[Prettyboicris]

I have been sitting here for the past couple of weeks reading through everything and taking in as much as I can before my wife and I start getting our placement calls.
I was just wondering for people who were primarily intersted in Adoption but decided to use a foster/adoption program or public agency how do you choose which child you accepted into your home?
Did you stick solely to your previous preferences such as age and gender or did you go with what felt right? Did you go by who was TPR or low risk of RU or did you accept the first call that you got?

My wife and I are open to the age range of newborn to age 5 either gender but as I have been reading I know that people have had mixed experiences with regards to accepting newborns prior to TPR. We would prefer a newborn but a toddler/preschooler is great too.
We are wondering if other people accepted the newborn because they were a newborn or did they "wait"?
We worry that we will get a call for a newborn fall in love with him/her and then months after we have bonded have to say goodbye. Eventhough we will always do what is best for the child that situation would be heart breaking!

For those of you that have placements what did you do?

For those of you waiting for placements, what are you planning to do?

Thanks in advance

[laceyc]

We are doing mainly foster but are open to adoption. I will probably go with what "feels right" about accepting a placement. DH and I are both strong Christians and will pray a lot for wisdom to know when to say yes and when to say no.

[onhazier]

We are fostering with with the hope of one day adopting. We've had two placement calls. We turned down the first one and accepted the second.

The first call was for a twin 6 year old girls who were part of a sibling set of 6. We did not feel they were a good match for our home because we could not fit two twin beds in the available room and are not allowed bunkbeds.

The second call was for a 21 month old boy and his 10 month old sister. We accepted them because it was an emergency placement which was expected to be short-term. We also were given permission to put the two in the same room and were able to squeeze in a crib. So, A1 slept in the bed with a safety rail and A2 slept in the crib. They were with us for just over a month. When they were reunited, we said we'd take them back if they ever came back into care.

Our stated preferance is to take in a single child aged 0 - 5. Gender, ethnicity and religion are not limitations for us. We went against that for A1 and A2. While I'm glad we did, we will not do that again. These two children are sweet souls that brightened our home just as much as they tired us out. To us, they will always be special and absolutely worth us making an exception. However, after they were reunited, we had a family discussion and R clearly expressed his desire for only 1 child and not two. So, we've recommitted to that and believe it is right for our family.

At this point, it has been about 2 months of waiting. DH just left for a week out West. On the way to the airport, we talked about "what if we get a call while you're away?" We've decided that if the case fits our age limits and I feel the information we're provided about the child leads me to believe we're a good match to help the child that I will accept the placement without worrying about consulting DH as he may be difficult to reach on short notice.

[Becki_in_IN]

Cris,

I would go with your gut, but keep in mind your guidelines. When we first started, we wanted school-aged kids. I was still teaching school at the time. Our first foster dd was definately at risk. She had lived most of her life in foster care, was almost 9, and was a real baptism in fire. We would have adopted her, but all of a sudden they just sent her home. Mom had not completed her case plan. They just sent her home. We learned a lot from her and started taking 5 and under after that. We had 6 kids, 3 of them twice before we got our eldest dd. She was 13 mos. when she came to live with us. Her baby sister came to live with us 4 mos. after the adoption was final. Now after all these years, their baby brother came at 6 mos. He's 2 now and we still haven't finalized.

When they first called us about dd, they offered us a set of twin boys that were definately going for TPR. They also offered dd, but she would be going home. We had fostered and had most of our kiddos go home to really awful situations. We wanted to adopt. Even though it wasn't logical we went with our gut and took dd. She did become available for adoption later. The twins ended up with a relative.

Now even though we adopted our kids at a young age they still have some significant baggage. Try to get to the bottom of this as much as possible before the adoption is finalized. We chose not to and our youngest dd has some significant disabilities.

[chevyjewel]

Just my experience....

I'm lucky if intake has an accurate age on the child I'm about to accept, much less info on their legal status.

