[CherryDolphin]

Hi everyone.

My husband and I started the foster to adopt process in Houston nearly a year and a half ago. After jumping trough all of their hoops, and waiting waiting waiting, we were finally licensed at the beginning of January. We have not had one call, though we are doing legal risk/foster to adopt. We were licenesed for up to 3 children, ages 0-4. I can't believe we've been licensed for 2 months and not one call. Where are all these waiting children they keep talking about? In Pride, they said they get several babies A WEEK. So why haven't we even gotten a call? We have spent so much money to get licensed, and we have a full nursery set up, and a car seat, which they've seen for themselves. Has anyone else gone through this? Is this normal? What should we do? We don't have any other children. We've tried for almost 6 years to have a child before this... so we've been waiting to become parents for a long time... it's getting unbearable.

Thanks for any thoughts and opinions and input, I appreciate it.

[dachshunds4you]

Unfortunately, yes it is normal. For the younger ages, it is taking a while to get a child. The two we have had have only stayed with us 3 weeks until they have gone to family.
We finally changed our age to 0-6 with 2 kids. You may need to reconsider going up a few more yrs. Since you're open to the sib sets, that is better...but it's just been taking forever. I know your pain!!

[CaddoRose]

If you have really stated that you are only interested in legal risk, then yes, the wait can be long because you are wanting for a child that fits your age range that is at high risk for TPR. Usually when a child is taken into care,there is no way of knowing at that moment whether or not the child will be legal risk, so you have to wait for that determination to be made and the foster family who has the child to decide to not adopt if it is going to TPR. They may know about possible TPR if the child has been in care before.

Make sure you are known by your SW/CW at your agency or CPS so they will know to call you. Sometimes, it takes reminding them of what you are looking for so when a placement does come up, they will think to call you.

[bllrm]

I agree with Caddo: You might have better luck if you're willing to accept emergency placements that aren't legal risk from the get go. A lot of times they just don't know until after kids have been in care a while and then why move them unless the foster family doesn't want to adopt? Yes, it's really hard if a kid goes to a relative, but I've found I can endure a whole lot more than I thought I could at the beginning of this process.

[texastanya]

My advice would be to contact your CW every week, or every couple of weeks just to touch base with them and remind them that you're still open. CW's get busy and sometimes I think they forget certain families are available.

We had two months between the time our first foster kids (that were legal risk) returned home and time that the children who became our forever kids were placed with us. I called our caseworker every Wednesday at 2, just to see how things were going and to remind her about us and that we were hoping for a placement, yada, yada, yada...

That's what worked for me.

[Rev320ratjat]

It took us a year to get our license for foster/adopt, (because someone misplaced our paperwork for about 9 months), but just a couple of weeks to get our first newborn placement. She only stayed 4 mos, RU with bio dad. The SAME DAY we got another infant (6 mos old) that we have now had 17 months. We are hoping to be able to adopt him later this year.

I would definitely be calling and asking for placements, but you may have to change your criteria, (maybe not the age increased if you are wanting an infant, but the legal risk part), to increase your odds of getting a placement sooner. The thing about newborns is that birth parents have 12-18 months to do their services. If that newborn has been in another foster home for 12-18 months (now a toddler bonded to foster parents), chances are, that is the family that is going to keep the child. And "legal risk" is still not a guarantee that you will get to keep that child-it is supposed to be "more likely" than others.

Another thing you can do is stay in contact with other foster parents, especially ones that have been licensed longer. When they can't take a placement because they are "full", they can refer the placement to you. (That's how we got our little man. We were listed as full because the placement people didn't realize our first placement was leaving that day, so we would not have gotten a call on him. But another foster parent who was called first, declined him, knew our first was leaving and that we were looking to adopt an infant, and said to call US! And I thank God that she did that!)

I realize it is harder to put your heart on the line like that. We were heart-broken when our first left, but it has made each day with our little man so much more special, knowing that his time with us could have been limited and that he could have left (and almost did several times), but God has a plan. Taking it one day at a time....Good luck to you!

[DayintheLife]

I've been licensed for a month, ages 0-6 any gender or ethnicity, up to 4 kids. I will also accept pregnant or parenting teenagers. I haven't had a single call either. I'm licensed with an agency, and I email my worker once a week to "remind her to remember me." Her response is always "Patience is a virtue."

I also spent a lot of money and time getting licensed and it's frustrating when no one is calling! I called CPS today to see if it would help to get licensed through them. I'm waiting a call back...I'll keep you posted.

[venetoulias]

I'll tell You what we were told , Once your licensed it can take up to 90 Day's to get you in to the system , and to get placement updated. We got our license in Nov 2007 and did not get a placement till Feb of 2008 .
Oh and I really seems to pick up during the summer.

[CherryDolphin]

Thanks everyone - we finally got our first placement on Wednesday!! We did end up changing to Foster to Adopt in March. We received a gorgeous 3 day old baby girl, and we got to bring her straight home from the hospital! It's Foster for now - but praying we can adopt her!