Anyone adpoted/adopting from Foster Care System

MichelleJ · 07-10-2005, 02:19 PM

I am looking for cysters that have or will be adopting from the Foster Care System. DH and I have reached the end of our TTC journey and toying with this idea.

Any suggestions or experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Mindijean · 07-10-2005, 02:53 PM

We've just become licensed foster to adopt parents. We currently have an 8-month old beautiful baby boy living with us. Rules differ from state to state, but if you have any general questions, feel free to PM me!

StephanieD78 · 07-10-2005, 04:59 PM

HI My name is Stephanie, I'm 26 years old and my fiance is 21. We have talked about foster to adopt but its going to be years to come. I'm ready for a baby now though. I was dx in Feb 2002. My doctor told me that it wasn't impossible to get pregnant but would be difficult and I'd probably have to have fertility treatments. I'm praying that I can do it without any fertility treatments.

MichelleJ · 07-11-2005, 12:07 AM

Mindijean - in your state do you have to be foster parents before you can adopt? That's not the impression I got from in internet site I looked at for my state. How long did it take for you to become licensed? And how long was it before you were placed with the baby boy you have now? Do you have the option of adopting him?

Mindijean · 07-11-2005, 10:12 AM

No, in our state you can go directly to the adoption route...it's more paperwork, more interviews, more exams, etc. to NOT foster to adopt. We wanted to foster children anyway...and if the opportunity arose to adopt, we'll go for it!! If you foster (at least in this state) and parental rights are terminated, the foster parents are considered "family" and given the opportunity to adopt.

We took three weeks of classes, filled out tons of paperwork, had background checks and evaluations and references taken, had two homestudies, and then it was about three weeks before our foster son came to live with us.

HTH!

macrod · 07-11-2005, 02:43 PM

We adopted our dd through the foster-to-adopt program in our state. Most states have a straight adoption program. The children readily available for adoption are often older and/or are a sibling group, some have disibilities. I have a friend that adopted a 5 year old girl through straight adoption. They waited a year for her. She had attachment issues and so far the family is doing well. As for our journey we finished classes in August and did not get our first placement until March. After hearing all of the stories in our pride classes about the children we were kind of hesistant to push the issue about a placement. Anyway, we recieved a phone call about a baby girl (6 weeks) that need an emergency home. We said yes. We feel in love at first sight. She was just the most beautiful baby we had ever seen. We immediately began our roller coaster ride as her foster parents. Be prepared for a lot of tears (we went through 10 years of infertility and this was worst). I took her every Friday for 1 hour visits with her bio parents. I spent 1 hour with this family knowing that they could never take care of her. They were mildy retarded and could not handle her. But they loved her. Her bio dad did his best find relatives but the relatives did not pass the home studies. During the year I had to endure the lawyers (bios) and CPS lawyers, GAL fight about where the baby should go. At one point she was going to an Aunt in CA. I was in pain that whole weekend. We hired a lawyer to represent us. In the end the judge ruled that the baby was to stay with us. She is now 2.5 years and we could not be happier. Good luck in your journey.

Tigger2158 · 07-11-2005, 03:45 PM

Hi!

My husband and I are currently fostering to adopt. We have 2 boys who are 1 and 2 years old (brothers) that were placed with us at the end of May after an 8 week transition from another foster home. Just remember that a lot of foster children come with some issues, weather its emotional or otherwise so you just have to be ready to love them as they are. Ours have speech delays and issues with anger and severe tantrums at times.....but we love them anyway and their worker has been understanding and helpful. With any luck we should be a forever family before October!

Catylou's mom · 07-12-2005, 02:25 AM

I adopted through the fosdopt system in our state CA. In our state you have to be certified as a foster parent but we were only willing to take on a child we could adopt. We were still registered as foster parents but they never placed a child with us until there was almost 100 % chance of that child being adopted. My DH's parents were foster parents for years and I knew I could not handle the possibility of losing a child that I was taking care of. From beginning of classes to the date of our placement was only about a year, so we were fortunate. good luck with whatever path you choose.

MichelleJ · 07-12-2005, 10:19 PM

Thanks everyone for your comments. This has made my decision so much easier. I really want to do this, now the big issue is getting DH on board.

samstars · 07-12-2005, 10:40 PM

We are foster to adopt parents. We had to become licensed foster parents before adoption. We are currently getting ready to go to selection committee either at the end of this month or next for a 4 year boy.

We fostered two sets of siblings last year and my heart broke horribly after they left. After the 2nd set we decided to try for adoption only. We seems to be alot easier if you do foster because you are considered first when parents rights are terminated.

As far as our experience we have been lied to several times by case managers who just wanted to be able to drop the kids on us and basically forget them. The county we live in is sadly more for the bio parents then the children or the foster parents. Again this is only our experience.

We pray daily that we will soon be able to adopt our forever child, wherever they may be.

If you have any questions please feel free to PM me.

Oh, we went to classes 4 weekends in a roll. Had background checks, references done and one home visit with a case manager who did our homestudy. We have been licensed now for 1 1/2 years and pray that we can drop our license by this time next year.

Stacy

rachelmichellek · 07-13-2005, 07:25 PM

I am working on single parent adoption from the foster system: straight to adoptive placement, not fostering first (though it's technically fostering until the adoption is finalized).

MichelleJ · 07-15-2005, 12:10 AM

I called my local Foster Care system today to get information sent to me regarding adoption. The lady I spoke with was very rude and asked if I wanted to Foster and then adopt and I said no, just straight adoption, and she was very discouraging. She said that children 0-5 are adopted by Foster families and not right out and that all they have are children 10 and above for out right adoption. I looked on the website at the pictures of children for adoption through Foster Care in Louisiana and majority of them were 13-17 years. My concern with adopting a child that old, in just a few years they will be old enough to live on their own, and when that happens will they hate me and leave and never come back? I just don't think there is time there to bond properly with a child that age. They did have younger children and that's not the impression I was given on the phone. I guess if I were asking about one of those children, she would have told me they were already adopted.

Needless to say it was a very discouraging phone call.

samstars · 07-15-2005, 08:08 AM

MichelleJ

Please don't get discouraged. This was the exact same thing we have heard for the last year and a half. I was actually told on the phone by the adoption specialist in our area "we don't need parents for the age group your talking about" (0-5). It may take longer but this age group does exist. If you are willing to take a chance and go interstate sometimes you can find younger children that way too. Unfortunately she is right on one acct. The younger children do get adopted by the foster parents right off. That is why we went ahead with foster to adopt.

Keep plugging, pm me if you need someone to talk to. It is a very hard road, adopting from the system is tough.

Stacy

Lisa2008 · 07-15-2005, 05:49 PM

We adopted our son from the foster system, he was 3 months old at time of placement. that was in Candada though. i think that the social workers try to come across as rude to weed people out, as there are alot of people who want to adopt a newborn, they would be overrun, they need to know you are serious before they commit their limited time and resources to you.
it does help to be willing/open to accept as many special needs as you are comfortable with. as stupid as it sounds on my application form diabetes, glasses, allergies were concidered special needs.
good luck with the process.

MichelleJ · 07-17-2005, 04:52 PM

My mother in law knows a man at her church that works for social services and she's going to talk with him on our behalf. My Dh and his brother are both adopted, and she's going to do whatever she can to help us.

Thanks everyone for the encouragement. I really needed it.