son is so resilient, nothing keeps him down. He just has a happy heart and outlook on everything. He had been waiting so long to belong somewhere. Our birthdaughter is adjusting very well, she is very loving and giving and always has been. So that is where we are as a family. That is my story. Can you tell me some more about yours. Sorry this is so long!