[Allieloopy]

Our experience with Foster / Adopt was usually bad but ended well.

We became foster adopt parents about 6 years ago in the state of MI. We couldn't afford private adoption so we looked to the state. In the adoption orientation we attended the room was packed full of people. My husband and I and only one other couple were not foster parents. In the state of Michigan if you want younger kids or a younger sib group with no or few problems then foster care is just about the only way to go.

We signed up for foster/adopt with a private agency. It took a year for us to get our first placement. It was not an infant or toddler like we requested but after all that waiting we wanted to be parents. That was our first mistake. We started getting calls for all sorts of kids, mostly kids that had been removed from other foster homes.

We finally got a call for a baby and we had her for two months and they moved her to another county. Then we found out that the agency didn't even know we were foster adopt! They never check the folders when they call us. Giving our kids up was only the second time I ever saw my husband cry.

After 10 kids, two false allegations and a destroyed house we got to adopt our daughter who was placed with us when she was 2. She is 4 and her adoption was final this last Jan.

She is my heart but I still think about my lost kids all the time. Even the one that always beat me up!

The advice in this long story is, find out if the private agency is a good one. We didn't find out until after our adoption from a court worker that our agency is considered "bottom of the barrel." I don't know how to go about this, if anyone has info on Lutheran Social Services in MI or any other good agencies let me know!

Stick to your guns, if you want Caucasian infants with no health problems then only accept those placements. You will be waiting a lot longer for a placement though. And your chances are slimmer for adopting infants. I have seen many cases of the older kids being placed in foster homes but the Grandma or Aunt will take the baby. If you are able then accept minorities or special needs you might be called sooner.

Make sure the placement workers know you are out there. They have a looooong list for babies and you want them to keep you in mind. Once I started calling every month our placements went up.
Our daughter was an emergency placement that had just been moved from her second foster home and needed a place that night.

The courts are not consistant (at least in Michigan) and will not push for termination if the bio-parents have a good enough lawyer and know how to work the system. I had a little girl from 18 months till 4 years old and her mother signed away her older sibs and still got the little girl back. She has since been kicked out of her husbands house, evicted out of an apartment, has an alcholic babysit her child and various other things. But since she knows how to work the system she keeps her daughter. She even found a way to get a permenant Vicodin prescription so she can be legally stoned!

False allegations. NO ONE every told us about these. Every foster parent will get one sooner or later. Your chances are higher with older kids. I had a child lie and say I slapped his younger brother in the face and left a mark. Poor kid thought that if he got me in trouble he could go back home.
At the time I had social workers and therapists in my house weekly sometimes more and I still had to go through an investigation.
Suddenly the friendly people that had been working with me dissapeared and we were all alone. Even though the charges were unfounded they are still on our record and will be in our files forever.
During this your agency will not be your friend. Document everything, that is the only thing that saved us from losing our license and the child we were in the process of adopting.


Giving kids up.
Just be aware that to the agency this is a job and it should be to you too. The first goal is always reunification. It is not a fight between you and the bio parent, you have to be able to treat mentally unstable and sometimes aggressive people with respect.

You have to look at each placement as if they would go home. All the way up until the adoption is final. Since our agency was so poorly regarded we are going to try it again with Lutheran Social Services in Michigan, but I have been waiting for paperwork from them for over a month now.

Back on the rollercoaster! I am scared to death of having more allegations but we are going to insist on our age limit this time so that should help. Of course there is no way to get around the fact that we will lose kids again. But at least we can go into the situation with our eyes open.


It was not all bad, we got to love some great kids and got our daughter too.
You do get to be a parent and some kids hopefully will remember us as they go through their lives.

Good Luck!

Paula
(The space between the tears we cry, is the laughter that keeps up coming back for more...)