[elk134]

We started pre-placement visits with 13 yo twins-boy and girl. We had one day long visit. It went pretty well. We just had an overnight visit this past weekend. It went okay. The kids are very well-behaved and polite. From what the FM and SW say, these kids are great. No behavior issues, no educational issues, very smart kids. My DH and 16yo bio son say they like them. I am now getting very scared and wonder if we made the right decision. I have no idea why either. I am the one who "pushed" for these kids in the first place when their initial profile was forwarded to us. I am having some second thoughts and regrets about the whole situation. I know its early, but I am scared to death we will not bond, that I will feel like I am babysitting for the next 5 or so years. I am worried about how our family dynamics will change. DH and I can just "get up and go" when we want as our bio son is old enough to leave on his own. I know this is all things I should have thought about long, long ago... and I thought I had. But now reality is setting in and I am just not sure if I can do this. Really, I want to not go forward right now. I was even feeling sick to my stomach and losing sleep over it. I have told DH my feelings and he has said, "Oh it will be fine," and that was it. I would feel awful and soooo guilty telling SW that I am having second thoughts as the kids haven't even moved in with us yet, and they already have had one disrupted adoptive placement (they were with them almost 2 years) and I know this would hurt them. What I can't understand is that from the time we were initially getting licensed I was so excited and was so sure I wanted to do this, and now I am feeling like this. I know there children's lives at stake here. Has anyone else had these feelings and how did you handle them or deal with them? Did you go through with it anway?

[myForeverkids3]

Well, I hesitated about responding to this one because I never like to discourage anyone from adopting, especially an older child. I just want to tell you my experience and maybe that will help you??

We tried to adopt 10 and 11 yr old brothers. The 1st 6 months were wonderful. We had a blast with them. Then, the truth started coming out. They were lying about us to the therapist to try and manipulate us into changing our rules...Can't really explain the rest. But, by the year and a half point, the whole family was miserable and there was tension all the time. This was heart breaking for us. By the 2 yr mark, the boys were asking to go live with their sister who turned 21 and the judge agreed so they left. (One went right away, the other said he still wanted to stay with us but changed his mind 9 months later) We could have fought for them to stay, but we didn't see the point. It felt like we were forcing them to be our sons when they didn't want to be.

Looking back, these are the things that would have made things better and possibly changed the outcome.
1. The therapist should have met with us as a family and not just with the boys. She allowed herself to be a pawn and she contantly asked if they "liked living with us". That gave them the impression that this was optional and they could change their minds and live somewhere else.
2. The boys had WAY too much contact with the birth family. They constantly reminded them that blood makes a family and that we were not "real" parents. They never called us mom and dad.
3. We had NO training about attatchment disorders and no support from the agency. They questioned our house rules in front of the kids and spoke spanish to them in front of us knowing we did not understand.

Despite all of that, this CAN turn out to be a wonderful experience for your whole family IF you make sure that the above does not happen to you. 1.Don't allow someone to come in and take your kids off alone to "talk" about YOU. 2. Make sure there will not be contact with ANYONE that doesn't fully support you as the parents 3. Make sure your agency/SW is willing and ready to provide you with the support you need.

Sorry so long. I will just say one last thing. I will NEVER regret the 2 1/2 years I spent with the boys. We learned so much and (while they may never admit it) they learned a lot too! If you don't want to do this, don't do it and don't fell badly about it either. If you decide to adopt them, go into it with your whole heart and do not allow anyone to come in and mess things up.

[elk134]

Thank you so much for your response! It is just so nice to hear from others who have gone through similar situations. We are going on vacation next week, the kids are supposed to come along. After vacation they will be going back to FM for some "processing" time. I think I will need it also. I am hoping that after next week, I will either feel better about it or will know I just can't do it. The odd thing is DH and bio son seem to be very excited about the kids. (Very opposite of the three young foster children we had before.)

We also will be reviewing their case file in a couple of weeks. Maybe after that I will have some more history to help me out. The CW said we will need to allow at least a couple of days to go through their file as she has two file cabinet drawers full for them(that does include the other four siblings, though, that we are not adopting and will not be allowed to see).

[myForeverkids3]

I would definately want to know why previous placements failed. It is great that the CW is being so open with you. To get to see their file will be very helpful. This would have helped us tremendously with the boys we tried to adopt. Maybe we would have understood them better? Maybe they would still be with us? Have a great vacation. Try not to stress about it and enjoy the time you have with them.

