[Mominalberta]

Just wonderin who will

keep fostering
Adopt again
Not foster after adopting

Just curious. Would love to hear your story

[Barksum]

We adopted. Then fostered. Then adopted. Then fostered. Then adopted two in 9 months and quit foster parenting altogether. (My house is full! LOL)

[mom2GRLC]

We've fostered all along (5+ years and 53 kids) and we are waiting on our fourth adoption.

We are still taking respite/emergency/short term placements for right now. I'm not sure how long we will continue to do that. Probably at least through this year....once our last adoption is complete we may close down our home. But hunestly I can't say at this point. We'll just see how we feel about it when we get there.

We've been thinking about closing our home for the last ... 2 years or more...but something keeps telling us to hold out for a little longer, so we do.

[5starday]

Our adoption of little A was final this past December. We were always told by our 1st licensing worker to wait about a year to let our family be a family without the monthly scrutiny of DES. Little A's case took 2 years to finalize and she was abandoned. There were no complications and there were no birth family contact for over 2 years. It just seemed like it took a ridiculous amount of time to finalize her adoption.

We just recently had to renew our foster license and adoption certification and were actually told by our agency if we don't take a case, they may consider suspending our license. We are in the process of building a new custom home and are opening a new (5th) business. We know our lives are just too hectic right now to bring another child into our world. We also feel it would not be fair to any child who would need our attention.

We told our agency that we would be open to considering it again after Christmas and especially after our new home is completed. We know we'd have to get the new home inspected also.

We were given the impression they don't want foster parents like us who need to take a break. I guess it's not always all about the children, it's also about the money and whether the agency gets paid if we don't take another child into our home.

We completed all of our requirements to renew our license (previously licensed for 4 years), so we'll see if they actually process it. We'll have to wait to see how we feel about going through the process again AFTER we move into our new home.

I would love to have another child become a part of our craziness, but it doesn't appear to be up to me.

[cvalda]

I'm no longer fostering, but I fostered from 1997 thru early 2006. My first adoption was in 2001, and I continued to foster. Most of the kids I've fostered, I have adopted, actually. I have only fostered 4 other kids besides my six! And of my six, I was the first foster placement for four of them (and the second for the other two)!

This next adoption will be my first straight adoption without having fostered first!

[tinatyme]

In my family we have adopted 2 of our babies and fostered all along. We are currently fostering and plan to even if we adopt again in the future. At some point we might be too full to continue to adopt but we will probably at that point move to emergency placements and respite.

[naca]

We started fostering in Jan '05 , adopted our first placement last summer & are hoping to adopt our current placement.. When that's final we will most likely take a break for a while..

[athikers]

We are recovering from our "sure bet" adoptive placement that went to relatives after 7 months with us. We hope to have another foster-adopt placement soon, and we'll go into this one knowing that the social workers REALLY don't know what will happen. We don't know how long we're meant to do this, but we trust that when we are to be done, God will let us know.

[shycar]

We fostered for two years when our son was placed in our home as legal risk. It took 3 years for us to adopt him and during that time we kept fostering. We had many come and go, but then we got our daughter. So in one year we finally adopted our son and then 7 months later our daughter. We still are foster parents hoping to adopt two more kiddos. Am I done after? I dont know I love fostering. But since my daughters adoption we have fostered two children.