Adoption and Foster Care Information

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AnnRob11

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My fiance and I found out that we may not be able to conceive because of the cancer treatment my fiance had as a child, so we’re looking at adoption and foster care as a possibly. We want to educate ourselves on both of them and make sure that whatever direction we choose that we are the best fit for the child. Looking for books that compares the two when we’re ready to make that decision.
 
After a surgical menopause in my mid-30’s, it was pretty clear that I would not have another biological child.

My husband & I explored both adoption and foster care. We found the cost of adoption (through the Catholic Church, adoption agencies, both internationally and locally) was all beyond our means.

On a whim, we decided to explore foster care. We were surprised to find that there was a pre-adoption “track” for folks like us. Typically, you have a longer wait before having a child placed, (because the primary goal of foster care is family reunification…), but the children in that “track” already have parental rights terminated.

We had a crazy twist of events and ended up with an infant who was on a 6 week hold, (so very temporary) - even though our license was for “school age pre-adoption”. Two years later, we were allowed to adopt that very same baby, now a toddler.

When we adopted him, we entered the process knowing all about him, his medical issues, social and birth history - so really, there were no surprises. (He did have many complex medical issues but we understood what we needed to do to care for him, so there were no scary unknowns.). (We later found that had we not chosen to adopt him, he likely would have been considered “unadoptable” due to his medical & developmental history. I shudder to think about what perpetual foster care would have done to that little guy.)

He is 18 now and, while still faces some difficulties from his early life, is just joining the workforce and is super excited to be becoming an independent, functioning adult member of our community.

He was our first (and last) foster care placement. We entered the process prepared for things that never happened & experienced things that no one could have predicted - not so different from how we entered parenthood for the first time, lol…

I probably wouldn’t have listened to this as a young mother, (or aspiring mother), but really, children are just children, no matter how you get them. They’re all wild cards - and as parents, it’s just our job to fit them into our hands the best we can, making sure to have some fun along the way. Our path wasn’t easy but I can’t imagine it ending up any differently.

Books are great but I’d suggest going to open houses and gathering info from the agencies that you would be exploring. (We never made it to the adoption agencies but our state had open houses for prospective foster parents & they were very informative.)
 
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Yup, I have heard of this type of adoption before. I believe that sometimes there can be “foster-to-adopt” agreements, and sometimes there are “long-term foster” agreements. I think that the latter are sometimes used in cases where it’s an older child and the child would not ordinarily be considered “adoptable”, but the intent is to find a long-term foster placement where they could live for several years.
 
Yes, I think both of those programs exist within our state’s foster program, but I’m sure some of the requirements (and “tracks”) vary between states.

Since our biological son was a bit older, we were ok with having an older child too, as long as the foster child was the same age as or younger than our bio child. This is why we got licensed for school-age pre-adoption.

We would often hear about children becoming available for adoption after parents failed to provide stability/get their acts together, but definitely did not expect that to be the case when we got the call for our little guy - his bio mom was in treatment and actively trying to get her life in order. Sadly, she was unable to do so at the end and the state decided to terminate her parental rights. When he entered the system, he was 6 months old, only weighed 10 pounds and was severely malnourished and neglected. But since she wanted him back and was eager to do the program, the state did everything to allow her that time.

We later found that he had fetal alcohol syndrome - but knowing these things opened up services, which we utilized and from which he blossomed. There ended up being medical issues, but honestly, those were easy to manage compared to the support/advocacy required through his school years. If you met him today, you would not know he had such a difficult start.

He’s a wonderful young man and we feel privileged to have been allowed to raise him. I think things worked out the way they were supposed to.
 
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