[trixiebell]

i remember about a week before we bought our boys home having a major freak out ... the visits went really well, we were really excited to bring them home but suddenly i got very scared of what i was doing, whether i had missed something and they actually had way more issues then anyone had noticed etc etc...
i got over it, they moved in and things continue to go very well (all the normal teenage and new foster placement stuff but they are settling well and family life is chaotic and happy)...and from time to time in the quiet time at night i have a little panic...i think it is normal given the monumental life change you are about to go through

[bettynme]

We met our 8yr old son last march...we visited with him until June and he was set to move in July....I was excited, and could not wait for move in day...and our vacation...3 days after move in we went camping for a week... As move in day approached, I became more and more anxious...I had done too much reading on RAD and attachment disorders..and had read so many bad experiences that my nerves were shot...Would we ever bond...would he run away...would he be angry at us....what kind of behaviors will we see and how will I deal withit....can I mother a kid that had been through so much...how would my life change and would I be ok with those changes.. Well....going on vacation so soon after move in was a good thing..it gave us time to bond without distractions...we worked as a team and set some family standards in place...my son was distant, wanted his bio family and was angry at his situation... my life is different...I can not go as I please...I spend time at ball parks and karate studios...I have conversations about life with groups of tweens on my front step...My life today does not even resemble what it once was....but the same happened for my son...One morning about 4 months after placement he began to call me mommy and hasn't stopped since...he is happy and adjusted...it seems as though he had always been here...that is how natural life with him has become...Now in between there was alot of work to it...but it has been all worth it...his adoption was finalized in June...
All of that to say this...the transition time can be tough...be ready to listen and interpret their feelings. Hold to your standards and your earn respect...but most of all be sure you are ready to commit to do what it takes to make it work for all concerned...if they even sense you might give up on them you'll lose them...Follow your heart and your gut. Even though I was scared to death, that something we refer to kept telling me he belonged with us.

So to answer the initial question....yep I was scared too...is it normal...I don't know...but it certainly was my experience too....

Blessings...

[myForeverkids3]

It's true what the other posters are saying about the anxiety in the beginning. Even when someone is about to have their first baby they have feelings of "can I do this, do I know what I'm doing, what if my baby is difficult to raise, am I totally giving up my freedom?" Change is hard and those anxious feelings don't always mean that you shouldn't still go through with it. I just wanted to ditto what they said because it is very true. Your feelings are very normal. If you do adopt them, go into it knowing that the first 6 months to a year can be very rough. If you know that ahead of time it will be much easier to deal with. We were very naive going into our 1st adoption and we had NO ONE to give us a reality check!

So, how is it going?

[elk134]

The previous adoptive placement failed because the adoptive parents got a divorce and were bickering over who would get the kids. The kids really werent' legally theirs yet as TPR wasn't even completed, much less the adoption final. The kids were staying with the dad but mom was making life difficult for them. According to CW it got pretty ugly and the kids were removed from the home and a new adoptive placement sought and we were chosen.

We went on vacation last week and took the kids with us. Honestly, I wasn't really wanting to at first. I was ready to tell the CW and everyone else on the team that we had changed our minds. But I didn't and the kids came along. DH said wait until after vacation and then we can decide. Well, I am glad I did wait. Vacation went well. There were some quirks and there were a couple of times they drove me crazy in the back seat, but I guess whose kids don't drive them crazy driving half way across the country. But by the end of the week, I was feeling better about the situation. I still freak out at moments, but now I just would not have the guts to call the CW and say I changed my mind like I was ready to do two weeks ago. I am even to the point that I think the kids just might like us too. An example- We were at Mt. Rushmore, and after taking pictures we were on our way back to the car. J & C were walking together behind us as they tended to do, but then J left C, came up to me and said, "You know, I have only ever seen that in books. It is neat to see it in real life. This is pretty cool." Then she walked back with me (not her brother) all the way back to the car, and I thought, "Yeah, this is pretty cool." That did it for me. I knew we would be keeping these kids.

Also, the kids have to go back to their former FP for one last weekend. Final move is Monday. C is ready to stay here. We were getting laundry finished to take back to other FP and C said, "Do we really have to go back?" I said "Yes, just for one more weekend." (Other FP's want to take the kids to an amusement park as a goodbye party) He asked when was the soonest he could come back and I told him Monday, and he said, "Oh, that's like a long time away." So I am pretty sure the kids will settle in okay.

I am a little worried, this is going too easy though. I mean, these are teenagers. I was expecting defiance and attitude. (They have been in the system for over four years, I would think that would make some kids pretty bitter.) I have seen neither. These kids seem to want to please. It's odd. But hopefully, they will get some finality (is that a word?) soon. TPR hearing is set for end of September. Hopefully that goes through and we can move on.

