When did you first think about adoption?
After we lost our last pregnancy and had no intentions of going through infertility treatments again. We realized that the Lord had other plans for our family.
When did you start the process?
We went to a CPS information session in September 2006 and started classes in February 2007.
What type of adoption did you do?
Foster Care adoption - we were licensed as Foster/Adopt parents. We fostered children and if any became available for adoption, we would be given the option of adopting them. We felt the wait for straight-adopt through the state would be very lengthy, since we were hoping for an infant/toddler (and any children needed to be younger than our then 6 yr old bio-son).
Did you adopt a boy or girl?
a boy and a girl
Who was your lawyer/agency? (if you choose to share)
We were with a private agency - PM me if you'd like to check them out. They were our go-between with CPS (although we had lots of contact with CPS once we had children in our home). We also had a lawyer for the actual adoption paperwork.
Did you do a fundraiser? If so what kind?
No. Foster Care adoption is much less expensive and I knew the money would be reimbursed by my company.
How old was your child when you adopted?
Our son was 2 years old and our daughter was 3 years old. They moved in at 10 months and 24 months respectively as Foster placements.
What adoption sites have helped you?
HappyMomAnna.com and fosterparents.com
Have you or will you adopt again?
No, I believe our family is complete with 3 children. Unless the Lord has other plans...
Share your story (optional).......
We had 3 miscarriages before conceiving our bio-son (who was born 9 weeks early). We then lost our daughter at 23 1/2 weeks gestation and our son at 18 weeks gestation. After our last loss and not getting pregnant again on our own, we started discussing adoption (as we didn't want to raise our bio-son as an only child) - we also knew we couldn't afford domestic adoption since we had spent so much on infertility. We saw some children on Wednesday's Child and felt that there were children right here that needed parents and foster care adoption was much more affordable. We went to an information session and this confirmed our feelings that this was the right way to go.
When we first started our classes, I thought we would be licensed for Adoption only - but the more we learned, we realized that in order to get a younger child (and not compete against 30-70 other families for each child), that Foster Adopt would be our better option. We also chose the riskiest way to Foster/Adopt - emergency placements. These were children who had never come into Foster Care before and were most likely to be returned to their bio-families.
We got our Foster/Adopt license on Friday, April 13th - our first call was on Monday, we accepted a 10 month old boy. We had several other calls over the next few weeks, but we either didn't feel comfortable with their ailments or someone else had accepted them first. Six weeks later we were called for a 24 month old girl - we happily accepted her and she arrived from the shelter a few days later.
While they were still Foster Children, they had visits with bio family, CPS workers, CASA, ECI and our agency people. We dealt with Medicaid and the DR/Dentists who would accept it. All during this time we were growing more attached to them and them to us.
Little did we know that just over a year later both of them would be adopted by us. Once our last adoption was complete, we closed our home so we could enjoy life as *just* a family with no more visits from various people/agencies.
God definitely sent the right children into our home - they couldn't fit more perfectly. Our daughter is JUST like our bio-son (who takes after me in many ways) and our little boy is just like Daddy. I couldn't have picked more perfect children if I had made them myself (well, I did have a part in making one of them).
Besides, who else can say they are raising 3 first-born children.
