[Mom2blessings]

Originally Posted by aprizzle

Did you feel like you "belonged"?
I always felt like i belonged. The way my foster parents treated their foster childeren where more as if we had came from my foster mothers belly. ( foster parents are my adoptive parents) If there was not the pegmint change people wouldnt have known we were not theres. (im black my parents are white.)

Are you glad you were adopted?
Yes I am very glad that i am adopted. I wouldnt change it for the world. They chose me and i chose them. I am lucky to have had the LUCK of being placed in there care.

Did you have an open adoption?
Yes

If your adoption was open, are you glad that it was?
Is I am glad it was open!! I come from a sibling group of 4 me being the only girl and the baby. I was NEVER DENIDED the RIGHT to have contect with my siblings. BIO-MOM was more in the picture when i was younger and after she went to prison there were just letters and gifts.
Do you think all adopted children would benefit from therapy?
YES

In your opinion, what can an adoptive family do help the children adopted from foster care the most?
Let them understand that this is the LAST STOP on the BUS. What ever you do will not make us send you packing and that they love them. Talk about their questions and ANSWER THEM TRUTHFULLY. Even though it may be painful to tell them the hole truth with holding information can come back and bit ya in the but. Let them know that there felling tward there experience was not their fault and their bio-mother.

I had just decided to quit using adoption.com for support and then you answered Thank you for your answers. Everyone of them are helpful to me. When I originally posted this, I was not even fostering yet. This was my pre-foster research. Now, I've been fostering for 2 years, and we are in the process of adopting 3 children from foster care. They are siblings, so openness with siblings is a done deal!

[Hugsie]

Mom2blessings (hope you are still around) Thank you for starting this thread. I am where you were two years ago. I am doing my research, have not even been to the orientation meeting yet.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this thread. It has given me a lot to think about and many pointers on helping our future children.

[Mike06]

Why would any one be happy about being taken from family?. I was seven when I was taken away from my family. There was a medical problem I had that made it hard for Bfamily to keep me. Neighbor lady offered to take me in as foster child, with placement consent, which meant if she located adoptable family she could place me.

Well she "forgot" to tell family she already had me placed . I was with her two days when I was told I was being placed with a friend of her's that wanted me.
Nice huh?
Timmy

[Mom2blessings]

Originally Posted by Mike06

Why would any one be happy about being taken from family?. I was seven when I was taken away from my family. There was a medical problem I had that made it hard for Bfamily to keep me. Neighbor lady offered to take me in as foster child, with placement consent, which meant if she located adoptable family she could place me.

Well she "forgot" to tell family she already had me placed . I was with her two days when I was told I was being placed with a friend of her's that wanted me.
Nice huh?
Timmy

I'm so sorry you experienced this! One of the biggest things I've learned as a foster parent is the importance of being truthful with the kids or birth family as much as possible. This is one of the things that I think is just awful about foster care.

The questions that I originally asked have proven to be very beneficial to me as I looked for answers on whether I would be helping or hurting children by participating in the foster care system.

My conclusion is that I would be helping. Many of the former foster children have posted on this forum and were glad that they were taken and/or adopted. Many have were glad to have been removed from their situations.

Thank you so much for adding your point of view to this. As always, I learn from each person.

[BRANDI18DAYBELL]

I WAS TAKEN AT THE AGE OF 4 AND WAS IN AT LEAST 19 FOSTER HOMES BECAUSE THE ABUSIVE ONES SCARED THE PEE OUTTA OF ME I WISHED EVY NIGHT MY MOM WOULD BE A SUPERHERO AND FIND ME ...BUT THAT NVR DID BUT WHEN I WAS IN A HOME I LIKED I LOVED THAT I WAS TAKEN ...NOW I AM ADOPTIED WHEN I WAS 17 AN DFOUND A LOVIN FAMILY I STILL TALK TO MY BIRTH FAMILY AND SEEIN THEM NOW THAT IM OLDER AND MORE MATURE IF U WERE TO ASK ME THAT QUESTION I WOULD SAY YES IT WAS FOR THE BEST AND NOW IM GOING TO GO TO COLLEGE AND BE A PAROLE OFFICER .....WHLE I HAD A HARD TIME IN FOSTERCARE IT HAS MADE MORE WISER IN WHAT I WANT IN A FAMILY

[evillemomndad]

I was taken at 16, and RU'd just a couple of months later.

