[graciej]

Now that we are almost to the end of the adoption journey with our FD (termination was about two weeks ago -- finalization should be next month), I'm worrying about her half-sister. The biomom should be released from jail in about four months. That means she could get supervised visits. It will be devastating if she is separated from her sister and from us. She's been here since birth. My heart tells me that's not likely to happen given the bparents track records, but how do you cope with the prospect of sending off a baby to visit with someone she hasn't seen for a year or more? Anyone ever been through this? What was the outcome?

[irelady10]

Hi. I'm not sure how old the baby is, but I'll share my experiences. My FS (who was placed with me at 10 days and never left the hospital before his placement) was 6 months old when he started weekly (sporadic, as they missed visits often) with his biodad, then biomom when she was not incarcerated. I can give you some advice, some things I wished I had done which would have made the visits easier for him: please ask the biomom if you can start the visit together (I'm hoping you will be taking the baby to the visits), then when the baby is a bit more comfortable with biomom, you could sneak from the room. If you do this during the 1st few visits, it will be less traumatic for the baby- she won't be visiting someone who is a stranger to her. Maybe you could talk to the caseworker about this. Also, send a favorite blanket or toy with the baby. This may be comforting to her. I snuggled my baby ALOT after his visits, to try and offset and trauma he may have felt (he had a REALLY hard time- this baby was not a big crier, and he screamed during the visits with tears streaming down his face...his was so hard to listen to him cry so hard!). If you could manipulate it so the baby needs a bottle during the visits, having biomom give the bottle can also help develop a bond between them.

I wish you luck and hope the baby does okay with the visits. Having been through this, I would like to help make your (baby's) visits easier than my (baby's) visits, so feel free to pm me if you have any questions!

Oh- a huge positive in me bringing the baby to his visits. The bioparents and I developed a relationship, and this played a big part in them signing an identified surrender to me. They could see how much I loved this baby and how bonded we were.

[graciej]

Thanks for the advice and suggestions. I think I will ask the caseworker if we could possibly delay the visitation (if biomom even requests it) for a few weeks. I'm a teacher, so I'm usually at work in the daytime and a case aide normally picks up my foster children for visits. But if the visits didn't start until June, I could take her myself, which might help if I could sit in on the visits. I've never really had opportunity to sit and talk to this mom for longer than a minute or two (usually at court or before a supervised visit) since she's been incarcerated most of the time I've had the children, but she has written to me three or four times and I've written back to her. I hope she knows how much we love her children and that we are caring for them well, but I don't think she would ever agree to a voluntary surrender. The agency asked her before they moved to involuntarily terminate on the oldest child and she refused. She was incarcerated at the time of the baby's birth, so she hasn't seen her since she was born and the baby will be 13 months old when the biomom is released.

Her visits with the oldest were sporadic when she wasn't incarcerated, so I guess I will have to wait and see what happens.

Thanks for sharing your experience. It helps.

[Perfect7]

Isn't it a bit odd to not seek termination for all involved children at the same time? I guess maybe they are allowed to work a plan for each of the children but this seems very illogical. If someone is determined unfit for one child, what would qualify them as fit for another? Way off topic, I know, but this makes no sense to me. I hope you end up adopting both of your daughters. :-)

[graciej]

Originally Posted by Perfect7

Isn't it a bit odd to not seek termination for all involved children at the same time? I guess maybe they are allowed to work a plan for each of the children but this seems very illogical. If someone is determined unfit for one child, what would qualify them as fit for another? Way off topic, I know, but this makes no sense to me. I hope you end up adopting both of your daughters. :-)

Funny you should say this. I asked all along why they would terminate rights to just one child and not both. The caseworker told me because they are half-sisters and have different fathers. I still don't understand that. Why didn't they terminate bio-mom's rights to both children at the same time? They can address bio-dad at a later date because the baby is only 9 months and apparently they need to give him more time to work a case plan. But what they have done now is open up a situation whereas the bio-mom who was deemed unfit to have one of the children may end up with visitation of the other one. ?????

There is a hearing for my youngest coming up before bio-mom's release from jail, so I'm thinking I should call her child advocate and push for them to move for termination. Would you do that? The child advocate is very in favor of the youngest child staying here as well, given the bparents' histories.

[fostapeepz]

We have 5yo twin girls who have been with us over a year, and their half brother (19mo, been with us 6mo). When he was removed, the GAL filed termination on all 3. We were set to have court early december, but it was continued until March. Now the GAL is looking to split the kids and change the goal to reunification on the baby - which she says means he has to be moved out of our home (because it would be too confusing for the girls for the baby to have visits, while they do not). We understood, initially, that there was no guarantee that he would stay - but once they filed termination on all 3, I never imagined they would change their mind and put us on this roller coaster. She feels she has plenty to present a case on behalf of the girls, but because mom never had a caseplan on the baby, she thinks it's premature to try to get termination. Makes absolutely no sense to me. Same mom, same issues - and there were plenty of notations and comments of concern in regards to care of the baby while she was having visits with the girls.

I'm not sure what state you're in, but I looked in to HHS policy in our state. Some states have rigid rules about keeping siblings together - regardless of whether or not there are different fathers. I used this website, and then googled the rest: http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/n...t_Policies.pdf

Good luck!!