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Hi Jill,
I got your pm. Here's what happened with our case: We knew that we would only be in the state temporarily when we got licensed for foster care and we were very open about that. They need homes, so a temporary home was better than no home in their eyes. Our dd (first foster child) was a surprise (the first newborn our agency had ever taken in 13 years -- they were a therapeutic agency). She came home straight from the NICU when she was 10 days old. Her bmother lost interest quickly, and her bfather was in and out of jail. He got out when she was three months old, and was scheduled to get custody when she was six months old. In the mean time, we decided to move out of state believing we were going to lose her. Two weeks before the hearing bdad went back into jail, so they decided to allow her to move out of state with us. I'll be honest, it wasn't easy. They do what is called an ICPC (Inter-State Compact for the Placement of Children) transfer. The transfer can take up to six months to be completed, and our cw (horrible worker, later fired) initially insisted that I remain in the state with my dd until the transfer was complete (mind you that my dh had already moved out of the state by the time we knew we were going to be able to take her). Anyway, I ended up staying behind for a month and a half until the judge ruled to allow her to move out of state while the transfer was being done. No, your license won't transfer. Every state has different requirements, our new state did accept some of the training we had done though, so it was a little easier to get licensed here. We had been told that if her bfather had gotten custody as planned, then she had gone back into foster care or TPR had happened, we would have had a chance at adopting. Our story didn't end there however. Three months after we moved, in fact the very day our foster care homestudy was completed, we recieved a call from that horrible worker saying that bdad was again released from prison, and they were going to start reunification efforts again. We went through seven months of hell after that with them shipping our precious baby 9 hrs across three states every other weekend for visits. They finally decided to file for TPR last Dec., the hearing was set for April, and bdad decided to relinquish two weeks before the hearing. So she is now FINALLY legally free, and we are in the very sloooooow process of adopting. I hope that helps, I would be happy to answer any other questions you may have. However, we are moving tomorrow (just across town this time), so it might take me a couple of days.
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