[momagain]

Hello Nicole,

You posted awhile ago on the Oregon forum. We live in the same county and I'm interested in hearing your story! Does it still seem like you will be able to adopt your foster baby? We just had two of our kids leave this week and we are grieving for them. Had them for 18 mos and at one point it looked like we'd be able to adopt. Pretty much at the 11th hour the biomom starting getting her act together and won more time! That was six months ago and she has remained clean and sober and now the girls have been returned to her. We have to trust that God is in this, but it is so hard.

Hope to hear from you,
Diane

[laughingmama]

I am so sorry to hear of your loss! I can't even imagine how hard this has been for you. That exact scenario has become my worst fear in life!
Things are going really well for us. We went to current caretaker committee this last week and we are officially the adoptive resource. We got our adoption homestudy packet yesterday. Yeah!
Things with bio dad are deteriorating rapidly. He is not engaged in any services at this time and has been acting out of line at his visits. He yelled at my 11 month old baby for crying during the visit. That infuriated me so badly! He has done some other unsafe things with "Otis" recently so, there must be a visit supervisor in the room with him at all times from now on. That makes me feel a little more comfortable, but it still brings home how little rights or control foster/adoptive parents have. In my "normal" life no one yells at my children!!!!! In foster care it's just not that way.
I don't come here very often, but I will check back for you.
Again I am so sorry for your loss!
When we lost our 1st baby at 6 months old we we're devestated. We had been told we would be able to adopt him. When he left I felt as though I couldn't breathe anymore. It was like he had died and I needed to mourn him. I ended up taking the kids to visit my dad in Arizona so we could have a little vacation. It helped so much! I spent 2 weeks not having to look at his things and smelling his smell. When I came back we called our certifier and let her know we were ready for another one.
A month later we got our Otis. I have found peace with the loss of baby G. I realize he just wasn't meant to be ours. We needed to care for him until Otis was ready to come to us. Otis was the one we were meant to have!
I realize caring for a child for 6 months doesn't compare to 18 months but, I can at least sympothize with your grief.
I am here if you need to talk!
Nicole

[momagain]

NIcole,

It's good to hear about your current caretaker decision! We had our very first foster child from 8 mos to just over 2 years old. We loved him SO much. He went back to biomom, who is not doing well. There will always be an ache in my heart for our little boy. I thought that I wouldn't want to do foster care anymore but we already had a few others placed with us when he left so I stuck with it and am very glad I did. For a while it felt like I wasn't really meeting the kids needs as well as I should, but I realize that they helped me pull out of my self absorption.

I hope things will go well for you. We currently have a week old baby placed with us plus a sibling pair of 13mo old boy and 3 yo sister. Plus, our adopted 4 yo girl.
Good luck,
Diane