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Considering adopting

Things have been slow with the agency we were signed up with which is a good thing. So we got the idea that since its looking less likely every day that I'll ever be able to return to work there even on modified duties, my wife contacted them and explained the situation that we are trained foster parents. Normally you can't foster for them if you work there. Considering the situation they bent some rules and have allowed us to become foster parents for their agency. It was a little odd having one of my coworkers come by today to give us a run through on some paperwork required. At least I'll still be doing my part to help a couple kids who need the help.
 
You are about to undertake a great journey. No doubt it is a good and decent thing to do. Before you commit look at the genetics involved if at all possible.. I have relatives who have adopted and raised marvelous children with very little problems.
I also have relatives who adopted two kids and both were disasters for the family, themselves, and the community. Genetics makes a difference, whether it's corn, dogs, or people.
 
Thanks. I'm fully aware of the issues some of these kids have. For the mostpart they are just kids. Brown or white. Doesn't matter. Kids are kids. There are some pretty messed up white kids out there too.
 
I wasn't referring to race at all. If you can learn something of the children's family history and general traits it can often be revealing.
 
Wouldn't you know it. We went six months without a call from the original agency we signed up with then as soon as we are nearly done the process of signing on with the agency I worked for prior to the accident and we start getting calls. The first two weren't a good fit for our family. Last week we got the call we have been waiting for.
We had a 10 yr old girl come for a visit on Tuesday. She is moving in tomorrow. This will most likely be a long term placement as she's been involved with the system for a number of years already. All family has been explored and her parents are not in the picture. She has 2 older sisters as well. It's sad we can't take all 3 but we're already working on ways to get them together as much as possible.

Looking down the road at a crystal ball, if things fall as they probably will, there's a good chance that the two younger sisters will be adoptable. No matter what happens she will be welcomed into our home and treated no different than our own children for however long she is with us.

We are still completing the process of signing on with the other agency as we still have room for one boy.
 
This is our new addition to the family. She'll be with us long term.
43c6c8ff7e1bb345776af402503d5285.jpg
 
We now have 6, count em, 6 children living in our home. We took in a 7 year old boy yesterday. After 3 it's basically another plate on the table. Lol. Not much more work.
 
NorthernRedneck said:
We now have 6, count em, 6 children living in our home. We took in a 7 year old boy yesterday. After 3 it's basically another plate on the table. Lol. Not much more work.
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You are way better than me. I don't think I could do it. But I applaud you for your charity, which obviously begins at home. You are making a difference in the lives of these kids and potentially saving them from a bad childhood while at the same time giving them a direction for their futures.
 
That's what it's about. I loved my job. Was very pationate about helping foster kids. Since my accident it's become apparent that I may never be able to work in that field again so what better way to still be involved than to open our home to kids who need a safe place to lay their head.
 
NorthernRedneck said:
That's what it's about. I loved my job. Was very pationate about helping foster kids. Since my accident it's become apparent that I may never be able to work in that field again so what better way to still be involved than to open our home to kids who need a safe place to lay their head.
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I, again, applaud you for your efforts :applause:
 
Update time. We still have the girl we took in last march. She'll likely be with us till she's 18 at least. We also began fostering for the agency I worked for(they normally wouldn't allow an employee to foster but since I'm not likely to ever return to work they allowed it). We took in a 7 yr old boy in October from that agency. He has 3 sisters. We had always said 6 would be our max(our 4 plus 2 fosters). Call us crazy but we're considering the possibility of adding a 7th child. The younger sister of our foster son is in need of a home. We believe that as f'd up the parents are, the children shouldn't have to suffer and should be together at all costs whenever possible. We're trying to figure out how to shoehorn another bed in here.
 
