Anyone adopt through the state?

AnotherDreamer · 03-16-2009, 05:12 AM

I was wondering if any of you ladies have any experiences adopting through their state's childrens services? And if you'd be willing to share your experience. Information about your experience, how it went, what ages you were able to adopt, etc...

My DH and I have been talking a lot about adoption lately. And we've finally decided that if by January we are not any closer to having a biological child we will be starting the adoption process one way or another. Right now we are trying to decide if we would like to do adoption through the state, or private infant adoption.

I recently suffered my second m/c and it was a very painful experience both emotionally and physically... much worse than the first m/c. We've been trying for two years now, and we're currently on a TTC break while we undergo repeat loss testing.

I've been doing a lot of research especially lately on adoption given the circumstances. I just need to have some loose plan in place, something to look forward to. Even if we have a child biologically, I still think we will eventually see about adopting (Probably through the state.) So, I still want to research this option no matter what happens.

I'm really thinking about this option in particular because, one, the cost would be less. Two, it may be an older child, but I would still love them. The way I see it... we could go this route. Then later down the road, for our second child, we will probably still want an infant... So, when we decide to have another child we could either try fertility treatments again or go through private infant adoption the second time around.

At least that is our rough plan at the moment

tcrock02 · 03-18-2009, 02:40 PM

I have adopted 5 children thru my state. they were older 3, 7, 9, 10, 11. all were foster care placements but one. i went thru 8 years of TTC and started foster care to ease the pain of wanting children so badly. would be glad to share my stories with u. my children are now 16, 17, 20 ,20 &22. It is an awesome choice pm me or contact me on yahoo.

jordon23 · 03-18-2009, 04:04 PM

Our experience with trying to adopt through the state was horrible. We have now filed with an agency and the $20,000 in fees is nothing compared to the pain we endured with the state. Our state is a total train wreck. However, not all states are as bad as ours. Just ask around and then make up your mind. We had many people tell us what would happen, but we didn't listen. Now three years later we still don't have a child, but at least I never have to worry about having another baby ripped from our arms after 6 months of being the only parents they ever knew.

I wouldn't recommend that anybody struggling with TTC doing their first adoption with the state. They have "back up plans", and they don't think it's important to tell you that you are that "back up plan". We found out after our little girl was moved that they knew she was going to another family 2 months before she was born. We didn't know that until a week after she was gone (eight months later). The workers response was "we didn't feel that you needed to know".

I think that if we had went to an agency first, then dealing with the heartbreaks of the foster system wouldn't have devistated us as bad. If we had a child already, we would have been able to move on. However, having nothing and being "the back up plan" when they knew our situation was just devistaing and heartless on their part. We would consider foster/adopt if we decided to adopt again. But, looking back it was just a dumb move to not go to an agency before we fostered.

ProudPCOMom · 03-23-2009, 03:29 PM

We went the Foster/Adopt route and took the riskiest route (emergency placements). Basically, we took in Foster children with no prior history and they are the ones most likely to be returned to bio-family. We were extremely fortunate - neither of our foster children were returned to bio-family and we were able to adopt them after they had been in our home for 14-15 months. They were 10 and 24 months when they arrived and were 2 and 3 years old when we adopted. Once we finished the second adoption, we closed our home. With 3 beautiful, blue-eyed children running around we felt we had our Full House! I wish you the best of luck.

Susan

mrsashleybell · 03-25-2009, 03:11 AM

We were going to until our caseworker screwed us over - and now wont allow us because my husband was molested as a child so they keep throwing that in our faces. So now we arent going to foster or adopt from them.

tcrock02 · 03-26-2009, 11:25 AM

mrsashleybell, i know a couple who adopted even though the mother was molested as a child. the reason they question things is because some people who were molested in turn molest also. but this is not always the case. as for my friend she had to have a psycological evaluation, and also get some personal references but was cleared for adoption. you have to look at it from the states view. they dont want to take a child from one situation and put them in another bad situation. but there are ways to get around this issue if your worker did not help you understand then talk to a supervisor. Refuse to let anyone come between you and that family your dream of. i have adopted 5 children from the state and only one of those adoptions was bad. so dont give up hope. let me know if i can be of any help.

