[vesw01]

Mom is 3 months away from being due with a little boy. I am not sure he will even be taken from them, Mom is working her plan, dad is not (they are married and live together). Anyway, realistically, I can't afford to take 6 weeks off from work unpaid and with my husband working 2nd shift, I don't think I could handle a newborn, BUT.....

We have had the girls (3 and 4 yrs) for almost a year (about a week away) and I am worried that if we don't take the baby they will want to place the girls with a home that would take all the kids to keep the sibs together. I would love to be able to take the baby, but not at the cost of my other kids.

I don't want ot miss the opportunity to adopt them if the case goes that way (first court date at 6 months there was no ruling, they have two failed case plan attempts and we go to court again in March).

We have been through a lot with the girls and it would devistate them to have to move.

Any thoughts?

[BethanyB]

This is TOUGH!

You never know what the state is going to do. I am in NJ and when I got the call for my newborn fost/adopt son I didn't know that he had a sister in care. They did not tell me about her at first. So I was placed with my son and then found out LATER that he had an 18 month old sibling. I'm the one who actually inquired about her but being a single parent I just couldn't do two babies at that time. My son was four months old and I took the little girl just for a respite placement so her foster parents could go to a funeral in Florida.

Since my son was placed with me already and they had not given me the both or nothing speech BEFORE he was placed they didn't try to take him away because I could not take her.

We still keep in touch and the kids will grow up knowing each other. It hurt like hell to say no to her. She was beautiful and happy and OH so funny! But I knew my limits as a new mom and now she has a GREAT adoptive family who loves her so much!

Then about a year after my son was placed with me I got the call for his newborn sibling. At that point I was still not ready for another child quite yet, but I didn't want to split the kids up and I wanted another child someday. And this was a free and clear adoption - no fost/adopt so I had to go for it.

Boy is it tough but I know I made the right choice. She looks SO much like my son and they have that bio connection. I think it is the best thing to keep sibs together but as you say...you have to know your limits. I know now if the phone rang with another child, as much as siblings need to stay together I just couldn't do it. Just couldn't physically. I would love to emotionally. I LOVE kids. It would actually KILL me to say no but I would have to. My two toddlers are running me ragged right now and the expense of diapers and child care and stuff is kicking my butt.

You may be right for worrying that they may try to take the kids and put them altogether BUT I don't think that would be fair. You had no idea that there would be a third sibling. The state can't expect people to keep taking all the new babies that come around even though I would love to. If a family only wants two kids because they know that is what they can handle then they should not have to change that because more babies come around.

So even though I think it is SO important for kids to stay together, I know how tough it is to keep taking more kids when you don't feel you can handle it. And then that would not be fair to anyone.

[vegaschristina]

I found myself in this same situation. I had adopted my Pumpkin, and one month after finalization, we got the call about Bubba. He was 3 months old and entering the system, did we want him?

We immediately said YES! and we were thrilled to bring him home at 5 1/2 months, but when we were talking to the case worker, he informed us that mom was preggers. Don't worry, we are pretty sure this will be a RU case and not termination.

Well, fast forward a few months, and mom was getting ready for the unsupervised home visits with Bubba and she & dad hit a major speed bump. From there all attempts to work her case plan when away. The CW began to make plans for what to do with Sissy. We agreed to take custody of her and began to think of her as our own.

We brought her home at 3 days. She was the smallest little thing! Then 12 days later, the judge decided to give her back to mom. I was heart broken.

I'll keep the story short by saying that mom decided to relinquish Bubba so that she didn't hurt him or Pumpkin by disrupting placement and so that she could stay in their lives. Fast forward another month, and mom again went off the deep end. She was kicked out of her living situation (with her SIL) and she was homeless. Again.

So in December, we brought our Sissy home. We're still hoping for her to relinquish, but at this point TPR seems inevitible.

We did tell the CW that this will be our limit. Three children under the age of 3 is a major challenge, but I wouldn't give them up for anything. I will make any arrangements necessary for my kids to meet and know any future siblings that are born, but I won't be raising them.

It was a hard decision, but with discussion and prayer, we came to realize that for us, this was the path we needed to take. I hope that you find a way to decide what to do with your little one's sibling.