DH and I had a long talk. He pointed out that we worked too hard and for too long to get to this point. And if I had wanted a bigger family for so long, then I should at least wait a while before I give up what we have now. And he's probably right.

[myForeverkids3]

Originally Posted by elk134

The previous adoptive placement failed because the adoptive parents got a divorce and were bickering over who would get the kids. The kids really werent' legally theirs yet as TPR wasn't even completed, much less the adoption final. The kids were staying with the dad but mom was making life difficult for them. According to CW it got pretty ugly and the kids were removed from the home and a new adoptive placement sought and we were chosen.

We went on vacation last week and took the kids with us. Honestly, I wasn't really wanting to at first. I was ready to tell the CW and everyone else on the team that we had changed our minds. But I didn't and the kids came along. DH said wait until after vacation and then we can decide. Well, I am glad I did wait. Vacation went well. There were some quirks and there were a couple of times they drove me crazy in the back seat, but I guess whose kids don't drive them crazy driving half way across the country. But by the end of the week, I was feeling better about the situation. I still freak out at moments, but now I just would not have the guts to call the CW and say I changed my mind like I was ready to do two weeks ago. I am even to the point that I think the kids just might like us too. An example- We were at Mt. Rushmore, and after taking pictures we were on our way back to the car. J & C were walking together behind us as they tended to do, but then J left C, came up to me and said, "You know, I have only ever seen that in books. It is neat to see it in real life. This is pretty cool." Then she walked back with me (not her brother) all the way back to the car, and I thought, "Yeah, this is pretty cool." That did it for me. I knew we would be keeping these kids.

Also, the kids have to go back to their former FP for one last weekend. Final move is Monday. C is ready to stay here. We were getting laundry finished to take back to other FP and C said, "Do we really have to go back?" I said "Yes, just for one more weekend." (Other FP's want to take the kids to an amusement park as a goodbye party) He asked when was the soonest he could come back and I told him Monday, and he said, "Oh, that's like a long time away." So I am pretty sure the kids will settle in okay.

I am a little worried, this is going too easy though. I mean, these are teenagers. I was expecting defiance and attitude. (They have been in the system for over four years, I would think that would make some kids pretty bitter.) I have seen neither. These kids seem to want to please. It's odd. But hopefully, they will get some finality (is that a word?) soon. TPR hearing is set for end of September. Hopefully that goes through and we can move on.

DH and I had a long talk. He pointed out that we worked too hard and for too long to get to this point. And if I had wanted a bigger family for so long, then I should at least wait a while before I give up what we have now. And he's probably right.

Happy to hear that your vacation went well. My advice (after messing things up royally the first time around) is to educate yourself as much as possible about attatchment, specifically older child attatchment. This will only work if you and your husband make a concentrated effort to bond with them. The ball is your court. It is going to be up to you to find things they are interested in and then spend time with each of them, a LOT of TIME. We jumped into adopting older children with NO training or experience and I believe that is why they are not with us today. I thought they were going to be so thankful we adopted them! LOL They were just kids! They also had CWs and therapists undermining our efforts and birth family confusing the heck out of them.
With our current placement I refuse to allow anyone to counsel my children without me present and I am reading and researching about attatchment every spare minute that I have available. I would suggest the same to you. Be aggressive about making this work for your family.

Give those kids your whole heart and you will never regret it, no matter what the outcome.

I can't tell you how wonderful it felt for our former foster daughter to email me and say thanks for pushing her into college! WOW never thought I'd hear a thank you from that girl, but it was great! A little past due, but great. lol

[elk134]

Thanks so much for your advice! myForeverkids3, sorry to hear your placement didn't work out. Luckily for us, I think, the CW and child counselors are all "on our side" so to speak. There is no longer contact with parents. While TPR has not yet officially happened, and I am slightly worried a realtive could pop up, everyone on the team seems to think it's a no-brainer at this point. (It has after all been almost four and a half years). But I am taking your advice and running to the library and to the bookstore today and getting my hand on some older child attachment books. Have there been any you found particularly helpful?

[myForeverkids3]

I'm reading "The Connected Child" right now. "Parenting the Hurt Child" and "Parenting with Love & Logic" are next on my list. Ya'll have experience parenting a teen already so that will help you a lot! I think what is most important going in is that you really spend a lot of individual time getting to know them and building trust. Hope everything goes smoothly.
-Julie

[sundara]

Please do not give up on adoption, but at the same time, you really need to trust your instincts - something is making you feel this way - could be nerves, but it could be something else that didn't feel 'quite right'.

See my tag - its been 7 years since we adopted 4 siblings from foster care. The first 2 years were great, and then things slowly started getting tough as the true depth of the trauma done to our kids began to come out, thru behaviors, disclosure, etc.