AnotherDreamer · 03-27-2009, 02:11 AM

Jordan: Thank you for sharing your experience as well. We've been looking into the possibility of private adoption as well. There are so many options. I don't know where to even start! I suppose asking questions on forums, in person, and reading books, doing research, will give me a better idea of which direction to go. Thank you again.

Susan: Thank you for sharing your experience

mrsashleybell: I'm sorry to hear they're doing that

I worry about my childhood interfering with adoption. I was not molested, but I was raised in unfit conditions (poverty, parents doing drugs, mother had alcoholic abusive boy friends, mother was never there, father was abusive, father even kidnapped me during the custody battle and skipped state... pretty much a whole range of traumatizing crap.) It didn't affect me like it does some people though. I managed to come out of my childhood as a well adjusted adult... but I know that they look at these things, and I worry how it may affect me. I mean, I know how my childhood touched me, it made me strong. Because of my childhood I don't drink, I never did drugs, I went to college, I matured fast... I know some people with childhoods like mine don't come out as strong. And most people lump all of us together into one pile, they assume we are like the majority without actually taking the time to see how far we've come from that time. I hate those assumptions. I didn't try so hard to have a better life just to be treated as if I hadn't.

Sorry, I'm rambling. But, it is definitely a big fear of mine.

lovinlucy02 · 04-03-2009, 12:31 AM

I am a waiting family worker for my state. If you have any questions just let me know. Each state is going to be different but I can answer general questions. I wish you all the best of luck. I have had many successful adoptions with the families on my case load.

GoddessDanu · 04-07-2009, 05:57 PM

DH and I are currently going through the state for our adoption. We're looking at a sibling set of four kids (ages 8-4) and I'm very excited. There are so many children in foster care that need homes. It takes special people to adopt foster children and I'm happy that we're part of that.

sazzifrazz · 04-28-2009, 12:02 PM

I also would not recomend it. We are foster parents an the system approved us so quick our heads spun. We have had our special needs FS for 5 yrs. We decided to start the infant adoption process. Our homestudy was a mess!! They kept perseverating on DH;s childhood and the fact that his dadwas a child molester (never touched DH). In the end we were tired of gettingdicked around for 6 months so we really started putting pressure on them to get the homestudy finished. They ended up telling us a judge probably wouldn't grant us adoption due to dh' childhood. So we stopped the process...not that we really had a choice. I am so pissed off that we are good enough to foster a special needs older child without hardlyany supervision but the minute we want a healthy infant we are inferior. I would love to tell them to shove it and come find a better home for FS (who is NOT easy). I would never do that to FS, so we shut our mouths.

Now we are afraid to even try to do private adoption because we are afraid that the state will screw us again. Since we are foster parents im sure an agency would want a reference from the state. Dh;s childhoo recors should have been sealed (anything that happens in your childhood is sealed at age 18) but the state abused their power and opened the family file since it was easily accessable to them (filed in their own office). The way I see it they broke the law by opeing a sealed file without DH;s permission.

calches · 04-28-2009, 03:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sazzifrazz

I also would not recomend it. We are foster parents an the system approved us so quick our heads spun. We have had our special needs FS for 5 yrs. We decided to start the infant adoption process. Our homestudy was a mess!! They kept perseverating on DH;s childhood and the fact that his dadwas a child molester (never touched DH). In the end we were tired of gettingdicked around for 6 months so we really started putting pressure on them to get the homestudy finished. They ended up telling us a judge probably wouldn't grant us adoption due to dh' childhood. So we stopped the process...not that we really had a choice. I am so pissed off that we are good enough to foster a special needs older child without hardlyany supervision but the minute we want a healthy infant we are inferior. I would love to tell them to shove it and come find a better home for FS (who is NOT easy). I would never do that to FS, so we shut our mouths.

