Need some advice from the veterans who have been there....
We signed our "intent to adopt" form yesterday
We are really excited but confused on some of the details. The sws had originally said that our fs would keep his medicaid and stipend, but yesterday when they came over it was different. They wanted us to sign a form stating that we would not accept a stipend or his medicaid after adoption.
I was pretty firm (and a little freaked out) that I wanted his medicaid continued because he is still showing significant language delays and his parents have a pretty heavy pscyh history: both parents have bipolar disease and ADD which they recieve meds for. As well, ** has depression and takes meds for this. When he was removed from care, they found drugs in the apartment. It was not mentioned in the "full disclore notice" if he was exposed to drugs in utero so I am assuming DSS does not know one way or the other.
My dh and I are fully prepared to accept that our son will have psych problems in the future. The problem is, our insurance does not cover any psych problems.
To placate me, sws said we could "revisit" the issue after we adopt if he needs any care for pscyh or language problems in the future. I don't know if I should trust them on this or not. The sws called today and rehashed our conversation just to make sure she understand that we were concerned about his medicaid/language problems/bp's psych history. But then I don't know how she could have been confused, I thought I was pretty clear about why we wanted to keep his medicaid. Then I offered to just put in a "medicaid clause" stating we would only use for psych/language problem if our insurance did not cover it. Does this seem reasonable to anyone else? Has anyone had a problem years after an adoption and had to go back to DSS for more help?
The other issue was the stipend-we were assured all the way up to yesterday that it would continue but not they are retracting. Their reasoning was that he did not qualify under any of their "labels". But I don't know why they would mention it continuing if he didn't fit into that category. So I asked that they "re-visit" the stipend issue. And then the sws said the oddest thing----well, this is where the "negotiating part comes in". We will talk to our boss to let her know you want that continued.
I don't know what to say, I felt like we were buying a car. Why are we negotiating? If he qualifies for these services then just let him have them and if he doesn't, then just say so.
So my questions are these:
How firm should I be about keeping his stipend and medicaid?
How many times do they try to strongarm adoptive parents before they relent? Will they try to say no a couple of times just to see what we'll do or is this a one time "negotiation" and once they say yea or nay that's it?
My worst fear is this--if I ask them for these services will they think I am trying to "get one over on them" and take A. from us?
Any advice would be truly helpful. thanks