[solarscarlet]

[font=century gothic][color=purple]

I am new to this board & hoping to get alot of advise, learn from experience, & meet some new people.

My DH & I are in the process of adopting thru our county. We are half way thru our pre-training classes. And we are still getting all of the paperwork together. We are hoping to adopt a little girl between the ages of 0-6yrs old.

Here is a bit of background: I am 30yrs old (soon to be 31) & DH is 25yrs old. We have been married 2yrs. We already have a son in the home (to be 8yrs old on Friday--biologically mine). My DH legally adopted my son in April of this year. We decided to adopt after 2yrs of infertility treatments & being diagnosised having PCOS. We would rather spend the time/money in adopting a child that needs a loving home; than to go thru the heartache of more infertility treatments.

I have been reading alot of books along with the classes we are taking. Are there any books that you can recommend?? That I should read before adopting?? Any advice/information at all would be appreciated!!

Looking for friends/support,
Solarscarlet

[sfbaymom2000]

Here are some of the books I have read:

Toddler Adoption, The Weaver's Craft, by Mary Hopkins-Best - can be a bit scary and discouraging, but also helps you have realistic expectations.

Parenting your Older Adopted Child, by Brenda McCreight. Read this a while ago, but I recall it was pretty good.

My favorites have been:

Attaching in Adoption, by Deborah Gray

A Child's Journey Through Placement, by Vera Fahlberg

I think the last two not only describe possible issues, but provide practical advice on dealing with them.

We are also looking for a girl, but from 2-5 years old. It seems that you may be likelier to get a child at the younger end of your range, as the older the get the more likely they are to be part of a sibilnig group. We have had no referrals or placements yet. Good luck to you!

Lynn

[Dianestar]

Hi there, My husband and I are just now starting the adoption from foster care, we are hoping to adopt a sibling group. I can understand completely about not wanting to go through all the fertility tests, I did the same thing. We would rather give someone a loving and caring home that needs one.

Good luck to you!!!!

[Awaiting]

you sound remarkably like me and my DH. We have a Bio son, age 7 and have been diag with PCOS and also with Endo and he has no "swiimers" due to a chemical in his body. How we got our son is a miricale! ANywhoo...we started in April and are still waiting. We took the classes and did all the "stuff" you gotta do. Now we wait. We go through an agency though. We are wanting to adopt from Wa or Or, Boy/Girl age 0 to 7. Friday is my last day working becuase they told me it would better our chances if there were a stay at home parent. I go back to school in the fall to finish my associates in Resp. therapy so we are hoping things will move a little faster now. If not, school may have to wait another year.
I wish you the best of luck. As far as reading, find anything you can on adoption and ADD and RAD and fetal alcohol syndrome. It really sheds a lot of light on a lot of children in foster care
Brandy

[solarscarlet]

Brandy:

We do so alot alike. It still amazes me how small this world is that we really live in. We have just 2 classes to go (CPR/First Aid) & then we'll be waiting. We are looking to adopt a girl ages 0 to 7. I have been reading as much as I can.
I currently work part-time in a Preschool/Daycare center; but I may not continue to work (depending on the age of the child).

Brandy: feel free to PM me if you want to talk more!!
Lisa

[HBDolphin]

My DH and I completed our homestudy just before Thanksgiving and started the whole process in April 2004. We are a concurrent planning family (fost/adopt). We've been married over 6 years and went thru invitro. twice. What a waste of time and money. Anyway, can't go back now. We are going thru the county and are hoping for a child under 3. We've heard that we will be waiting a long time. I just want to be somebodys Mommy. It feels like I've been waiting forever. I'm 36 & DH is 31. It's good to be here with a support system.

[Awaiting]

I hate the wait too. Yes, you most likely will be waiting a long time for a child under 3, but when it does finally happen (and it will) the time will have flown by. I tried for 3 years to get PG. I finally did with twins. Although I lost one early on, I carried my son who is now 7 full term. I was told I was never going to get PG again. They were right. We tried everything. And to no avail. Then as my dad was dying, he told me to adopt. After all, he didn't turn out that bad. So here we are. Waiting. Although we got good news last Friday. We opened the door to take a child that is not TPR yet. So now the wait they said willbe very short compared to how long we have been waiting. I wish you the best of luck and blessing. This is a roller coaster, but if you are fun seeker, then it's all worth the ride.
Brandy

[tlc4kidz]

Just wanted to encourage you guys. We got our first placement 10 days after being licensed....a 2 day old baby girl. We had her 9 months and she was adopted by a co-worker of mine. We didn't originally plan on adopting but recently finalized on siblings we got at 2 and 3 days of age.....God was definately in control there because my husband was not on board with adopting to begin with and had a sudden change of heart without any prompting from me.

Keep the faith.....it does happen!!

