[TrayRenee]

Hello everyone. My husband and I are just starting the journey to foster adopt. We have just finished our initial paperwork, our first home study visit in Thursday and we start our 12 weeks of classes required by the state (Missouri) at the end of the month.

We have thought long and hard about our decision and are exited to get started. Adopting from out of foster care is something we really believe. I know it will be challenging. But I guess my question for all you experienced parents out there is --- where are the good stories?

As I've been trying to do a lot of research to find out everything I can in regards to foster adoption -- from the blogs to the chatrooms, to newspaper articles to comments that I get from most of the people we've talked to in person -- I rarely hear good stories or even hard stories with a positive ending. And I hate to admit it -- I'm starting to get nervous.

After talking tonight, my husband said "Dearest (yes, he always calls me dearest) -- maybe you should actually post on the site you've been reading."

So now I'm posting. I guess I was hesitant b/c I don't want other parents to doubt my commitment. I guess I need just a little encouragement.

Tracy

[jen1mac]

Tracy, We got the call for our now daughter June 2004. She was 2 days old. We adopted her Oct. 4th, 2005. Yes, it was a long haul and at times very trying but she was well worth it! Just a month and a half after adopting her we get a call to come pick up her birthsister who was 5 1/2 months old! We are hoping to be able to adopt her also but we will have to wait and see. Our daughter has severe asthma due to the drug exposure but she is so smart! Yes, foster adopt can be longer and harder but I think more worth it. I recommend that you call the DSHS office a lot and call your social worker a lot asking as many questions as you can think of!! Good luck and many prayers to you.

[mami]

aboard! Yes, there are happy ending stories. We got our license to foster to adopt in May 2005 and in July 2005 we received a call for a 11 months old baby boy and in August he moved with us, last month was done the TPR and now we are waiting to finalize between July and August, a year later . He is a very happy, healthy boy. He is very attached to us. We just love him, he is adorable, a blessing.

I recommended to you to be very specific an honest with your case worker about the ages, conditions and situations that you can handle. Its better to wait until the best match to your family arrive. I understand your stress and desesperation, but you will see that soon your child will be with you. I understand that every case is different, you just need to love them every day and just let God decide.
I wish you the best and I can tell you miracles happen .

[Faith65]

Hi Tracy and Welcome,

I too wish we all would share the postives about our journey but this journey isn't easy or for the faint of heart. We are in process of fostering a 14 yr old girl. She is the love of my life but also my struggles too. What you find out is that you love children that have been so broken and abused and then tossed away. Children that have built huge walls around thier hearts and souls to survive that is takes lots and lots of hard work to slowly tear it down. and at times you thinnk your making progress for that wall to get rebuilt up.

You than have the struggles with the birth parents whom blame everyone and everything for what happened to them and their children. You will find it wasn't their fault.

And then all the red tape and hoops you need to jumb through for the state. And then therapists, doctors and the list goes on. All the time all these things twisting and turning and getting tangled up with you and your family in the middle.

If you asked me today is all this worth it? I would say yes! No dought in my mind. But ask me a few minutes later when a teacher calls about B's behavior or after the ACR meeting in a couple hours I may have a different veiw. I believe that is how many of us feel.

B will be the only child we will bring into our home. We know her issues are more than enough for us. She will always need strong guideness and someone advocating for her always. I am glad that she is in our home and in my heart.

Good luck on your journey come here often to share or ask questions. The best to you.

[dawnmei]

Tracy,

I went through MAPP and STARS in Missouri about a year ago. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions...I'd love to talk!

Dawn

[sfbaymom2000]

It can be incredibly challenging and incredibly rewarding. You do need to do a ton of research and be prepared for very difficult behavioral and emotional issues. You will find many people hear who are very honest about the frustrating times (and 'frustrating' is an understatement!). You also get to follow how things get better and better (usually) for those families.

However, keep this in mind. I could be wrong, but I think that in general, people do not write nearly as much (if at all) when things are going well. I was on here all the time when things were REALLY hard, and I poured out all the details. Now that things are going better most of the time, I am not on here nearly as much. When I am, it's more to try to help others (as I am now kind of a 'veteran').

I don't think to get on here and write, "M does really well socially at school and playdates. She and C get along great a lot of the time. She can be really sweet a lot of the time. Life is getting closer and closer to some semblance of 'normal'. She is healing more and more as she is more comfortable discussing the past and her emotions." But all of that is tru .

Most of us who've adopted from foster care don't like it when people say "You are saint for doing this", "She is so lucky", etc. I hope people won't bash me for this, but it really is a wonderful feeling to know that you are changing the life of a child who had a rough start in life. I feel like it's the best thing I have ever done, and she has really blessed our family - although she still drives me to extreme aggravation sometimes .

Sorry to ramble. Good luck to you.

