[naca]

We are heading to TX to meet our new daughter next week! A bit of a unique situation which gets more tongue tied when I try to explain but I"ll give it a go :

We started foster care 5yrs ago. Our first placement was our now AD who was placed at birth.. When AD was born, she had a full sister *L* who was 12months older yet DCS did not take her b/c she was not technically in birthmom's care at the time. So we have known about AD's older sister from the beginning.. There were a few reports that were investigated but nothing ever happened and they all moved around.

birthmom ended up in TX w/ *L* and eventually *L* went into foster care. We found out about it and let them know our interest..

So now after a year of waiting, TPR has happened, appeal time is over, we've been thru ICPC & are FINALLY getting ready to meet her.

We've sent a few photo books of our family & home ect. We have yet to even see a pic of *L* but are told she looks very much like our AD. We are actually still waiting on the casefile to look over but it should be very soon. It is actually quite possible that we will meet her prior to getting the casefile. So we are planning to head down and get to meet her next week. We are staying 9days there and right now the plan is for the AW to place her in our home 2 days after we get back. Not to much of a transition but since we are well over 1000 miles away it's whats going to happen.. L is 5. She has been told about the adoption and understands whats going on..

OMG that was long.. lol! My question- yes there really is one- is how in the world do we introduce ourselves to her?? In our photo books I put them all from our AD's point of view so referred to ourselves as her mommy & daddy.. I've never done this before and never even fostered one this old- we tend to stick to the newborns. Any advice would be appreciated Sorry for the book! LOL!

[MilehighDad]

Our meeting with our two older daughters was much like this, because our match and their placement was a done deal. I'm glad you're making a scrapbook, because that was critical for us to have something to introduce us. We had the workers give the girls the scrapbook first. Then, when we met we brought a photo book with lots of pictures we could just flip through and talk about.

Our line was simple - "Hi, we're going to be your Mom and Dad." We also found a time to tell them that if they wanted to call us Tania and Robert for a while that was fine, but that we just looked at them as our daughter and we would introduce them as "this is our daughter."

The first day meeting, we just worked at talking about what our family was like and trying to get them talking a bit.

Most of all, please don't set the goals for your new daughter too high. She is going to be emotional and difficult for a very long time after moving in. I think the difference between successful older child placements and ones that fail is often related to whether or not the parents can offer unconditional love and acceptance. I think the kids are always struggling and almost always hard to parent for a while as a result. How will it show up? Who knows - temper tantrums, being mean to her new/old sister, screaming, not listening, could be anything. For our latest adoption, we didn't even get a honeymoon period that lasted through the visits, it was really only 2 days. But, if you stick by her she'll eventually feel safe and start to heal, which is just the coolest thing to watch.

Good luck!

[naca]

MileHighDad-- Thank you sooo much for your advice and tips I really do appreciate it

[MilehighDad]

You are welcome! You must be so excited and nervous too! I know it will be great, just enjoy your time with her and everything will unfold naturally. I hope she likes lots of hugs and kisses!

[naca]

Well we are here! Things definitely went differently than expected. We went to her fosterhome at 9am Friday to meet her w/ the fostermom & adoption worker.. We left at 10:30am with *L* with us! She's been with us every since and does not want to go back to her foster home. The first nite she was a little sad and said she missed her "old mom" but when we offered several times to take her back home to sleep and come get her the next day she refused. She wants to stay with us.> We went back to the foster home the next day and she was very concerned that we might leave her so made sure to keep us in her eyesight at all times , then had us pack up all her stuff in the van.. loL! Poor kiddo! Right now the plan is for us to be here til Saturday morning when we're heading back home, and the AW will fly her to our house next week. She is adament that she is staying with us and not going to her foster home ever again.. Not sure how well that is going to work but the AW is going to try to see if she can get special permission for *L* to just ride home with us.. She doesn't want her to get all upset when we leave..

Like I said, definitely not what we expected but great! We'd planned on meeting her Friday w/ everyone around. Going back the next day and taking her out for a bit- gradually building up our time together.. lol ! I guess you know what they say about the best laid plans right? loL!

Thank goodness everyone is getting along great and no problems so far

[Mkuhlmann06]

Glad to hear things are falling into place so well. Hopefully you can get the permission to bring her back with you. Some kids need long transitions and some don't. She doesn't seem to need a long one!!

[naca]

THanks! Unfortunately I heard from the AW today and she can't get permission for *L* to ride home with us. So we will be dropping her back at her fosterhome on Friday sometime and she'll be flying to our house next week. I have no clue how this is going to go since she is very strongly against even going back to the foster home to visit w/o us.. If anyone has any advice on how to explain this to a 5yo so it's not quite so tramatizing, I'd appreciate it!! Her aw is having an emergency and wont be available to be there when we drop her back off & also wont be able to be the one to fly her to us..

Only a week before we're all back home safe and sound!

[Binny]

How did it go? Glad she will be home with you soon.

[naca]

Things went well! Thanks for asking! Although *L* was very against us dropping her back at the foster home (cried every nite about it) on Friday morning she woke up in a good mood and had no problem going back. We just kept reminding her that FM was throwing a good bye party and she'd get to see her friends ect.. She did fine! FM has our phone number but she hasn't called us at all since we dropped her off friday morning. We haven't called her b/c we dont want to upset her if she's doing fine.. kwim? Regardless, she flies in tomorrow!!

[TxMom65]

Wow. How exciting for your family. I hope the transition goes well.

[MilehighDad]

Congratulations, that is so great that it went well. Just one bit of advice - call her! Even if she will be there tomorrow, for a child that young a day is a long time. You only need to talk to her for a few minutes, but that will reassure her that you still want her and make the trip to come to you a lot less scary tomorrow. Good luck!

[naca]

Thanks for the advice Milehighdad!! I have wanted to call her the past few days but we decided against it b/c we didn't want to upset her needlessly. I will call later this afternoon when hubby is home & we can all say HI again

[txwannabemom]

How is it going????

[rascalchico]

I have finally, after a year and half of struggling through the process, been matched with a beautiful pair of sisters ages 9 & 11.

We have met and next Friday, I have the first of two supervised visits. The way my agency works, they require two supervised visits. If all goes well, they proceed with the adoption order placement paperwork, and I proceed with 5 day visits and the 5 weekend visits. The day visits are done in their local area and the weekend visits at my home.

I am very excited and the girls appear to be as well. They, being older, have had a relationship with their bio mom. They call their foster mom by her first name. They have been with her a year.

On Friday, I will bring a photo album for each of them and take them out to eat. The following Tuesday I will have my last supervised visit and the the Friday before Labor Day and the days following through Labor Day, I will be in a hotel and just visit them for each day all day.
This will complete my day visits and we can proceed, if they are ready, to weekend visits at their new home.

I am not sure what to ask them to call me or even say to them who I am. I am very nervous about this. I want to be respectful of the fact that they have a "mom," but I want them to be able to someday, sooner rather than later, call me "mom."

Will it be offensive to them if I introduce them to other people as my daughters?

Thanks for your help.

Mom in waiting of 2 beautiful girls