My family,,where shall I start.I am 48 single with 4 adopted and 1 more on the way.
The ages are 12, 12, 3, 2, 10 months.I got them all at the age of 5 months—2yrs—then the last 3 from day one right from the hospital..
I have been blessed…never could have any of my own…I have been doing foster care for almost 13 years.I have a bi-racial family,  african-american- hispanic-caucasion,,boy do we get the stares at the store!!!!
They are all beautiful ,wonderful, loving, children, The 2 older ones know they were adopted,I told them already..The time was here for that..
If anyone has any questions please let me know..

Hi, I do have a question, when do you start the adoption conversation.  I am currently fostering a 10mo baby girl. We have her permanacy hearing next week, if all goes as I pray it does, and I can adopt her, at what age should I start the conversation.

Thanks

It should always be a part of the conversation in age-appropriate language according to her level of maturity. There should be no surprise “reveal” and she should always know and trust that you will always be honest with her.

My husband and I are trying to adopt an infant through the foster system in FL. Please advise us on the best way to make sure we get an infant and not an older child. Right now, we are just adoption. Should we go ‘foster to adopt?’

Thanks.

KC
I have done fos/adopt and i am doing foster now,,i did fos/adopt and i got a 5 month old ,he is 13yrs old now,and I also adopted a girl at 2 yrs old,now 12
i started just foster care in 2005 before that was fos/adopt and foster
but since 2005 i have done foster care just new borns and i have had alot of them,in 2005 came a baby right from the hospital,i went to go pick her up,and she never left,she will be 4 next month she is mine,i adopted her,her bio never got off of the drugs,and 10 months later here comes another one,,oh my,,,well of course,we wanted them to stay together,they are sisters,so i picked her up too from birth,,well i adopted her too..now 10 months ago i went to go pick up another baby he is a baby boy,and the bio is having alot of problems,so we shall see.I encourage people to do foster because you get them from birth,but them you just have to wait,a couple of times it did not work,,but just look what i have been blessed withif you can handle the wait and some pain,,go for it

I too am a single parent who got her foster care license in 2001 and shortly thereafter was placed a beautiful baby boy, exposed to cocaine.  He got better, Mom’s rights were terminated for this one but she got to get her other kids back.  I legally adopted him at 17 months although he never lived anywhere else.  About a week after his adoption I ran into his birth mother in a coffee shop with a big belly—she was pregnant again.  A few weeks after that I got a call from the social worker saying she didn’t want the baby—that they should give him to the white woman who had her other one—and that she was going to kill the baby and kill herself and all her (10) kids.  So his biological little brother came to me, and I legally adopted him at the age of 17 months as well.  She relinquished rights to all 11 kids and shortly thereafter the birth father went to prison for the rest of his life. 

When child 1 was placed with me, I was a bit nervous that he wouldn’t be staying.  It was hard, because I loved him and we bonded instantly and he is my dream come true.  But as time wore on and the mother did not comply with her conditions, I knew that God’s hand was in this and my dream was coming true for sure.  The termination of parental rights day was the happiest day of my life, and the adoption day was a close second.  When his little brother was placed, I wasn’t nervous because I knew she wasn’t going to fight for him.  He was mine from the beginning.  So the TPR and the adoption were formalities.

From the time I was a young woman I wanted to be a wife and mother.  God had other plans.  No wife.  Motherhood took a VERY long time to come around, but these boys needed me and I needed them.  I was 42 when my first son came to live with me, and the three of us make a great small family.  They are now 9 and 7 1/2 and we never have had the adoption conversation because unless they ask about it, it’s just information that they don’t need.  For me I am letting my kids dictate the amount of information they want.  They go to a very diverse school with about 15% of the kids being adopted both domestically and internationally, mixed race parents and kids and a big melting pot.  So its normal for them. 

But…guess what?  I ran into their birth mother yesterday.  She asked about ‘baby x’ but never about his brother.  Odd, huh?  I haven’t seen her since that day in the coffee shop when she was pregnant with my smart, funny, skinny little second boy.  The manual of life doesn’t tell me how to handle the interaction.  Should I offer to show her pictures? 

So I am asking for help on this…has anyone else ever encountered the birth parent in a foster care adoption, where the child was taken from the parents and they were not surrendered?  Do you offer to show pictures, how much information do you give, etc?  How friendly are you?  I didn’t know what to do.  I was friendly, but not as warm as I normally am, kind of in a state of shock, didn’t know what to do so I cut the conversation short.  I mean she’s had trouble with drugs and I don’t want her knowing where we live for various reasons—foster care adoptions are technically ‘closed’ although you meet each other in court generally so you would recognize each other on the street or by name.