I wasn't happy at the time, but looking back on it, I'm glad it happened, since it gave everyone a wake-up call.

I love my foster mom, and still talk to her 7 years later

[Mom2blessings]

Originally Posted by BRANDI18DAYBELL

I WAS TAKEN AT THE AGE OF 4 AND WAS IN AT LEAST 19 FOSTER HOMES BECAUSE THE ABUSIVE ONES SCARED THE PEE OUTTA OF ME I WISHED EVY NIGHT MY MOM WOULD BE A SUPERHERO AND FIND ME ...BUT THAT NVR DID BUT WHEN I WAS IN A HOME I LIKED I LOVED THAT I WAS TAKEN ...NOW I AM ADOPTIED WHEN I WAS 17 AN DFOUND A LOVIN FAMILY I STILL TALK TO MY BIRTH FAMILY AND SEEIN THEM NOW THAT IM OLDER AND MORE MATURE IF U WERE TO ASK ME THAT QUESTION I WOULD SAY YES IT WAS FOR THE BEST AND NOW IM GOING TO GO TO COLLEGE AND BE A PAROLE OFFICER .....WHLE I HAD A HARD TIME IN FOSTERCARE IT HAS MADE MORE WISER IN WHAT I WANT IN A FAMILY

You do not know how my heart breaks when I read stories like this. I'm adopting a sibling group of 3, bringing my total number of kids up to 7. I had planned to keep up my license only so we can adopt any more children by the same birth mother, if need be, but when I read stuff like this, I can't help but think that maybe I should keep being a foster parent.

I'm so sorry the system failed you in so many ways. I'm very happy you have made peace with your time in care. You must be an amazing person to overcome these (I'm sure your loving adoptive family helped with that obstacles. I think as a police officer, you will be even better because of your experience in foster care. In our state, only a police officer can remove children, unless their is a court order. I think you will have better insight into when it really is in the child's best interest to remove a child and when it's not.

Do you mind if I ask you about the foster homes you were in? Why so many? Did CPS/DFCS ever tell you why they were moving you?

My soon to be adopted kids started out in our home but we were only doing respite/emergency care at that time because my husband's mother was just diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. (We were trying to spend lots of weekends with her at that time and she lives in another state, so we decided to just do the respite/emerg. care to make it easier on us) Anyhow, I had these kids for about 4 days in our home before they found their first "permanent" placement...which only lasted a couple of months. After my home, they had 3 more homes. Then they came back to me . I've always felt like the system failed my kids. I'm glad they are with me now, and wish more than anything I had just kept them from the beginning. Counting his birthfamily and my home twice (since they moved into it twice), my kids moved 5 times in a year.

[aspenhall]

Originally Posted by Mike06

Why would any one be happy about being taken from family?

I was left in an abusive home (4 different investigations by CPS, who never even asked me what I wanted) and everyone saw what was happening to me, and no one did anything to protect me.
I prayed every night that I would be taken away. I prayed I was adopted and this horrid family wasn't the only one I had that maybe there was another one out there. I used to hide at people's houses and refuse to come home. The bruises were bad enough I couldn't sit down.

I even ran away to my aunt's house down the road, and told my aunt I couldn't take it another minute, she calmed me down, then sent me back. Because she felt powerless to help me. Well how helpless and HOPELESS does that make ME feel, if no adult can make a difference???

As an adult, my mother has not gotten better. She tried to run me over 2 years ago. Everyone still thinks I need to just accept her for who she is.

When my sister started self destructing I knew I couldn't sit back and watch it. So I took my sister away and she lives with me now. My mom is too big of a coward or too lazy to come get her back. She knows I'd win in any court of law. So my sister is safe now, and happy, and well-adjusted for the most part. And she thanks me everyday for taking her away. I ground her, and make her do chores and chew her out for bone-headed decisions. And she's grateful, because she knows what life is like when parents DON'T put in any effort or care.

WE ARE "the kind of kids" that would be happy to have been taken away.....

And, I know now, that being left there to rot in hell as a child, is what allowed me to save my sister. I could take it, but she was dying.