[sfbaymom2000]

In our county in CA, there are children available under 3, often newborns who were born drug positive. They actually asked us twice to consider an infant, but we wanted 2-5. However, if you want a legally free child you might wait years or never be matched. I think you almost have to accept a child that is not TPR. The courts will generally not do TPR until an adoptive family is found, because they do not want to creat legal "orphans". You can still ask for low legal risk (unlikely to reunify). There are no guarantees, but the SW's do have a pretty good idea of how it will go. We just got our fost/adopt daughter last week (she is 3). Took 8 months from orientation to matching, although it seemed like forever! Good luck to you!

[bumpkin]

We also adopted very quickly after finishing our training. In fact, we were matched in one day! with 6 month old twins. We also did not want to consider children that weren't legally free but were "educated" about the fact that many judges won't terminate until a family is found. We found our workers very forthcoming about the status of our twins and their families history - we felt very comfortable that the TPR would happen, although it was still scary until it actually happened.

Good luck


Bumpkin

[kerryinct]

I just finished my training and homestudy and was told I would be registered as of Feb, 2005 as a single mom for a 0-5 yr old girl. I am hoping this is my last holiday without my child and wondered if anyone had any experience with the CT DFCS? my experience has been wonderful so far. I would like to have a child with TPR home with me in May so I can take advantage of my work leave and was told that was not an unreasonable expectation. I was wondering if anyone else foster/adopted through CT and what their wait time was.

thank you, this is a great site to get information.

[Howdy]

In the county I'm with (in CO) it doesn't seem to be hard to get an infant (I want 3 yrs to 5 yrs, and they have a couple times told me that at the time they only had infants or infant/toddler sib groups available), but it is hard to get a girl. Except when I've asked for a boy, then it is hard to get a boy. Probably if I wanted an infant, then they'd be hard to get.
I've had two 7 yrs old girls (one at a time), both Legal Risk, and unfortunately (for me) neither became adoptable by me (a relative was found that will adopt one when TPR happens).
I'm waiting for a committee on a 4 yr old girl, but haven't heard anything for a long time (a month). Maybe they are waiting until after the holidays.
Right now I'm on vacation this week, and so a few weeks ago I told my social worker if they have any kids come in that need just a very short term (few days to a week) home, I'd be happy to do that while I'm waiting for my future adoptable child to materialize.
So tomorrow I'm getting a 7 yr old boy (I don't know why all the kids I get are 7 yrs old, it is weird) for a unspecified short time (DHS told me the family just needed me to take the kid for a couple days (daytimes not overnight) for respite, but the family said DHS is supposed to have found a new foster family for the child by the end of December, and they are dropping him off with me apparently until the new family is found (I'll have him 24/7 until it is found)! They say he is a nice boy, but I am a little anxious since they seem so eager to get rid of him permanently when they expect to only have had him a few more days anyway. It is my first experience with those alien creatures "boys", so I'm pretty excited (and glad to have a short term boy to see what boys are like).

You asked about books, I'd recommend just read everything your library can get for you. The ones recommended above are good (one of the reviews for the Attaching in Adoption book by Gray says if you only read one book, be sure Attaching in Adoption is it). What I did was go to Amazon and do a search for "adoption" and then I read the customer reviews of dozens of the books that the search found. The ones that sounded good to me I wrote on a long list and took to my local library. They only had a couple themselves, but they could borrow many of them from other libraries.

Good luck, hope you have a short wait. I waited 9 months the first time, 2 and a half months the second time, and now I've been waiting 4 and a half months (and will get longer unless maybe they have the committee for the 4 yr old right after the holidays). But, I have had 4 calls for 5 children during the past 4 1/2 months, but only one has sounded like a potentially good match.

[Awaiting]

Don't let the wait despair you. We were contacted Thursday and told of a possible match. He is legally free and exactly what we have been praying for. His Case worker told us we are the top choice of 3 families and it's on its way to committee. Now I am not trying to get my hopes up because we may not get chosen, but I feel wonderful for even being considered for the option!
Merry Christmas!!

[tlc4kidz]

Merry Christmas to you Awaiting!!! You'll be in my prayers.......keep us posted!

[1of2moms]

In our area, boys are far easier to get than girls. We had our first (and only) placement 3 days after we were licenced. (they actually wanted to place him with us before we were licenced). We were called for 2 boys, ages 4 and 6 legally free, 2 hours after agreeing to take D.

My in-laws (brother and sisiter) were licenced months ago. In the last month they have had 4 placements. They too hope to foster-adopt. They were placed with 3 year old twins to see if they wanted to adopt them- without being told that the boys were drug exposed, one autistic and one with CP. That did not work out.

Good luck. There are legally free kids out there but I agree that placements happen faster if you take legal risk kids. And if you had your homestudy done by an outside agency, feel free to send it out all over the place. That is what got us the call on the 2 boys we turned down.

Good luck.