NorthernRedneck said:
Update time. We still have the girl we took in last march. She'll likely be with us till she's 18 at least. We also began fostering for the agency I worked for(they normally wouldn't allow an employee to foster but since I'm not likely to ever return to work they allowed it). We took in a 7 yr old boy in October from that agency. He has 3 sisters. We had always said 6 would be our max(our 4 plus 2 fosters). Call us crazy but we're considering the possibility of adding a 7th child. The younger sister of our foster son is in need of a home. We believe that as f'd up the parents are, the children shouldn't have to suffer and should be together at all costs whenever possible. We're trying to figure out how to shoehorn another bed in here.
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Brian, you and your wife are two of the most generous and caring people I know. :thumb:
 
jim slagle said:
Brian, you and your wife are two of the most generous and caring people I know. :thumb:
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Thanks. We're just trying to do our part to help those less fortunate. Children shouldn't have to worry about being separated from their siblings. They shouldn't have to worry about where they will get their next meal and where they will sleep at night.

Oh.....we also have a sponsor child over in Africa. We get updates letters pictures etc.
 
NorthernRedneck said:
Update time. We still have the girl we took in last march. She'll likely be with us till she's 18 at least. We also began fostering for the agency I worked for(they normally wouldn't allow an employee to foster but since I'm not likely to ever return to work they allowed it). We took in a 7 yr old boy in October from that agency. He has 3 sisters. We had always said 6 would be our max(our 4 plus 2 fosters). Call us crazy but we're considering the possibility of adding a 7th child. The younger sister of our foster son is in need of a home. We believe that as f'd up the parents are, the children shouldn't have to suffer and should be together at all costs whenever possible. We're trying to figure out how to shoehorn another bed in here.
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God you and your wife are the best!
You have lots of room in your heart.
You'll figure out where to put another bed.
:smile:
 
Update

We still have 3 foster children along with our 4 children. It's looking like our oldest foster daughter will be with us for a long time. The younger two have been going for weekends with their aunt and uncle. It's likely they will be moving there at some point.

Back to the oldest. The agency is currently discussing permanency and what that would look like. We may be starting the process to adopt her.
 
Time for another bitter sweet update. First, our oldest foster daughter. We started the process of adopting her back a few months ago. It's a lot more involved than what you see on "stuart little". There's police records checking. 4 references each. Meetings. Interviews. Legal proceedings. A 6 month minimum probation period. Among other things.

Now the bitter part. We had taken in an 8 year old boy in October 2017. In April 2018, his 6 year old sister came to live with us. Putting us up to 7 kids in the house. We've managed alright but lately, it's been hard on our children due to behavioral problems the boy was presenting. We recognized this and had to consider what's best for everyone. Sadly, we had to choose between our children and having him in the house. For the mostpart he has been alright but also has explosive outbursts where he starts destroying things and saying very hurtful things about our family. Really, he needs a family who can devote more attention to him than we can. So back in December we requested that he be moved to a different home. We actually requested that his sister go with him so they can at least be together. The agency was unable to find a suitable home for both of them. So she will be staying with us for now and he will be moving tomorrow.

It's very emotional and heartbreaking but it's what's best for everyone.

Canadian eh!!!
 
It's tough being an adult and having to make the tough calls, but sounds like you did the right thing for your household. Best wishes.
 
I'm just frustrated with the agency right now. They had months to plan and find a place instead they have been sitting on their butts doing nothing. And because of it, his behavior has been escalating to the point where we are always on edge waiting for the next blow up. I was the one doing the planning for the kids on my caseload and I knew what was going on days if not weeks in advance. This worker for the kids has about as much common sense as my left nut. Absolutely no communication skills. As a worker, I was obligated to be in the foster home at least every 45 days. She's been their worker since September and hasn't been any further than the driveway to pick them up.

Canadian eh!!!
 
I thought part of their service was to ensure that kids are placed in an environment where they are going to thrive and get along with others.
It's for the best.
First and foremost are your kids.
Good luck with it Brian.
I'd never be able to be a foster parent.
 
That's supposed to be the plan but when you have 600+ kids in care, that's a lot of foster homes they have to find in a city of 100000 people.

Canadian eh!!!
 
