[frida_94601]

Hello my name is Lillian, I am a single mother of one bio child f11yrs old. I am working with a non profit agency in Berkeley CA. I started my maap classes in October, fingerprints, cpr where completed in that month as well. My homestudy was approved on January 12th, 2006. I am waitng to speak with SW to do the matching process??? Can any one give me any advise on what they ask for? I am looking to adopt a child 3yrs-11yrs sib group is okay. Any advise on how long this will take? There are so many children that are in foster care now, and are waiting to adopt. What are my chances???

Please advise,
Lillian

[sayoko7]

Dear Lillian,
I am in the bay area. My husband and I were certified in September. Our parameters for children are almost exactly the same. We now have two sisters in our home, and are waiting for TPR. I found a lot of sibling sets in that age range. I think you should find a match really soon. Good luck and keep us posted.

Katie

[mrsfig]

It took us from about 2 1/2 months to get our kids.

[nsanders]

Hey Lillian,

We are in the Fresno area and our 2nd adoption, 3rd child is a fost-adopt. We now have our daughter, but it took quite a while for us considering we were looking for a child older than 6, any race. We actually considered 18 months-16 throughout the wait. Single placement female child.

I might suggest going to any of the picnics organized by agencies or counties. That is how we finally met our daughter & SW's met us, too. It was in Sacramento. There were 65 kids/ 33 placement with sib groups. We met a lot of kids we liked, a couple of sib groups, but we focused on A.

BTW, we got absolutely no interest from our county. I guess it just varies. It took us 1 year from homestudy to placement. A year & 1/2 from starting classes.

Good Luck with it!

[frida_94601]

I just wanted to say thank you for responding to my thread. I went to a family fair, it was not what I expected. I felt like I was speed dating and competing with many other parents!!! I felt overwhelmed really. Parents where more prepared than I was, they had pages and pages of thier personal bios. Mine was only one page. I had to go to each county and introduce myself, My name is Lillian I have a bio child f11yrs old yada yada yada. Most of the sw already had my bio, it was sooo overwhelming, we were al inquiring for the same children one after another and another and another..I am a single parent what do you think my chances actually are??? considering 3-9 sibling set or single female. Thanks in advance. fost to adopt
Lillian

[nsanders]

We did have info sheets on about 10 of the children. It helped. I really did not want to go at all, but our SW really encouraged us to go and "market ourselves" since we were not getting selected. She has been with us the whole time and was really frustrated for us. For me, it was really feeling like we were competing with the others. Especially since we have 2 other kids, y'know.

Anyway, you'll be surprised what the SW's are looking for. I was told that several of the girls we were interested in would be better placed with a single mom. If they have had any problems with sexual abuse, this is often the case.

I would just try to get to know my SW and stay active. Whenever the agency got new books of children's profile, I'd go in & look thru them. Plus, ask abotu other counties. Tulare does not have their own adoption caseworkers, so they use other agencies & counties for placement. We met 2 girls that way.

I think your chances are very good.

[frida_94601]

Bless you, you made my day..

Lillian

[sfbaymom2000]

I know two single mom's who adopted each were matched with a single girl. One was two years old, the other was three. Two married friends were matched with single girls: one at 18 months, the other at 4 years old. We were matched with out daughter 8 months after we applied. She was almost 4. We finalized 14 months after we applied.

The only thing I would caution you is to only take children quite a bit younger than your daughter. I think 9 is too old if your daughter is 11. I would think up to 7 years old might be good.

If you were matched with a child who was sexually abused, you want to make sure your daughter is safe. Kids with such a history will often try inappropriate behaviors with other kids, even older kids.

Even though you have great intentions, I would also think very carefully before taking a sibling group, and would limit it to two kids if you do. Before you do this it is hard to imagine how truly difficult it can be (at times) to live with a traumatized child and deal with the behavior issues. I would really recommend that you read Attaching in Adoption by Deborah Gray and A Child's Journey Through Placement by Vera Fahlberg.

Good luck!

[nsanders]

Ages of Children

You know your child/children best. Throughout our search SW's & directors encouraged us to look at a certain age range and not others. Some of the children were the same age or very close to our other 2 kids. For our family, that could have been an issue. For other families, it works just fine. I think it depends on the kids involved. A is 11, M is 7, and ds is 3. They get along really well. With the age differences, they are not too competetive with each other.

We were fine with an older child. She is able to understand much more than a younger child. We are also able to identify and address issues more quickly. She is still a preteen and a lot comes with that too, but that is common for nearly every girl her age.

[sfbaymom2000]

nsanders,

I know what you are saying about knowing your own children best. However, what you don't know going in is what the new child's behaviors will be. I would want to lessen any chance of the new child acting out sexually on the other kids. In our case the SW's said they would not place any child less than one year younger than our daughter. I guess it is different in other areas. Anyway, each family has to do what is right for them. Glad you situation has worked out so well.

SFBayMom

[frida_94601]

Thanks every one!!! I re-thought ages. I have submitted my hometudy to 8 children in CA from 2yrs-9yrs old depending on case being. I worked with children from foster care before I made this decision. The only concern that I have is the time allowed to be able to bond with my child any advise??? And secondly does any one have any info and books with children who where exposed to drugs and alcohol during birth and after??
Thanks for your support.

Lillian