Any other foster parents out there?

Blondie87 · 03-11-2008, 10:32 PM

Hey! My husband and I are almost done with all of our foster parent classes. We are going to be fostering medically fragile infants. Also 0-3. With the infants you get them RIGHT out of the hospital, 48 hours old! So I am excited..

I just wanted to see if there are any other people on here that are also doin foster care! I found alot about adopting or foster to adopt.. but we aren't there yet. Just helping change lil ones lives!

Hopefully I can find some other ladies on here...

sazzifrazz · 03-11-2008, 11:26 PM

yup, we have had our current FC for over 4 yrs. we do special need FC. FS is 16. He was our first placement, we also had his brother for a couple of years. Last week we got our second placement, a 10 month old. that lasted a week and we were done lol. it was too much, and too difficult for ou 2 yr old. getting a newborn-thats exciting, and demanding! im not sure i could do it. they requir so much care, getting up in the middle of the night and such. then i think i would get too attached. so do you stay at home? its a big financial sacrifice. do you have everything such as crib, car seat, bottles, high chair, blankets, swing, toys etc? they give you clothing money but its never enough. that baby we got came with 2 outfits, they gave us $102 to get clothes. yeah, well socks and bibs cost $25 alone. i ended up spending so much of my own money on him. You can get wic for formula, but you pay fo diapers.
what does medically fragile include?

Woofie · 03-12-2008, 12:01 AM

I don't foster, but BLESS YOU BOTH!!!

Jessamae · 03-12-2008, 01:36 AM

We are in the middle of our foster to adopt process. It is very interesting to go through the classes. We aren't sure about who we may be having in our home in the future. But we are open and willing!

Blondie87 · 03-12-2008, 02:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sazzifrazz

yup, we have had our current FC for over 4 yrs. we do special need FC. FS is 16. He was our first placement, we also had his brother for a couple of years. Last week we got our second placement, a 10 month old. that lasted a week and we were done lol. it was too much, and too difficult for ou 2 yr old. getting a newborn-thats exciting, and demanding! im not sure i could do it. they requir so much care, getting up in the middle of the night and such. then i think i would get too attached. so do you stay at home? its a big financial sacrifice. do you have everything such as crib, car seat, bottles, high chair, blankets, swing, toys etc? they give you clothing money but its never enough. that baby we got came with 2 outfits, they gave us $102 to get clothes. yeah, well socks and bibs cost $25 alone. i ended up spending so much of my own money on him. You can get wic for formula, but you pay fo diapers.
what does medically fragile include?

I have TONS of baby clothes (boy and girl), a crib, chaning table, toddler bed, diapers, swing, bouncer, high chair, blankets, bottles, bedding, but not many toys for babies, but lots for toddlers, 2 infant car seats, 1 toddler carseat. Here you normally get a $150 clothing voucher. If they have any extra needs you get extra for that. We get about $400 a month per child. Alot of kiddos I do respite care for (babysit) that the foster parents gets $1000 each because of their needs.

Medically fragile infants or toddlers involve breathing tubes, preemie, being drug effected, fetal alcohol syndrome, behavior issues, etc.

If you're going to take a baby under 12 months they want you take the classes because you never know whats goin on.

I start in June though!!! I'm excited!!!

sazzifrazz · 03-12-2008, 08:50 AM

wow, if your taking on those types of medical issues i would hope you were getting a lot more. Here therapuetic, or specialized, FC gets $50 a day. regular FC get like $18.75
good luck.

ProudPCOMom · 03-12-2008, 02:51 PM

We are doing foster-to-adopt. We currently have 2 little ones that we received separately as emergency placements at 10 and 24 months old (now they're 21 and almost 34 months old). Both of their bio-Mom's have relinquished their rights and their bio-father's have been TPRed - so they're both free for adoption. We're in the process now of going through the adoption process for them both!

Our bio-son who is nearing 8 is very excited as well.

I would love to be able to take in medically fragile newborns, but my DH is VERY fond of his sleep (actually I'm a bit spoiled with our little ones and am fond of my sleep as well). We did have a newborn we kept as a respite (straight from the hospital for another foster family) for 2 days - he was exhausting!!! I would do it all over again, but DH says no.