Brian, I know that it's tough but I think that you are doing the right thing.

Many years ago relatives of mine adopted an 8-year old mixed race girl. They already had three kids of their own. That child tore that family apart. I won't go into all the crap that child got into and got the whole family into but when she left 10-years later to go God only knows where, she left behind a totally dysfunctional family.
 
Yep. It's a sad scenario with no easy answer. We did the best we could but in the end we have to look at what's best for everyone.

It's looking like we'll still involved with him at some capacity for a while. Now we are told he will be going next week. But we will still pick him up for scouts on Mondays and he'll see his sister weekly.

Canadian eh!!!
 
Adoption and Foster Care are hard to do. Kudos to you and your wife.
We Adopted our two youngest at birth and now they are 20 years old and 17 years old, if the wife and I were younger we would do it again. We have two of our own biological children who are in their mid 30’s now and out of our 4 children you can see the difference in the adopted over the biological, definitely a personality difference in each of the adopted over our biological children. It really makes a person think.
 
i've family that have gotten kiddos via adoption, then got pregnant as soon as they put in 4 adoption;-- & a pal fosters-to-adopt, so she has her baby that is hers & tots that she took on via fostering/adoption- she, i hear loves them all as a Mom should-- they have done well~~
 
Imold said:
Adoption and Foster Care are hard to do. Kudos to you and your wife.
We Adopted our two youngest at birth and now they are 20 years old and 17 years old, if the wife and I were younger we would do it again. We have two of our own biological children who are in their mid 30’s now and out of our 4 children you can see the difference in the adopted over the biological, definitely a personality difference in each of the adopted over our biological children. It really makes a person think.
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That's cool. We would have liked to have our own but since both of us are fixed, that wasn't happening.

We had to make the decision to ask for our foster son to move to a new home. He's leaving today. His tantrums and screaming were becoming too much for our kids to handle. We'll still be involved with him though as we have his sister living with us.

Canadian eh!!!
 
I’ll need to elaborate a bit here, my oldest two were from my 1st marriage of 13 years and I ended up remarried to a wonderful gal I should of met 14 years earlier but anyway she was not able to have children due to a medical issue when she was a young teen, we wanted to have our own children and I also had a vasectomy so our option was adoption(we thought about being foster parents)and my biological children were fine or should I say happy that they would have a younger sister or brother, one adoption turned into two adoptions and we would of adopted again but we decided due to our age it would be best to just be happy with our 4 children.
When we signed up for adoption the 1st thing we said was we didn’t care anything about the health or gender of the child, we just wanted to Adopt. Our 17 year old was born on my birthday and was a born early so the 1st week and a half I spent it in the children’s ICU until he was a certain weight to allow him to come home with us.
We were lucky adopting two children in 3 years, some folks it takes up to 5 years or more because they set certain standards which set them up for disappointment and blame the system, we didn’t care if the child had twelve toes six fingers and 3 eyes we just wanted to adopt and grow our family.
 
That's awesome. Very similar story to us. She had 3. I had 1. We couldn't have one together for the same reason. So adopting was the alternative. It was taking a while to find a child suitable for adoption so we decided to foster while we waited.

Canadian eh!!!
 
Our foster son has been gone since weds. We still have his sister for now. I will say that I can sense a more relaxed atmosphere at home without him here. We just couldn't do it anymore. I was at the point where I just didn't care anymore if he was throwing a fit.

On the adoption front, we met with the adoption worker yesterday. It's almost to the point where it's a done deal. They have to serve a notice to all her relevant family members who haven't already been identified in the original court papers just to notify of the intent to adopt. Her sisters are the only ones who can challenge it now and even then, they can only apply with a lawyer to have specific details regarding access specified in the final paperwork. They have 30 days to do that then we go through a minimum 6 month probation period before its finalized.

Just a wee bit more involved process than the movie "stuart little". It's not a simple case of just going to an orphanage and pointing to one kid and saying "I want that one".

Canadian eh!!!
 
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