[rsbg]

It does seem that there are a lot of families waiting for little girls.... We want 1 or 2 under the age of 10.

[2BoyMama]

Thanks for the welcome everybody. I'm looking forward to taking this trip with you!

[shy_bear]

This may have been discussed before, but I was wondering to what degree of legal risk are you open to???? We are only open to low legal risk; we want to know that TPR is under way or is in the process of being started. For example, the baby we were offered but turned down was going to have TPR started at his next court date. We know us not being more open to risk is what is slowing us down in getting a placement. I know I could not handle a baby being here for months or years and then have to return it to bio's and we also don't want to put our girls through that.

[makarios79]

Originally Posted by shy_bear

This may have been discussed before, but I was wondering to what degree of legal risk are you open to???? We are only open to low legal risk; we want to know that TPR is under way or is in the process of being started. For example, the baby we were offered but turned down was going to have TPR started at his next court date. We know us not being more open to risk is what is slowing us down in getting a placement. I know I could not handle a baby being here for months or years and then have to return it to bio's and we also don't want to put our girls through that.

Well in Florida (or at least in my county in Florida) they DO NOT place by legal risk, because there is no official "foster to adopt program" here. They do not always know what the legal status of the child will be especially if they just came into care....

HOWEVER it has been my experience that if a child is coming to your home from another foster home they may have more info on whether or not it is likely they will be TPR'd....With my new placement when they called me initially they told me that it is highly likely the boys will be available for adoption and they had already planned to file for TPR....this is what made me choose my boys over the 2 little girls they were trying to place me with on the same day.....

However they also told me I was under no obligation to adopt them and this was not considered a pre-adoptive placement (although technically it is).. (The kids were removed unexpectedly because former foster parents were accused of abuse and they needed an emergency placement) ....If I didn't want to adopt (which I do)..they would have placed them with me anyway and just moved them to a another home once they found someone who wanted to adopt them after TPR had been granted....(Crazy I know!)

But I also have a little boy with me who is probably going to be going back to mom, if not mom, to other relatives....(mom has been TPR'd on 2 other kids in the recent past, so there is a moderate possibility of TPR, but RU is expected since she is actively working her case plan) and I knew that from the get go and I took him anyway....because I enjoy fostering too...and I plan to contnue fostering (and adopting) until they won't let me anymore...max is usually 5 kids in a home when you foster, but they do make exceptions, especially for siblings...

So the answer after all that rambling is I take all levels of risk......

[rsbg]

We are straight adopt, which means the children we are looking at have already had rights terminated, foster parents not interested in adopting, etc. So our wait is LONG. But we felt that is the best for our family. We have recently discussed taking the additional training (like 3 more hours) to be dual-licensed so that would open our options to low legal risk. Have not completely decided on that one yet.

[mommacass]

We are open to any risk, emergency, short term, long term, whatever. That's why I can't believe we have not got a call in 8 weeks. I am really going crazy here waiting on the phone to ring. What is their problem, they say we need more foster parents, and yet here we are with an empty room.

MommaCass

[butlers1001]

Hello to all,
I am a newbie, although I have been following along for a few months now. My husband and I began our journey to adopt in January. We have finished our classes, turned in lots of paperwork, and went through our home visits. It really hasn't been too bad. We are hoping for girls ages 0-10 so we have a crib and 2 sets of bunk beds set up. We have one 5 year old at home who is my adopted grand-daughter. I also have 3 sons from a previous marriage, but they are all grown.
We are waiting on our homestudy to be approved, but they have told us it will be and we should get a call shortly after. We are going on vacation the first week of June so we told them since it will be the middle of May before all the red tape is done we will have to wait until after June 9th to accept a placement. Up until the last few days we have been so excited about everything, but now that everything is done but the wait, we both feel down and depressed. The waiting stinks. We had really hoped to have more kids to take on vacation with us. We have even bought an 8 passenger van. We do have one question maybe some of you can help us with. So many people have advised us not to adopt a child older than our daughter. We are hoping to adopt 4 girls, so that would mean we would have 5 little ones. We both work, although I am going back to work in the fall as a special ed teacher so I will be off a lot. My husband is a nurse and also has lots of sick day, vacation days, etc. Thanks in advance for your help.
Sylvia

[Rebecca G.]

Have you bought toys and prepared for sitters, daycare etc. That would help keep you busy and it would give you more information for when they arrive...

[butlers1001]

We have bought toys,teddy bears, coloring books, special lightswitch covers, etc. etc. We have a wonderful daycare and I have already spoken with them. They give priority to children that are adopted or are being adopted. We have been trying to prepare our daughter to share. I hope she will. I would buy more, but of course we have no idea what else we need. We are going crazy I think. We even tell our "imaginary kids" goodnight.
Sylvia

[mommacass]

Butlers
I think that it is just a general rule, but it just depends on the children involved and what you as the parents feel comfortable with. Just to be on the safe side if it were me I would allow my daughter to have her own room or share with those that are younger. And also have the good touch, bad touch talk with her now and after the placements get there all of them together. That way everyone knows that everyone else knows about good touch, bad touch. Did I totally confuse you or what? Good Luck!!!

MommaCass

[butlers1001]

Mammacass,
Great points! We have been talking to our little girl about good touch, bad touch not only because of our hopeful addition of children to our family, but because she will start kindergarten next year. When we first started talking about what age girls we would like to have we had thought school age, but we are concerned about the birth order thing and about bonding. I lived in a children's home myself from ages 8-12 and I can remember always hoping someone would adopt me and I have always hope to adopt a little girl in that age group.
Sylvia

[2BoyMama]

Great point about the good touch bad touch... I hadn't thought of that.

VA is also a "resource parent" state. So, we're all essentially approved to adopt, and the workers "have no idea" at placement what the next steps will be re:TPR. All kids in our county have concurrent planning case plans. We'll do emergency placements in any age/gender combo, and will take sib groups up to age 6 for longer term placement. We didn't want to go older than our oldest son. We're telling our boys that we will be having kids come to stay with us while their families work on some things. We also just ordered a bunch of FC books to read to my guys and new kiddos.

[sunflower1220]

OK Is also considered a "resource parent" state. However, we have EC placement parents, temporary placements, and long term fc placements. Then we have straight adopt. We are doing straight adopt. We had our first authorization a few weeks ago, but had to turn them down. Now the wait begins all over again.

[Yash]

I have a friend whose daughter was molested by her husband. And when she asked her daughter why she didn't tell her about daddy touching her, her daughter replied because it wasn't bad, it didn't hurt. It felt nice.

My friend was of course stunned. I was shocked, I never thought about a child interpreting the conversation about good and bad touches that way. This time around my friend went into a bit more detail about touches.

I had to share so my friend's hard learned lesson could be used to help protect other children.

[shy_bear]

My thought was if we were not placed with two that we would adopt one more time after this. You always hear women say if they remembered pregnancy and child birth most would never do it again. I think that also applies to adoption. I guess I did not remember how horrible the wait and uncertainty is!!! We will NOT be adopting again. This is slowly killing me. I have started getting migraines again, all I do is eat, and I feel like I am on edge all the time. So if and when we end up with a placement if it is only one child I am going to be happy and content and move on with my life. I really don't know how people adopt numerous times.