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Considering adopting

So today was quite the emotional roller coaster. We had a "family meeting " at the children's aide society with our foster daughter's biological family to hash out what access will look like. It's been a long emotional process to say the least but we signed papers to officially begin the adoption probation which is a minimum of 6 months before filing everything with the courts to make it official. We were supposed to enter adoption probation at the beginning of March but ran into a few problems with bio family.

Canadian eh!!!
 
Thanks. Because she is now officially on adoption probation, we can get her baptized (she's never been). So this weekend, we are able to get her baptized under her new name. Her first name will stay the same. Hollie May Hope Davis. As will one of her middle names. After baptism, she will be taking her first communion. This is all her choice and something she wants to do as she wants to be a server at church. Part of the requirements is that you're baptized.

Canadian eh!!!
 
NorthernRedneck said:
Thanks. Because she is now officially on adoption probation, we can get her baptized (she's never been). So this weekend, we are able to get her baptized under her new name. Her first name will stay the same. Hollie May Hope Davis. As will one of her middle names. After baptism, she will be taking her first communion. This is all her choice and something she wants to do as she wants to be a server at church. Part of the requirements is that you're baptized.

Canadian eh!!!
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Aww! That's wonderful!
 
Today is Hollie's baptism. We re doing it at the regular 10am service. Afterwards, we are doing a family luncheon. Hollie is holding a baby who is also being baptized this morning.

Some of her biological family and friends will also be there.
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Canadian eh!!!
 
I keep watching this thread because the lovely Mrs_Bob keeps talking about 'fostering' a kid. I'm not really pro-or-opposed to the idea. We sort of did a fostering of Dasha without ever planning to do so. We lose her on June 1 when I put her on an airplane to move her to Boston.

Real fostering would change our lives pretty dramatically. Not sure I want to take that step, but I do know that the work I have done with several of my fencing students proves that I can care deeply about kids that are not my own and I know my wife can do the same and is obviously more than willing to do so.

I applaud anyone and everyone who adopts!
 
One thing you have to remember is that most of these kids carry a lot of emotional trauma from being abandoned and having to fend for themselves. So they are emotionally closed off and guarded and have a hard time trusting adults. But with time and patience, they eventually come around to opening up.

Canadian eh!!!
 
We're on track to have the adoption process completed hopefully by Christmas for our 12 year old. Her last name will officially be the same as mine.

On another note, we've had a 7 year old girl staying with us since April 2018. She's been the sweetest girl. Always happy. No behavioral issues. No health concerns. Mom has 5 kids and no home. The agency has been working with her to find suitable housing. It looks like that finally happened so when she gets set up this month, our foster daughter will be going home. It's actually kinda sad as we realize that her mother will never be able to give her the life that we did. But she's still mom. We had her older brother as well until his outbursts and tantrums became too much. As much as we wanted to help him, we had to consider our own family.



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It's going to be a happy time and sad time this weekend. We got word today that our little 7 year old is being discharged on Monday. She'll be picked up for school then we most likely won't see her again after having her with us for the past 16 months. It's going to be different without her here.

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Reality is setting in that our precious 7 year old is leaving in the morning and its highly unlikely that we'll see her again. She was always happy. This is the crappy part of being a foster parent.

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So it's been 3 years since our family welcomed a girl into our home. First as a foster placement but when we heard that she was going to be adoptable we jumped at the opportunity. Adoption probation began in March 2019 for a 6 month period. Followed by the children's aide society filling out a bunch of papers and submitting them to the ministry of children services for approval. Then an application of adoption was filed with the provincial courts. We got a court date of March 17th to go before a judge to have it finalized. I just saw that the courts have postponed all non emergency court proceedings for 6-8 weeks due to the coronavirus scare.
 
We took in a sweet 8 yr old girl in April during the covid pandemic. She fit in perfectly with our big blended family.

Seriously though it's getting hard to keep track of the family dynamics. We have no children together. The oldest boy 16 is mine from a previous marriage. The next three are hers 15b, 13g, 10b. We're one court date away from adopting a 13 year old girl. Now we added an 8 yr old. That's 6 kids full time.

Where am I going with this? We are foster parents. We have the space. We have the time. We were set at 6. No more kids. Well at 6pm this evening, we got a call from the agency I worked for. "Hello, we have a 9 year old girl who needs a home today. Can you please help us?" Well, 20 minutes later the agency worker showed up with her. All she had was a small bag with a change of clothes she had grabbed quickly. Tears running down her cheeks.

We weren't told much and what happened and were told not to ask her. Just keep it low key so we did this evening and just included her into our regular activities. We'll see in the morning what happens. We had to use a camper j-cube mattress on the floor for her to sleep on.

Sometimes that's how much notice you get as a foster parent.
 
NorthernRedneck said:
We took in a sweet 8 yr old girl in April during the covid pandemic. She fit in perfectly with our big blended family.

Seriously though it's getting hard to keep track of the family dynamics. We have no children together. The oldest boy 16 is mine from a previous marriage. The next three are hers 15b, 13g, 10b. We're one court date away from adopting a 13 year old girl. Now we added an 8 yr old. That's 6 kids full time.

Where am I going with this? We are foster parents. We have the space. We have the time. We were set at 6. No more kids. Well at 6pm this evening, we got a call from the agency I worked for. "Hello, we have a 9 year old girl who needs a home today. Can you please help us?" Well, 20 minutes later the agency worker showed up with her. All she had was a small bag with a change of clothes she had grabbed quickly. Tears running down her cheeks.

