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Hi szypzz. I'm in Michigan and have done both an older child adoption and a special needs adoption through the foster care system. I'm 34 and hubby is 33, we've been married 7 years and have been doing foster care for about five years.
To answer some of your questions:
Did you find your child with the help of MARE?
Nope, both of our girls were placed with us in foster care first. Both were here 2 1/2 years before they were up for adoption. The youngest was 2 1/2 years straight through, the oldest was 2 1/2 years, but she was back with her bmom for a year in the middle.
Was he/she placed directly by your agency?
The younger girl was placed by our agency, and the older girl was placed by a neighboring agency. We had worked with the older girls worker in our county before the worker transfered to another county. When the older girl went into care the worker said she just looked at her and thought of me, lol.
What is the rest of the process once we are licensed? Is it really just waiting for "the" phone call?
Yep, you wait for the phone call, lol. In our area there is a LOT of foster parents so it was actually about 3 months before we got our first call. Some area's have too few foster parents though and I would imagine they wait only days.
How many children did you have placed with you before you had the chance to adopt.
We had four boys placed, one was adopted by another family and three went back to their bio homes. Then one boy placed who went back to his bio home. Our now daughter was placed, and she went back to her bio home for a year, then went back into care and almost a year later we were able to adopt her. We had a boy and two girls placed but had to move them ASAP since the youngest had pnemonia and our son was severelly lung comprised at the time. They all were adopted later. We had our other now daughter placed and we had her for almost two years before we were able to adopt her. We had a little girl placed that was adopted by another home. We had an older girl placed who went on independant living a few months later. And we had a little girl placed who went back to her bio home.
We didn't go into this to adopt, but it's definately been a huge bonus to our family! Both of these girls and our son are the light of our lives, and we are so grateful to be allowed to parent them.
Happy to answer any other questions you may have, and PLEASE feel free to contact me if you walk into problems with your first child. We thought we were prepared for some of the things these kids go through, but we were wrong. I was fortunate and had a 20 year veteran to go to for advice, lol.
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