[MrsGroves1]

I am very confused!! We are a couple in Ia, just about to finish our homestudy and MAPP classes and we're very excited to hopefully be placed with a little boy 0-3, but after reading some of these threads I don't feel very optimistic anymore. We did ask our worker what the chances are that we'd be placed with a child that young and she continues to encourage us with our wait but now it doesn't seem very realistic?? IF we don't do foster care how do families, like ours, find out about young children in need of loving homes. Any help would be VERY much appreciated.
Thank you,
Melissa

[Dark Fate]

Recently I talked with a foster mom in real life here in IL,
She told me it was easyer to began with fostering to find a match.
But Not always the case.

If you dont feel fostering first is the best option for you
then wait and see what happens.

And there are ways to find waiting children,
Such as adoptuskids.org
adoptablekids.com

And possible your state's child service website.
There are alot of ways .

Good luck in your search.

[MamaJem]

It depends on the state. In our state, they frown on placing children as foster into an adoptive placement. What if you foster and the child gets returned or placed somewhere else? We fostered to help out the agency and I am still recovering from losing my sweet girls. We are still waiting too but we have found many children fitting that description that are available. Hang in there and be patient!

Best Wishes!

[Barksum]

We did.

Our first adoption took about 10 months from homestudy to placement in our home. (LOTS of emotional ups and downs during that time, though!) Our DS was 26 months old when he was placed with us. His adoption was final 9 months after he was placed with us.

My personal opinion about fostering to adopt is this: if your heart is in adoption, that is what you should pursue. Being a respite foster home might be a consideration. Respite care providers take care of children who's foster parents have to go out of town or who need a break for a short period of time. Usually something like a weekend, or couple of weeks. It has a definite end point, so is good for easing into parenting the kinds of special needs you will encounter as a foster or waiting parent wanting to adopt from the foster system.

In my state the DHS doesn't like to place children adoptively in a home with foster children at the same time. You can foster after an adoptive child is placed with you, or before, but they don't like to have children transitioning in and out at the same time. In light of this, we have opted to take only short term foster placements until we have completed our adoption process. This means we are an emergency and respite foster resource for our county.