If your plan is to adopt through the foster care system chances are you're going to have to take a chance and simply hope for the best. Chances are you will likely love and then lose one if not several placements before ending up with one that'll become available for adoption that doesn't have family available to take them should they not be able to reunite with their parents. No matter how strict your criteria is in accepting children anything can happen at nearly any time. Even when things seem to be in the clear they can turn around on a dime and there's really not much any of us can do to change the circumstances despite our opinions or feelings.

Most foster children already in the midst of a TPR have foster parents that have fallen in love with them that want to adopt them. I haven't heard of many kiddos that get to that point of needing a different home unless their issues are substantial. I was told during our initial licensing process that coming across the situation of a legally free (or near legally free) infant is so rare, coming across one should be likened to winning the lottery, but with tougher odds.

Also RU isn't the "risk" in the process, it's the plan for the vast majority of foster children. If you truely have your heart set on adoption and fear greatly the loving and losing aspect of the prospect perhaps checking into private adoption might be a better alternative.


Personally I've never been able to turn down a little one. My criteria fly out the window when I get a call and my heart takes over. I'd say follow your gut but explore all your options if adoption is your only goal.

Remember what's meant to be will be. Best of luck to you in whatever you decide!

[Kat-L]

My first placement was "Angel". A newborn who's many, many older siblings were tpr'd/adopted or in foster/adopt homes. Baby was foster/adopt and I was told that no one in Mom's family could pass homestudy. However, several months into the placement, Dad was identified thru DNA testing and baby went to a paternal aunt. So, like others have said, you never know.

With "Brandon", my second placement, he was supposed to stay one night as an emergency placement. The cw wasn't even sure if he was coming into care. I wasn't even licensed for a boy but it was only for one night. Well, it's been 19 months and he is officially an adoptive placement (with TPR pending). However, it's still possible that his mom could step up and regain custody if she is able to hold it together until court.

I've had placements (like Erica) that I just fell in love with the moment I laid eyes on her. I would have kept her forever.
I've had other placements that didn't work out due to attachment issues (a 4 year old and her 2 year old sister).
I've had placements where I eventually fell in love with the child and placements where I never felt those tugs on my heart strings.

So..you never know. However, most people have several placements before they finally end up adopting. It's just the luck of the draw. The cw could tell you it's going to adoption and the judge could order the child placed with a relative 2 months later. The cw could tell you it's a short term placement and you could end up adopting. Like others have said, these cases turn on a dime and you just never know..

[CaddoRose]

For us there were two things. One was our gut feeling about what the CW told us about the child(ren) and the other was our CW( at our agency) really knows us and knows they type of children we are willing to accept. She would never send us a child knowing it did not match our family life because she would then have to deal with a disruption of placement. My CW at CPS also knows what we want and she send us our 18 month old girl, who we are now adopting.

In the beginning we had some ideas about what we would like: didn't care about ethnic group or gender. Siblings ok up to 3. No major medical issues as I felt I was not prepared at the beginning to handle that. Any age up to about 9 yrs old.

Our first placement was a girl 2. 5 yrs who had short legs. No one knew she had a long list of birth defects, but none of those affected her mental ability. Three months later her brother(18 months) was moved to us also. Both very far behind in developmental areas and speech. We would have kept them if possible, but they went to relatives and we're very happy they did. Their family wanted them and that's what we got into fostering for in the first place.

The second placement is our daughter the 18 month old who came two weeks after the first kids left. I just took in an 18 month old boy and his 4 yr old brother. All the CW told me was they were part of a sib set of 5 that where split between 3 homes and they were taken because of the parent's continued addiction problems. They are not going home again, but they won't be adopted by us either.

I second everything chevyjewel said. There is no way to know the outcome until the day the judge signs the piece of paper making them yours.

