[vernellinnj]

Congratulations on your upcoming finalization. Keep us posted and poste your month/year timeline when you finish.

Month/Year - Placed
Month/Year - TPR
Month/Year - Adoption Finalized

[momofbgtwins]

Hello everyone,
It has been a long process for us. We were placed with our fb and fg (they were 11 days old)in June 2006. We were also told that is would only take 6 months. birthmom would not name a father so it has taken longer. TPR was May 10th and where I live BP have 60 days to appeal. There was no appeal so now we will be signing adoption placement papers this friday. And then wait for the court date.
Here in the state I live I was told a new law went into effect that once a child is placed into an adoptive home the bp family cannot decide later they want to take the child. This came from someone who has been a foster and adoptive mom for over 20 years. She also helps teache pride classes.

[vernellinnj]

Momofbgtwins - Congratulations!!

If you read this thread you will see that 13 months is not nearly as long as some have waited (and still not finalized).

Best wishes.

[tinatyme]

I just heard from M's social worker and she is saying the wait for a decision on the appeal of TPR will probably take about 6 months not 10 and that there is little doubt that it will stand. She asked again if I would adopt M and I said YES! At that moment I had a verizon commercial moment where my cell phone dropped the call right before I answered. Ugh! I very quickly called her back and said "I would love to adopt her". The social worker was very happy and things are moving along well.

[vernellinnj]

FANTASTIC! Keep us posted.

[gothedistance]

A. lived was with us 11 months when she was two, then went back to her birthmother. The birthmother appreciated the bond A. had formed with our family, so she allowed her to come for the weekends twice a month or so. Then the birthmother ran away again and we have had A. ever since February 2006 (17 months) She is 5 and a TPR trial is set to begin in Sept. Meanwhile we have to go through visits each week which are so stressful for the poor child. Not to mention that sometimes the birthmother doesn't show. We are also trying to negotiate a surrender at the same time, but the conditions are getting out of control and we regret agreeing to so many in an attempt to just cut a deal. However, the birthmother hasn't signed anything and we just heard that she had a 24 hour relapse. Why does this have to take so long? It seems the longer things drag out, the more psychological damage will be done to the children. It's so hard to understand why birthmothers like this still hold all the cards and get so many 'second' chances.
Our prayer is that A will bounce back but the hope of that seems to grow smaller with each passing day.

Bio kids ages 17 and 15
Foster child age 5

[SquirlyGirl]

We were scheduled to finalize in June but decided we and the oldest wasn't ready. So we decided to see how it goes over the summer.

Things are going so much better Dh is finally ready to finalize in Oct. The oldest also says he wants to finalize but doesn't want to change his last name.

So our final hurdle is for dh and son to come to a compromise on the last name.

[Boulderbabe]

I posted in your other thread, but here's an additional idea. Why don't ALL of you take a new last name? You could pick a name that has some significance for all of you, and just have a brand new family name.

[tinatyme]

I had a teacher in high school who did that. When he got married they took the letters of both of their last names and created a new name. He said it was great because is symbolized the start of their new relationship together and didn't have patriarchial overtones. I always thought that was great. I told my family that I was going to do that when I adopted my daughter and they were mortified. I decided to not fight that battle!

[tlmerrie]

I wanted to announce that our daughter Jessica was adopted on Monday the 27th of August. I have had computer problems with our home PC this past month or so and haven't had much chance to post. My partner was the only one who was able to adopt her on the 27th. To avoid the risk of having our petition to terminate thrown out because of our relationship, we decided to adopt separately. I have to wait one year for my turn. But she's safe from her bio mother now, so it's enough for me. We're waiting for her new birth certificate now.

To celebrate we went to Taco Bell. Three years ago we had custody of her and lost custody on a jurisdiction issue. We didn't know as much at the time about the biomother's past, so we weren't granted emergency jurisdiction. We had to hand her back. We went to Taco Bell (the same one we celebrated at) for our last few minutes with her before the awful handover. So we remade the situation and took pictures sitting at the same booth that we sat in that day.

We also went to court for her half sisters who live with other relatives. The bioparents didn't bother to show up. Their next step it termination.

Amy

[tinatyme]

Congratulations!! The 5th was the one year anniversary of our adoption of L. I can't believe it has already been a year. That year will go by quickly. We went to Red Lobster for our celebratory dinner but I think my children probably would have preferred Taco Bell.

Tina

[sunnyandi13]

Hi everyone! I'm glad to know this thread is around. It's been reassuring to know our case isn't all that weird, after all.

Our FD S (almost 11) and FS N (just 9) have been with us for more than a year. We are their sixth home in five years (five previous placements were all relatives / kinship care, so those resources have been exhausted and none of them want to adopt our two). Both kiddos are special needs for attachment disorder and PTSD, so it's been a real rollercoaster ride sometimes. At one point, we even thought we'd have to disrupt the placement due to some crisis behavior. However, with time and lots of therapy, we're making progress. Here's our timeline...

Children removed Aug 2002
Kinship care (5 different homes) Aug 2002 - Aug 2006
Foster /Adopt placement with us August 2006
Goal change from RU to Adoption May 2007
TRP Trial July 2007
TRP Granted August 2007
Appeal Period will expire September 15th 2007
Then on to finalization!

We've just been assigned our new adoption worker, so I'm sure we're heading for a new round of paperwork and evals, but there are days when I truly wonder what my life was all about before I started fostering. Can't wait to make it permanent and be done with "workers" for a while...

[lynnpalm]

Hi
So our story continues...
We were supposed to have the TPR trial this past Tues. In our case the state's lawyer changed a couple of months ago. The original lawyer ended up not including on the list the ultimate reason for terminating. The new lawyer as well as the other involved lawyers decided to file an amended termination petition. Our new date isn't until the end of Nov. All of the parties involved tell us to hang in there, but I am so frustrated and disappointed! After 23 months, I am SO ready for there to be some resolution. I just keep holding my breath that things will work out for us to be able to be a forever family.
UGH!

[vernellinnj]

Congrats Amy!!!

For the rest of us - let's hang in there together. This thread let's u know u are not alone.

Our goal is still concurrent planning though the state and the GAL have vehemently asked for TPR. At next hearing (later this yr) my FC will be with me for 19 mos.

Keep praying and trusting.....

[beept]

6 months after TPR and the CW finally completed the adoption subsidy agreement. I signed it yesterday and it should be submitted to the state today. (and hopefully approved!) So although we are not there yet, we are one step closer to finalization!