We weren't told much and what happened and were told not to ask her. Just keep it low key so we did this evening and just included her into our regular activities. We'll see in the morning what happens. We had to use a camper j-cube mattress on the floor for her to sleep on.

Sometimes that's how much notice you get as a foster parent.
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Amazing!
Are you trying for sainthood?
 
Lol. Nope.

In a previous life before my near fatal motorcycle accident 5 years ago, I was a social worker working with foster children after they were placed in foster homes. I often had a caseload of 17 or more kids all placed in different homes aging from 0-18.

Since I can't work anymore, I have a lot of free time I can devote to helping others.
 
Update. She's gone. Last night was ok. This morning and afternoon was ok. Then she snapped. Trying to hurt herself so she could blame us. Running away. My wife followed her on foot for about a mile. She was in her socks. My wife called the cops. Cops called the agency.

Apparently we weren't told why they came into care. How does a 9 year old get pot and smoke up at home? There were other things too. She was in another home two nights ago and grabbed a knife threatening to kill herself. I put my foot down and told the agency to get her out of here as we have 6 other kids who were hiding downstairs shaking with her screaming.
 
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NorthernRedneck said:
Update. She's gone. Last night was ok. This morning and afternoon was ok. Then she snapped. Trying to hurt herself so she could blame us. Running away. My wife followed her on foot for about a mile. She was in her socks. My wife called the cops. Cops called the agency.
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This is why a 3 month old is easier. He can't stand yet.

But seriously, this has to be really tough to live through, trying to help and seeing your efforts thrown away. The emotional ties are hard to cut, you feel for them and then they are gone because, despite everything you did, it just didn't work.
 
That's the hard part of fostering. You can't save them all. Some kids require more than what a regular foster home can offer. It's sad.

What started out as a good day turned bad quickly when we told her to take a break from her phone for a bit. Seriously? Why the f does a 9 yr old need an iPhone 10? Our 15 year old doesn't have a phone. We told our kids that if they wanted a cell phone they can get a job and pay for it themselves.

What happened was that we simply questioned an app she had on the phone that basically tracked her whole family and where they are including her. Like I really want some stranger showing up wherever I am in town and causing a big stink. Then we suggested that she take a break from it
 
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Melensdad said:
This is why a 3 month old is easier. He can't stand yet.



But seriously, this has to be really tough to live through, trying to help and seeing your efforts thrown away. The emotional ties are hard to cut, you feel for them and then they are gone because, despite everything you did, it just didn't work.
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We're still dealing with the aftermath of having that girl with us for a night. So our girls informed us that she was going around the house taking pictures with her cell phone and sending them to her friends so they can come and try to break in to steal things.

We contacted the agency and their suggestion was to remove the house number out by the road so they can't find the house.

The after hours workers that came when she flipped out were defending her right to have a cell phone at age 9 so she could call her mom whenever she wanted. Hello? You just took her away from her mom because she wasn't providing proper care and now you say it's ok for her to have unrestricted unsupervised access to mom??? Makes sense to me. This is exactly why I don't see any reason for a child under the age of 16 to have unrestricted access to social media.
 
Here's a picture of my lovely wife and our foster daughter Eliana. She will most likely be with us into adulthood as she's been in the system since age 3. Dad is dead. Mom is MIA. And no other family members have stepped up to take her. She has a couple of older siblings who are into drugs and prostitution. Her last placement had her for 4 years until they decided that they no longer wanted to foster.

She is generally happy and has a smile all the time. She fits in perfectly with the other kids. She loves being outside and going for bike rides with her older foster sister Hollie (who we're adopting). Hollie is the blonde with the black hat. She has 2 older biological sisters. We're one court date away from finalization of the adoption. That was supposed to happen on march 17th but covid shut everything down on the 16th including family court.

My wife is standing by our second oldest son Alex who is 15.
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We have an official adoption date. August 25th we will officially welcome Hollie as part of our family. She will be ours. This will also be the first zoom adoption in our city.
 
Thanks. It was supposed to happen march 17th but covid stopped that when they cancelled all non essential court cases on March 16th.
 
It's official. We are now parents to an additional child. May I present to you for the first time ms Hollie May-Hope Davis.

She's been with us for 3 years now but we were finally able to have the adoption finalized with the courts via zoom this morning.
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Thanks guys. We now officially have 5 children and one foster child who will be with us long term.

People ask how we manage with 6 kids. I just respond "It's another plate at the table". Really though. That's how we look at it. When you're buying and cooking for multiples, it's just one more plate. It's one more pair of shoes. One more change of clothes. Etc. Laundry is a never-ending task. But each person has their own basket. Each person is responsible for washing their drying and folding their own clothes. Each person is responsible for washing their own bedding etc. You get a good consistent routine going and it's not that difficult.
 
Yesterday a package arrived in the mail from the agency she was with outlining her entire family history based on what the agency could come up with.

It's sad to see all the bouncing around from place to place and other crap that they went through since they were born.

Without getting into details dad was in and out of their lives as they had and on/off relationship.(mom and dad) Mom was battling with depression and suicidal ideations which caused her to not provide proper care to the girls. When they came into care, they had been with their aunt and uncle for 4 years after the mother basically gave up and left them behind.

Along with her entire history, there was information on her other family members and their medical history just in case something ever happens to her where she becomes ill.
 
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