[RNFosterMom]

I think it is a "gut" decision as to which age range to take, but we decided to stick with newborn to age 3 not only because we enjoy this age group, but also for practical considerations. We knew we wanted little ones, so we bought lots of baby stuff. If we took a 5 year old, for example, we'd have to buy lots of other stuff for that age range. Even buying almost everything on craigslist involved a large $$ outlay.

We have in the first 2 instances taken whatever they called us with (both were newborns) and in the 3rd instance, placement #2's CW referred us for an 8 month old infant recently assigned to her. As I understand it, in our county infants are almost ALWAYS on a reunification track, at least to begin with.

I would say that when you take in foster kids, especially young babies, you definitely have to be prepared for heartbreak. We've only been fostering for 8 months and we've already had one newborn who went home after 4 months -- who then came back after 2 months -- and who we are very possibly going to lose again after 6 weeks! We are foster only, but would like to adopt this little one if we can. Our other infant, who is now 12 months old, has been with us for 4 months and will probably reunify in 8 weeks or so.

The other really tough thing to prepare for is not only that the babies often go home, but that the situations to which they return are usually not what you might consider favorable or even acceptable -- but they are good enough for the court, so back they go.

I hope fostering will be a good experience for you. We have really enjoyed it, but if our experience is typical, it definitely has drawbacks that can be surprisingly annoying and/or painful regardless of how well prepared you think you are.

[dachshunds4you]

I agree with what everyone is saying. Our 4th fc was the one we got to adopt. The 2nd fc still makes me cry to think about her, but I know she is doing good with grandmother. Our 3rd fc we never bonded with him, so I was glad he went to his aunt. Our 5th was hard, because that one seemed for sure for adoption, but went to aunt. Our 6th and 7th went with family, but we knew it going in.
We now have a new baby after a week. It's similar to another's where bio mom has had 2 kids taken and adopted, but dad needs to be determined via paternity test. So it could go either way.

You HAVE to go into foster adopt with the attitude that each of these kids WILL go back to family. You love them the same, and miss them so much when they go, but you know that's the way it should be. The ones you finally get to keep makes it all worth it in the end.

If you can't accept that fc will go back to family, you shouldn't be doing this. The goal is always RU, and if not them family, and if not family then close family friends, and if not them then YOU!

It's a tough road at times, but I would never change what we do!

[minerva]

Originally Posted by chevyjewel

If your plan is to adopt through the foster care system chances are you're going to have to take a chance and simply hope for the best.

I couldn't agree more with that statement! Every child you take into your home is going to be a chance. I do believe that by becoming more educated about foster care, you can make more informed decisions when called for a placement, in deciding if this situation is one in which you are willing to take that chance. The hard part about foster-adopt is that there are always going to be some unknowns, and for us those unknowns have really centered more on the competence of the people who called us for the placements.

We've had 3 foster placements placements and so far only our most recent placement is likely going to be adopted by us. Our first FD was a newborn who was a seemingly perfect legal risk placement - the baby was born in prison, mom had 4 other children adopted out by DSS, all to non-relatives, she was incarcerated for 2 more years, she gave false information about a birthfather, and a family friend had already been excluded as placement because she failed the homestudy, and she had already told them she did NOT want to adopt this child, just guardianship. DSS was not going to go along with guardianship when they knew this perfectly healthy infant would easily be adopted. BUT....2 days later this family friend showed up in court with what I told was a very "questionable" new homestudy, conducted at midnight the day before court by an inexperienced SW, that she passed. And just like that, we never saw this little girl again. All we can do is pray that she is with someone who is loving her and providing her with the forever home she deserves.

As hard as that was to go through, and it still hurts, a lot of good came from it. We learned a lot about DSS and the whole legal process, because this experience forced us to learn how all of this could even happen. We learned to be more cautious in who we tell when we get a placement, before we know more information. We learned a lot about the differences in social workers - enough to know that a SW can singlehandedly make or break a situation more than we would have realized. But most importantly, we learned that we ARE stronger than we realized, and that we were not going to let one disappointment, or even two, keep us from hoping the child who was meant to be a part of our family, the child who really needed us, would find us.