[vesw01]

Wow, I can't imagine thinking of taking them all. These bios are in their 40's so hopefully this will be the end of the ride. They gave their son to be raised by his grandparents (he is now 18) and we have the two girls 3 and 4. Littlest one is due in May. I keep trying to figure out a way, maybe prayer is the answer.

[straightblues]

I was in a similar situation. The bio parents had a baby 1 month before the TPR. We were asked if we wanted him. Due to the parents violent behaivor, we said no. The baby was born clean and the parent never lost him to the system. The two cases were kept completely seperate. It is a tough call.

[Bug-n-Bears-Mommy]

Without a doubt I would say yes. Bug has a sister that was adopted by another family that did not want him. They were open to contact AFTER he was adopted...but have since dropped off the face of the earth. Being one of 5 I can't imagine having sibs out there and not knowing them. But it is also something that WOULD work for our family in it's present situation too.

[mrsred]

I was presented with the same type of problem. E's b mom relinquished rights to him a week before he moved in with us due to the fact that she was almost 8 months pregnant and was hoping to be able to keep the new baby. His baby half-sister was born a month after he moved in with us. That was the end of December. By May we got the call saying baby girl was removed and they would be moving toward termination, were we interested in adopting baby sister too (E's adoption was not yet finalized). I told the case worker I would have to get back to her. I discussed it with my husband and prayed a lot about it. It was one thing for us to be adopting an almost six year old whenI was going on 50, quite another to take on an infant. Also, due to all the early neglect and possible prenatal drug/alcohol exposure E had (still has) a lot of issues and problems. He really would not benifit by having to compete for my attention with a baby. We decided that it was not in his best interest for us to accept baby sister. This was not an easy decision, but I feel it was the right one. We told te case worker that we would like to have the name of her adoptive parents, and for them to have ours. We haven't gottne any information (it has been nearly two years now), and I don't know if she gave our information to them. It is sad that they could not grow up together, but there was no way he could have coped with a baby in the house. He suffers anxiety and would about have a nervous breakdown when we were around friends that had young ones (under 3).

[chelle_bub]

We were in the process of adopting a sibling group of 4 at the time they was 5, 4, 3, and 3 days from turning 1 when we received a phone call that the bio mom had just given birth to a baby girl. They wanted to know if we would want the baby. There was no pressure they said there is alot of families that would take in a baby. It was difficult decision but one we had to decide on quickly since they did not know she was pregnant prior to the birth. We did decide to take this precious bundle of joy. It has been difficult at times having so many little ones but also it has been a joy.
My question to you would be have you asked your socail worker or agency if you weren't to take the baby if this would effect the other 2. Also, you do have to know if this isn't something that you believe you could handle that it may be better for the baby to be elsewhere.
In our case the bio mom is only 26 years old and we don't know if this will be the last baby(our guess is probably not) But our decision at this point has been if there is another baby in the near future unfortunatly we are going to have to say no.
We would hope that we would be able to keep the kids in contact but would not be able to handle another one.

May God Bless you and lead you to the right decision for you!

[kaylasmom]

I don't think that if you refuse to take the new baby that they will remove your girl's. The girls don't know this child, and the baby don't know them, so no harm done. They will want to keep the girls where they are at, safe and happy. There are alot of sib groups not together, of course that is what they try for at the start, but there are alot of time's it can't happen.

Do what is best for you without worring about the removal. talk to the sw and ask if that is what she would do, i'm sure she will say no, that she wanted to give you first chance since you do have the girl's.
It would be nice to keep family's together, but somtimes they just keep having them, and we all have are limits.

Good luck

[bumpkin]

I would ask the sw what the ramificaitons woudl be if you refused the placement. I would hope they would be mindful of you wanting to weigh the responsibilities etc... Just as an FYI, we took our sibs full sister with the knowledge that "everyone" knew that this baby would go the same route (TPR) as the other 4 - well not so, we fostered her for 9 months and had to return her to her bmom who started doing her plan the minute we started fostering her. You just never know.

We were very concerned about taking her, as we had 2 under 15 months at the time but we made it work. There is always a way - it's only really difficult at the beginning, just like anything else, you work it into your schedule and manage it.

Follow your heart, but be informed as well.