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My situation may be somewhat different from other posters, and I can only speak from my experience. My husband and I adopted our two foster children (girls), now aged 10 and 12. They came to us as foster children when they were 7 and 9. At the age they were when they came to us, I didn't feel it was right to exclude the birth families from their lives (especially the grandparents), although we would have been within our "rights" to do so, and were even encouraged by DSS not to have contact with the birth mother and father. The mother was a drug addict who died January, 2002, from a drug overdose and the father is a career criminal who also has a substance abuse problem. (The birth mother and father had also plotted a couple of times to "kidnap" the girls from us.) I sometimes regret allowing the girls to maintain contact with their father (which is NEVER unsupervised), however, I have never regretted allowing the extended families to have contact--they have become great friends and occasionally help out when I need someone to watch the girls! If you are not dealing with drug addicts and criminals, your experience with the birth families is bound to be rewarding and enriching, but think long and hard about involvement with the unsavory element.
Ellen
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Ellen A.
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