However, there were signs that I missed back then that I can see now were there all along, and that reading this book might have helped me with.

For example, my 2nd oldest DD, at our first meeting, kept asking to sit in the front seat of the van with DH, which put me in the back seat. She sat next to him at pizza hut & redirected the other kids where to sit (where she wanted them to). At first I thought it was just her being a kid, but then she kept doing it. I had to clue DH in, as he did not realize this was a control thing for her, he thought it was because she just really liked him. Later on, we found that she was the most severely abused, so her strategy was to 'make friends' with male figures so they would not hurt her, and to be controlling over mother figures because of her deep anger that her biomom did not protect her from biodad. Just one example of many that occurred.

We too were told that our kids were 'the best' with little to no behavior issues or trauma, especially given that they had been in foster care for 4 years. And they were. But I still wish I had found and read this book sooner.

Even though I might not have thought it applied to us then, and even though we did have 6 weeks of evening classes & discussions about trauma, if/when it started unfolding, at each turn we thought, 'this is the worst it will get, things will start to get better'. But it did not do so very easily, and I think many "mistakes" that we made might not have happened if I had had this book as a resource then.

For example, it talks about traditional parenting methods that do not work with traumatized kids, and WHY they do not work for them - and they do it without blaming the kids or the adoptive parents, which is no small task.

(Too many of the books I had read to this point kept saying they were not blaming the Aparents, but ended up kindof doing that because they expected so much behavioral tracking/intervention/extreme documentation/rewards/tracking, etc, that seriously, no one without a PHD in special ed could possibly pull off 24/7 & stay sane! Even hospitals with a full staff could not do it!).

We still have our kids (my heart goes out to myForeverkids3, I am so sorry for yours & the kids' loss), but truthfully, there are days when the struggle is almost enough to make me want to stop. This week was one of them, and this book was very helpful with making me feel validated and realising that there is help out there.

I truly believe that this book should be required reading for all adoptive parents (or at the very least for anyone adopting from either foster or institutionalized care of any kind).

[myForeverkids3]

WOW Sundara. Sounds like ya'll have had some hard times. I am finding myself wishing that I had read these books and talked to all of ya'll on these boards BEFORE I began parenting these kids. (not that I would not have done it, just that I would be more prepared) Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with the pressure of raising "hurt" and traumatized children. Other people can pretty much just raise their kids the way they were raised. In "The Connected Child" they suggest not sending the kids to their room as punishment, it makes them feel even more alone and isolated. That's exactly what we have been doing!! good grief, I am totally screwing up! I have to constantly be thinking about what might be behind their behavior and what they might need from me that I am not giving them. More attention???? Maybe if I had 30 hrs in a day instead of 24!!!
Anyway, I KNOW that what we are doing is very worth while and the kids reward me every day with their progress and their smile and sometimes a flower picked from the yard. lol They really are precious and innocent. (although I do dread the teen years-how is that going??)

[elk134]

Thank you so much for sharing your story with us Sundara. I am sure it will help me in the future when I go the same struggles you have gone through. Because I know things are going to come up with our kiddos. They may be good kids with no behavior issues right now, but I know there has to be a lot of emotions running their minds and hearts that they are not yet comfortable letting us know about yet. And I can bet that when they are ready to "tell" us, it may not be in some neat conversation that everyone feels good about, but rather in some behavior that drives everyone crazy.

I have already started reading Attaching in Adoption and plan to read the others after that. Wow, so much good information!

The kids have been with us for a week now and so far things are going well. Makes me wonder if things are going too well, but I know it is still very early. If we ask them to do something, they say "okay, sure!" Or if we ask them to stop doing something they say "okay." No argument, they just stop- (Now, if only I could get bio son to do that!) However, I keep thinking once they really settle in and get more comfortable, that may change. But I sure am loving it right now!

[HONUVALEBEL]

We get our placement (brothers 6 and 9) coming on Thursday to move in! We have had some good lengthy visits and their progress has been amazing. I have read "The Connected Child" and "Beyond Consequences, Logic and Control". "The Connected Child" is AWESOME! I actually used a textbook scenario yesterday... One of the boys lied and I knew it and I hugged him and told him that I know that it can be scary to tell the truth and told him that we loved him and that we are not going anywhere. I said that we won't give up on him and that he can ALWAYS tell us the truth and walked away. I didn't mention it again and later when I was sitting outside while he was riding his bike, he rode up to me and said, "I did do that", confessing from earlier. I gave him a huge hug and told him how proud of him I was and let it go. It worked!!! Straight from the book!

Good luck and be patient and do EVERYTHING out of love.