Has anyone else ever encountered this situation with or without your children present?  Thank God I was alone and not with my kids, because that would have been hard to deal with.  How did you handle it, or how WOULD you handle it?

Hello all, I just found this area…usually I just go to the other forums and see very little activity.  Hello to you Lydia…I feel like I know you or at least your life in some way.  If you ever want to meet and go to Disney with the kids let me know…that really goes for everyone…we are a great host family for Disney.  We never wait in lines because of a special pass and know the parks like the back of our hands.

I am also a single parent of 4 children. My two bio-sons are 36 and 15 yrs old and my 3 adopted daughters are 5yr old.  The girls are African American, Peruvian/Caucasian , and Latina.  My self and my boys are Dutch/German/Irish…We also get the stares…and the questions.  I am constantly being asked if I am the grandmother or if I do child care.  I have always wanted a father for my children and a husband to share in our lives…but it hasn’t happened. 

I feel somewhat selfish about my decision to have children without a father especially with my two sons.  I have always involved them in Scouting and sports and with friends to have role models.  I fostered my daughters from birth.  They were the 19, 20,21st medically fragile foster babies in my home.  There ethnicity and length of time the state of California took to terminate rights is the direct result of how I became the Mother to 3 of the most beautiful and brilliant girls.  They were not the first I was asked if i wanted to adopt…but they were the first they said they could not find a home for.  My reply was, “They already have a home”.  My philosophy has always been I can get over a loss, they cannot get over not having a doting mother…I have to say I always had to go to bed for at least 3 days as a child left my home…I always thought I would not get over the loss.  I go to many birthday parties and feel a part of many of the families to where MY children reside…Yes they do let me think that ...and no they do not impose and neither do I.  Another philosophy I have is that unless social services can find a 2 parent family that has someone at home with the children most of the time and can offer a better home than mine, then just leave them here.  I once told a social worker who also had a 4 month old child like the baby I had in my arms,  that she could test the theory that babies that bond with me,  can learn to bond with someone else on her infant…I was given a new social worker the following month.  I talked to her years later and she said it hit her too hard and she needed time off.  I That baby was one of the few babies that I never saw again after she was adopted by a family I was very uncomfortable with.  I saw her a week after she left my home sitting in plastic infant seat in dirty onecie at the Doctors office.  This was a baby that had been on my chest for months because she refused to look at me.  The minute she started to look at me and bond at 6mo, she was whisked away and sent to adoptions…did I say she was Caucasian.  The explanation that she could not be adopted by me after 6mo of being in my home and beating a diagnoses of failure to thrive, was that I had children.  And since there were parents in adoptions waiting she should go to them.  At that point I became an advocate for foster families to adopt there children…children are not commodities; it is not their job to fulfill childless families with their presence. 

Weeks after that child left my home the adoptive mother called me and said she was unhappy with the baby…she did not interact much and she was not Hispanic like her adoptive father.  I told her to let her social worker know….when she did the social worker said it would be an other 2 years before their name came up for a newborn again….she decided to take her chances and keep this baby.  My heart broke…not because i wanted this little child more than life itself…but because this little girl deserved more than this.  My pediatrician at my next appointment came storming into the exam room scolding me because I let them have her….go figure.  Nevertheless I have become an advocate for foster parents, but really for children. to families wanting to adopt or foster…would i do it again…In a heart beat.  I am looking into the possibility presently.

To CMK:  Yes I have run into my adoptive child’s birth parent and can totally relate to that stunned feeling.  The Birth mother recognized me and with the baby she gave birth to standing at my side, she gave me a hug and kiss on the check and walked away ...not even a glance at my daughter.  I have to believe she was so drugged or she just couldn’t tp spare herself the pain.  My daughter was 4 and unaware of who she was…I will and have taken steps to tell the girls about their tummy mamas…I have given only info they need and want at this age…They know they were loved but could not be cared for.  I tell them the story about “ring, ring, ring and a baby needs a home…”.  Now that we have had numerous talks, I may explain and introduce.  With great soul searching, I do not feel threatened by the birth parents, but she did not give me this opportunity.  Nor were we prepared.  I am also under the opinion that secrecy may come back to bite me in the teen years.  This way she will see there is no mystery to find and long for…this is obviously not someone she can turn to.  It would be in the open.

Now for the other children, the situation is different.  It would be a danger because of the threats and nature of the termination of rights that even the court stated there could not be contact…each child is unique and comes from from different circumstances…You as the parent will know what is right for your child.  The kinship center has services that will help counsel the birth mother and you and your child separately and then help you come together to meet without exchanges of information with a trained therapist.  You will know and your child will know when the time is right.  Good luck.