HI, I'm new to the site and these forums are so helpful! I am newly dx'd (earlier this month) and just finished my first cycle of Provera, no af since November. Have always been overweight and dx'd with hypertension during my last pregnancy in '05. Have two bio sons 11 and 3. Have four adopted, unrelated, daughters, 7, 4, 3 and 1. We were foster/adoptive parents in NYS for almost eight years and finalized the adoptions in '04, '06 and '08. We feel blessed to have a houseful. I would love to meet fellow cysters who are interested in the adoption topic
HI, I am new also. We had a birth child ( age 8) and recently welcomed a sibling group of 3 into our home, 6,8,and 9, through foster care in Texas- we live in Ohio. We get to finalize next month. I can't wait! I only know one other couple that has adopted older kids from the foster care system. I feel alone a lot in some of the issues we deal with because people do not always understand. It is hard to explain to people. They think all you have to do is love and we are so wonderful and our kids are sooo lucky. Those statements are said because they do not get it! Anyway I am looking for a friend on here that can understand. Nice to meet you!
Hi monimom, nice to meet you. Wow, a sibling group of 3. Fantastic. And from Texas! Did you find them through a bluebook or website listing? Would love to hear your story.... I bet you'll be over the moon (and glad to get it done) on finalization day. Folks mean well, its hard to understand if you haven't been through the process and been initiated to the "system". Its a unique experience starting with the kids on down to the legal system. Especially with older children! Congratulations on your forever family. How is your son feeling? Only positive things to say about my eldest son's experience with it all, has made him a stronger and more empathetic person. But watch out for that sibling rivalry-- oh man:-)!!!
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!
Hi i have one 13 yr old bio son and 4 adopted children who are almost grown now they are 16,20,20&22. Adoption was a wonderful experience for me.I fostered in michigan for about 10 years.My adopted children were a sibling group of 3 -ages 3,7,&9 and a single adoption. i would recommend it to anyone who wants to expanf their families. would love to talk to both of you and swap stories. i got thru the teen years and i still have hair so i dont think i did that bad-lol
__________________ Angel 1 -4/06-5wks Angel 2 1/08( stephanie grace) 6wks Angel 3 2/09 (steven blestman) 8wks Current meds: ba, prenatal, 2mg folic acid & B complex- Dx'd with PCOS 1/08 dx'd with mthfr homo. 4/09 Entering a clinical study for clomid/Femera- Tammy-39-Steve 48-ttc 6 years
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Well, I have no bio children but 1 adopted ds. He was born in July 2008 and we finalized our adoption at the end of last year. For us adoption was something that I was going ot have to do b/c ttc was never something I wanted to do...dh wanted to try...so we did...anyhow, we started out adoption rollercoater in Nov 2007, 3 failed situations later we were matched with our ds's bm and 4 days later he was here! Crazy...but I can see God's hand in how every failed situation got us 1 step closer to ds...
Now that we have gone through it we don't know if we are going to do it again...we are actually going to ttc (more agressive on my part) in a couple of years...if that doesn't work we will for sure do adoption again. For us our adoption was almost $30K and it just tapped us out...there is no way that we would be able to do again the way we did it.. I have started praying about our future child(ren) adopted or bio...and it gives me peace...I know we will have more...just the whole part of not knowing is kind of scary and exciting at the same time...lol!
We had one bio-son nearly 9 years ago, after losing his two infant siblings at birth (due to prematurity) and then not getting pregnant again on our own (we weren't going to do any more infertility treatments when obviously pregnancy doesn't become me). We knew we couldn't afford domestic adoption and we felt that there were plenty of children in foster care in this country that we weren't drawn to international (also due to cost).
We went to a foster care information session and felt good about it and picked a Christian agency based on recommendations of a friend from church. During the classes we were originally drawn to adoption only, but learned that foster/adopt (although riskier) could lead us to a younger child (at the time our bio was not yet 7 and we wanted all siblings to be younger). We were licensed on a Friday and our first child arrived on Monday - a sweet 10 month old boy (who was to stay for 2 weeks), 6 weeks later our daughter arrived...a semi-shy/non-morning-person 24 month old (yeah, they were wrong about the 'morning person' - she's up at the crack of dawn with everyone else). Both of our foster children were 'emergency placements', meaning they were true foster children with the expectation they would be returned to bio-family - no indication was given at placement that we might be able to adopt them.