Our second placement taught us a lot, because this baby never should have been taken into care - and if the idiot SWs had given this mom one more day to calm down, he never would have been. So after learning more, we realized that now we will not accept calls if they come from one particular DSS office (we have 2 in our county) because one office is filled with nothing but incompetent people! This baby was a month old when he came and went home after 1 1/2 months and honestly I don't miss him. It was a lot easier because I accepted he never should have come into care, so I was lucky in that sense.

Our third placement came at 7 months old (1 week after our 2nd placement left!) and now she is 17 months and on the road to adoption. She was not "technically" a legal risk, but family and friends at the initial meeting requested a foster-adopt family, so here we are. We had a good gut feeling about her, and odds are she will be our forever child.

Again, it's all about chance and odds - but the longer you do this the more you learn about your social services agency and the odds you are facing. Unfortunately it does often mean you will have a child leave your home at some point. And I honestly didn't think I could ever face having a child leave when we first started out - but we have and we're stronger for it. I think it just makes that child you adopt even more special in your mind and heart, because of all you've been through. And sometimes that's completely worth it!

[DannieAS]

I have a very large bedroom suite (the townhouse I bought is a double master suite) so my preference is for either one or two....but if there is a sibling....same gender, I am a firm believer that boys and girls should have seperate rooms.

My preferences are 0-4 (I want to do that Kinder year by taking them to the first day of K) and I would love a newborn, however, I am in love with 18mo-4 yo....

I've worked in the preschool assessment team at my work so I have served children and assessed children for speech and language anywhere from 2 years 6 mo to 4 years 6 mo....and I just love that age....yes even the throwing and screaming.

I'm also very comfortable with children who have slight developmental delays due to neglect and who have speech and language issues because that is my area of expertise and unless there is something more to the developmental delays (e.g. autism, cognitive delays/MR, syndromes etc) I've seen the miracle of early intervention and I know the ins and outs of the system.

So that's what I"m comfortable with...and it will be a gut feeling when it's my turn to say 'yay' or 'nay' on a placement call.

[LollipopsAndGumdrops]

>>We learned to be more cautious in who we tell when we get a placement, before we know more information.

I'm curios what you mean by this, Minerva. Would you please be more specific with what you learned?

[Chancey]

Originally Posted by Kat-L

I've had placements (like Erica) that I just fell in love with the moment I laid eyes on her. I would have kept her forever.
I've had other placements that didn't work out due to attachment issues (a 4 year old and her 2 year old sister).
I've had placements where I eventually fell in love with the child and placements where I never felt those tugs on my heart strings.

I couldn't say it any better than what Kat-L is saying. You never know how you are going to feel about a child. We have a 8 month old currently whom we have had since he was 2 months old. I am sooooo ready for his reunification next week. I have not had the heart strings pulled on this one.

In another situation we had a 5 year old girl whom we would have kept in a heartbeat if she would have been available.

So, basically, don't rule yourself out of anything, and do expect, if fostering, to not like some, to love some, to tolerate some and maybe lose some that you would prefer stay.

[thelowlanders]

Just my opinion....

I would recommend older ones. 4 or 5 year olds. As far as adoption goes... From our experience so far, you at least get to know somewhat what they're like. What personality they seem to have. How the in utero substances are effecting them. How their experience w/ birth family is effecting them. With our little ones, it's a wait it out and see thing. And adoption may come up before you know.

Just my 2cents anyway

[potentialsinglemom]

You and your wife know what you can handle. Ask questions when the cw calls. Do not be afraid to say "No". I turned down quite a few because I knew that the child and the child's situation would be too much for me to handle for a "first placement". Yes, I felt awful for saying "No", but I did not want a child to come into my home and have to be moved later because I was unable to handle him.