Now we are afraid to even try to do private adoption because we are afraid that the state will screw us again. Since we are foster parents im sure an agency would want a reference from the state. Dh;s childhoo recors should have been sealed (anything that happens in your childhood is sealed at age 18) but the state abused their power and opened the family file since it was easily accessable to them (filed in their own office). The way I see it they broke the law by opeing a sealed file without DH;s permission.

Sazzi! That's horrible! My brother was a child molestor and we did tell the s/w and she said no problem. He was 10 when it happened and it was a closed case and said in h/s that I had a traumatic (note here it didn't happen to me...but my cousin) childhood but got through it with counseling and faith.)

Have you talked to a private agency about this and what they think about it? I would think that you wuldb't have a problem...

jumpfrog8 · 05-06-2009, 03:18 PM

My husband and I are going through the state. We have two little boys in our home and the adoption should be final on the 20th of this month...so two more weeks...YEA! They were 13 months and 36 months when placed with us.....it is awesome...they are brothers...we have had to appear in court several times....but it was worth it....we were lucky enough to be able to do this without it being fostering...we knew someone that had temporary custody of the boys and when they could no longer take care of the boys...we took over....their birthmother's rights were recently terminated and now we are about to officially adopt.....before we met these two boys we had already been throught the fosterpride/ adopt pride classes and had our homestudy....so with all of this already out of the way the process has been pretty quick with these two boys....

AnotherDreamer · 05-06-2009, 06:17 PM

jumpfrog8: Thank you for sharing

sazzifrazz: That is a horrible experience. We most likely aren't going the foster-adopt route though, just adoption. That is horrible how they messed with you two like that.

GoddessDanu: Thank you for sharing your experience too

lovinlucy02: Thank you

If I think of any questions I will definitely ask you.

We are likely going to start the training sessions in October. So I'm on a learning spree, lol. I know that adopting through the state can be a roller coaster, but I am hoping that this is the path for us. Right now it feels right.

Thank you everyone for all your experiences and information.

traceync · 05-11-2009, 07:48 PM

Hi, ladies. I was just reading through this thread. Dh and I are starting to get serious about learning the adoption route. I have always said, even before I knew I'd have trouble conceiving, that I'd love to adopt whether I have my own or not. I think we'd lean towards the fostering to adopt approach just because of money. I attend an infertility support group 1-2 times a month and the coordinator of the group is in the process of doing this. She's going through a private company that works closely with DSS to place you with a child to foster to adopt. And they work state-wide, so you're not relying just on your own county. I'm in the stage now where I'm wanting to get as much info as I can, because we may start the process as early as next year.

Oomis · 05-18-2009, 04:32 PM

I have not been on the boards here in awhile but decided to pop in and saw your thread. We just adopted a sibling group of three on April 27th through the state. It is a long process but very well worth it!!! Considering how many children there are out there that need a loving home I would recommend it. We looked into private adoption but there was no way we could afford it.

I would strongly recommend adopting a sibling group that where the parental rights have already been terminated. That way you do not have to go through the hassle of a family member appearing to take them, or the courts giving them back to the bio parents. This is the route we went and we have no regrets. Our youngest was 17 months when we got him, and the oldest was 5. In our state once rights are terminated and the kids are placed with you, you have to wait 6 months and then the adoption will be final. In our case it took allot longer because there was an appeal on our youngest because he was a separate case. His sisters were already in foster care and he was taken at birth. We never went to court and the courts finally got to his case and dismissed it. We knew since the girls were terminated he would be too. Everyone laughed and told us the birth mother would get pregant again and we would get a phone call one day telling us we had a fourth child. This scared me alittle but we were told she had her tubes tied. This could have happened though and then we would have had a newborn haha. I will not lie, it is a long process, and can be stressful just because you have caseworkers come visit, there is still training etc but the rewards are plenty. Plus when you adopt though the state you get so many benefits as far as the kids are concerned. Our agency gave allot of support for the kids, and we received monthly reimbursements which really helped. They received a clothing allowance and we did not have to pay any court or attorney fees. If you have any questions let me know because we had a successful outcome. It is so worth it!!!!!!!!

GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!