If you haven't already done so, I recommend joining adoptiveparentsnetwork.com and fosterparents.com - the men and women in these sites are wonderful when it comes to info about fostering, foster/adopt and adoption. I have learned alot by reading and they're great when you have questions.

I wish you well in your foster journey - may He guide your placement workers to bring you the children who need you most! It's a crazy ride, but SO worth it!

jordon23 · 03-12-2008, 04:17 PM

We are currently fostering a baby girl that came to us at 6 days old. We previously had a baby boy that was 4 months old. We had him for almost two months before he returned to his family. It was the most heartbreaking thing I have ever done in my life. The little girl we currently have was abandoned at the hospital. We were told that we would be able to adopt her unless family members showed interest. They also said that there were three other siblings and nobody in the family wanted them, and they were all adopted.

So we were really excited, and then about a week later they called and told us that they would be offering her to the families that had adopted her siblings. They knew up front that we couldn't have children and only wanted to adopt. They even said that is why they placed her with us, because they knew we wanted her. They had 6 days to call the other families and place her before they involved us with another heart breaking situation.

The first two older boys we had in foster care were with the same person for almost 9 years (19 previous foster homes). He refused to adopt them and the day they turned 18, and he didn't get money for them he asked them to leave. That is how we ended up with them. We had to fight for six months to get them some help, and if we hadn't been there they would have been homeless. Both of these boys were still in high school as well. Now he has two small boys that are adoptable, and I know he will do the same thing to them. The agency knows what he is doing but they keep sending him kids because "there are not enough foster parents now, so we can't afford not to send him plecements as long as he is not abusing them".

We have NEVER found out any information about the birth parents of any of the children we have fostered (law says they must provide you information about bio-parent background). As a matter of fact we were told in an MDT meeting by a lawyer that "we will not be discussing any information about the bio-parents in front those foster parents".

If you live in a state where the system is what it should be, then foster care would be wonderful. However, since I live in horribly organized state I am not so lucky. Our first infant placement really broke my heart. I know that he went back to heroine addicted parents, that even stated they didn't want him. They got him back after being clean for three weeks (they are on a powerful perscribed drug similar to herione to help their addiction). My only advice is just be careful because you can get your heart broken quickly with this system. I don't think it is all bad, some places have systems that work well. Unfortunatly the system where we live is a train wreck to say the least, and the poor kids are the ones that are really paying for it.

JESS4HOUSTON · 03-13-2008, 12:59 PM

I'm a foster parent!! We are in the process of adopting our boys now!! Can't say I'd ever do this again though!!! What a rough rough rough road!!!

Blondie87 · 03-15-2008, 04:14 AM

This is my foster baby's room! I still gotta hang the wall decorations, put up the window shades and recover the glider chair and the lil kids chair....

Blondie87 · 03-15-2008, 04:14 AM

One tattered Angel · 03-15-2008, 06:26 AM

May you have many wonderful times in your journey ahead of you. We have done fostercare for the past 10 yrs and just decided it was time to give it up a few weeks ago. We have sure learned alot and grown. We were lucky to get our little guys thru fostercare and our lives are truely blessed to have him in it. I hope and pray all the children we have come into contact with thrieve and do wonderful in life. Stay strong as you will need it. Best of luck to you. Lesia

JesusCrew · 03-16-2008, 02:05 AM

My husband are in the last stages of certification which will allow us to either foster or adopt. We have one more interview with the social worker and some more paperwork to complete.

sazzifrazz · 03-17-2008, 04:14 PM

blondie-wow, did you buy all that stuff just to foster? thats amazing. i hope you don't get too attached. they can go just as quickly as they come.

Blondie87 · 03-17-2008, 07:55 PM

I have slowly been buying clothes for when we have our own.. but yeah everything else for foster kids! I've had the dresser for a long time tho. I'm sure I'll get attached.. I fall in love with every kiddo I meet.. but I have had to let go of a couple before that I had for 5 months so I think I can do it.