[yanknrebel]

We spent 10 years suffering with unexplained secondary infertility. We only got into foster care as a happen stance Wish I could say we got into it for more noble reasons, but the truth is that we had started a private adoption out of LA (we are in TN) had everything in place even lawyer paid in full, and 2 weeks prior to birth of baby boy, biomom changed her mind. Well after her losing 5 other children to DCS we knew this child would also go same route. Well we never got to adopt that baby boy but he was adopted by his foster family in LA. So after that loss in Aug 2001, we finished our classes in Oct 2001. We got our first call at 10am Friday morning on Feb 1,2002. Just 4 months after we were licensed. This baby girl was 30 minutes before her birth and we were being called to ask if we would take her. HELLO!!! LOL SO we took her at 2 days of age straight from hospital release. It took us 34 long and arduous months but we finally got to adopt her. We had several older children in and out of our home, but we knew they were only temporary. We then got a call for 5 month old preemie twins (boy/girl) that were still in hospital. We visited them and held them and fell in love for 3 days. Then DCS, not thinking they had enough evidence to prove abandonment, dropped the case and the children would later be released to biomom. Services were set up with biomom to help with twins, as they had been for her other 2 daughter, who were taken away. Fortunately the director of the abuse center who was providing services went by to see the biomom and twins on an unscheduled visit (WHY DO they schedule visits?) and found the 5 month old babies ALL alone. NO ONE in the house and after the police and all got there they were there for over an hour waiting on biomom to come back. ANyway,we got hese babies back that day, after DCS closed and we will have our adoption Day this Thursday at 9am YOOHOO!!! SO YES dreams do come true and there are all kinds of happy stories.

Good luck on yours.

[mallory4]

Hello and welcome. I posted with the same question a couple of years ago--where is the good news? So I thought I should pass ours along......

Our experience has been a good one, in that we wanted a boy under age 5 and were placed with a 14 month old boy 3 months after our homestudy was complete, his TPR was granted after 10 months without a long, drawn- out struggle and his adoption will be final in a couple of months.

We were open to many medical and emotional conditions, and our son did arrive with significant physical and developmental delays and some unusual behaviors that are usually associated with kids living in Eastern European orphanages. Today, after a year in our home, he tested as "advanced" for his age in all areas--gross motor, fine motor, verbal, and cognitive. So, that is good news!

I would categorize the challenges of foster/adopt as falling into two categories:

The first is dealing with the system--will your individual workers give you an accurate understanding of how likely TPR is, will they support you in getting the services your fost/adopt child may need, will they respond to any questions/concerns you have about the case for TPR?, etc. We are lucky that our agency and our individual agency and county workers have been great, responsive and professional, and have treated us with respect and honesty so far as we know.

The second challenge is dealing with the child--I can't stress it enough that it is one thing to say "yes" to things on paper (emotional issues, health problems) and another thing altogether to deal with them on a daily basis. I was an experienced parent, but having a super-needy toddler who was very frustrated because he couldn't communicate his needs, and was very fearful of new people and new situations was a real challenge for me. I am a very organized and energetic person, but adding his therapies, frequent medical appointments, and just his constant neediness into my schedule basically added up to a whole year where I got nothing else done--which might not be such a big deal if I wasn't also responsible for homeschooling our older 3 kids and holding down a couple of part-time jobs.

Overall, our story is a very happy one--we were given a wonderful little boy who has blossomed in our home and is a fantastic member of our family. I think that yes, you should read and research all you can about the challenges, and you should expect it to be a hard process, but know, too, that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

[sfbaymom2000]

yanknrebel,

Congratulations on finalizing! That is sooooo wonderful . What do you have planned...a party or anything special?

sfbaymom

[Dawn-NJ]

We have a bio dd that I delivered at 40 years old after 2 years of if treatments, surgeries, etc, she was an IVF baby.
We decided to adopt our next child and foster/adopt was to be honest the only way to could afford. We had just paid for IVF and bought a home.
We signed up with a private agency in NJ and in Sept. 2004 got our liscense, we got calls for a few kids but they were all straight foster so we declined those. Then January 05 got the call we were waiting for 13 month baby boy. He had been with a foster family since he was a few weeks old but they decided to close their home, the waiting game and the social worker had put a tremendous strain in the family and they wanted out.
We took him in and fell in love (so did he), Nov.same year TPR was done and now we are waiting for agency to do all the red tape and paper crap they do so we can get adoption date.
He is 2.5 and is so attached to us that when my dh goes to throw the garbage outside he watches him from window to make sure he comes back if not he will throw a fit.
W got so lucky to find this wonderful child who is now free to adopt, we have been through a lot as his parents have come in and out of his and our lives a few times during this time but sadly for him, they have substance abuse problems and no support from family and no home. Therefore we have are very happy to have him to make him ours forever.

[Yash]

Tracy,

Welcome to the board! I became a certified foster parent on Halloween '04. I was very honest with my SW about what I thought I could handle. I wanted a girl, but was open to a boy. I wanted a baby as young as possible, preferably under 1. I was open to minor or correctable special needs.

On Dec 30, one day before I was certified for 2 months, I got a call about a 5-day-old baby boy. Yes, a belated Christmas present. After getting the pertinent info and praying about it, I said, yes. 2 1/2 hours later, my Jory walked through the door in a sleeper too big for him and it was size newborn, sleeping in the carrier that looked to swallow him.

He was drug exposed, but showed no signs of withdrawl. He was an angel. And after the first week, when I finally to have to stop and think mommy, right that's me, now, I was in mommy heaven. That precious angel is now 6 days shy of being 18 months. Oh my, my baby is going to be 1 1/2 year old on Sunday. How time flies. We are currently waiting for a court date to finalize.

This journey is definitely not for the faint at heart, but the craziness of the system is forgotten each time you hold your little one in your arms. And you remember that if it wasn't for the craziness, the two of you wouldn't be together.

Best of luck,

Yash

[jigger]

Even though we are still in the process of trying to adopt our foster son, every day has a good story. Even if (god forbid) he has to go back to his bio-mom, I will be better for having helped him and he will be better for having been a part of my family. If you'd told me this before I started I would have said the sentiment was cheesy and not realistic but now I know it's true.

Good Luck!