Several months later the bio-families still weren't doing as CPS required and they either relinquished their parental rights or had their rights revoked. After just over a year with each child, we were able to adopt both of them after the second adoption, we closed our home. We do have a semi-open adoption with both bio-Moms - we send updates and pictures and receive letters back. I hope to keep in contact so that if the children want contact later we won't need to do a search. I save all of the cards/letters/envelopes that the bio-Moms send in a binder in chronological order for each of them for when they get older. I haven't read any of the letters to them at this time and we have yet to receive any pictures. Our children both know they are adopted and are very proud.
Our bio-son is proud of being a big brother but waivers on whether he likes having them around all of the time. We have sibling rivalry between the three of them - but that's normal no matter how the family is expanded beyond one. I couldn't imagine life without the three of them.
Hi Ladies,
Had a reply all set to post last night but it got lost in cyberspace somewhere. My husband and I have been foster parents since '02, with about 40 children through our home. Emergency, long term, short term, medically fragile, out of state... you name it we've seen it. We really didn't start foster care with the intention of adopting, I had a son from a previous marriage (conceived when I was in a thin stage of yo-yo ing). He was 3 when we started foster care. Our first daughter was 10 months old when she arrived, failure to thrive and suffering a subdural hematoma from abuse. BM surrendered, BF had an abandonment finding. She's now 7 and has a pending dx of bipolar and has mild learning disabilities due to the brain trauma.
Our second daughter arrived when she was 3 weeks old, extreme neglect and sensory feeding problems. BM abandoned her, BF unknown. She is now 4.
Our third daughter arrived at 10 months old, second time in foster care. BM had a long history of addiction. Used while pregnant. BM surrendered after 2 years, BF surrendered (he was almost 30 years older than BM). Our little girl is diagnosed with Regulatory Disorder, Motor Planning Disorder and PTSD. Probably will never know exactly what she endured while in BM's care, she still has panic attacks.
Our fourth daughter came to us straight from the hospital. Tested positive for cocaine and amphetamines at birth. BM abandoned her and BF surrendered after trying to keep up with visits for a short time. Both were very low functioning. She is now almost 2 and severely delayed.
In between our first and second adoption, we gave birth to a son (a success during sporadic ovulation, no meds)
Just started af, 7 days after last Provera pill. Hoping that it will jumpstart my body, my hormones are sooooo confused!!!
monimom i am glad u got your court date it always helps to ease your mind. there is so much peace in having it all said and done. then you can finally set into the day to day life of your forever family. i am happy for you. Adoption is a wonderful thing.
__________________ Angel 1 -4/06-5wks Angel 2 1/08( stephanie grace) 6wks Angel 3 2/09 (steven blestman) 8wks Current meds: ba, prenatal, 2mg folic acid & B complex- Dx'd with PCOS 1/08 dx'd with mthfr homo. 4/09 Entering a clinical study for clomid/Femera- Tammy-39-Steve 48-ttc 6 years
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monimom - Congrats on the finalization date! It's an awesome feeling when you can call them *yours* and no-one will be coming monthly to 'check up' on you. Enjoy your family!!!
I recently posted advice about adopted olding children in the michign area. We are looking for suggestion on agency and worker. The ages are 4-7 years. Me and my husband did not have a good experience with a worker when we tried a few years ago and we stopped the process. She did not seem she care and exemplified that in her actions. We thought to try and recieve info from those that have adopted and there experience. We are praying that God blesses our home. I hope to hear from you soon
Adoptive cyster looking to network 
I am newly dx'd (earlier this month) and just finished my first cycle of Provera, no af since November. Have always been overweight and dx'd with hypertension during my last pregnancy in '05. Have two bio sons 11 and 3. Have four adopted, unrelated, daughters, 7, 4, 3 and 1. We were foster/adoptive parents in NYS for almost eight years and finalized the adoptions in '04, '06 and '08. We feel blessed to have a houseful. I would love to meet fellow cysters who are interested in the adoption topic
