How is non-vax looked on in your state?

[Attached Mama]

I'm interested to know because we are looking to adopt from national foster care. But we haven't vax our 3 yr old.

If I have a medical exemption and a letter from an atty saying that we are within our legal rights as NY state citizens, how would you think that would be viewed in your state? We will have to vax an adopted child simply because she will be a ward of the state still when we get her. But if we had a note from an MD saying that due to family history dd is contraindicated for vax and it is his (the MD's) recommendation that she not receive them until she is older... how do you think that would fly?

TIA

[xmasbaby7]

I am no expert here, but I am not sure your dd's vax status will ever be relevant to the adoption process. Maybe I am wrong, as I have not adopted my self of how comprehensive the process is.

I would never volunteer the info unless forced to provide it in any state, but especially NY. It is good that you have a medical exemption.

Others will be much more helpful.

Sorry!

[Attached Mama]

Originally Posted by xmasbaby7

I am no expert here, but I am not sure your dd's vax status will ever be relevant to the adoption process. Maybe I am wrong, as I have not adopted my self of how comprehensive the process is.

I would never volunteer the info unless forced to provide it in any state, but especially NY. It is good that you have a medical exemption.

Others will be much more helpful.

Sorry!

The medical letter received from a doc in NY as part of the homestudy commonly refers to the child being up to date on vaccines. It could be glaringly obvious if it's not mentioned. Or maybe it would be just assumed that of course she's up to date...

My concern is that the ask for it at the last minute after a child is placed with us and then we lose that child and they make trouble for our bio child because they are ticked.

[xmasbaby7]

But they have no right to enforce vaxing on your bio child. i am not sure that is even going to come up. That is what I was trying to say earlier, but I made no sense.

If they ask about your bio child's vax status, I would state that you have a religious exemption for her but that you understand as ward of the state that that exemption would not apply to the adopted child.

[Attached Mama]

Actually, I found out that the medical form explicitly asks if our bio child is up to date on her vax. Also found out that a religious exemption means NOTHING here in NY except in regard to schooling. It would actually be looked on very poorly as us being "religious fanatics" by the state and they'd likely find another reason to deny us adoption. I was told this both by the NYS Coalition for Informed Choice as well as by our social worker.

However, even tho I can find nothing official, a medical exemption is ok - something from our MD recommending that we wait or not give the vax due to family history. Since my sister had some milder vax reactions as a child and since we do have a family history of reactions to medications, this won't be hard to get.

But I've also been told that we will have to sign something saying we will continue to vax our adopted child. Not sure after adoption is finalized how this would hold up in court - but they will prob check at least on the initial follow up visits since they know we aren't vaxing our biological dd.

I was also told they would not place a baby with us due to us not vaxing our biological dd. The agency feels that it would put them at risk if the baby caught anything from our bio dd. Fortunately we are looking for a child a few yrs past infancy....

Since we want to adopt again someday and since our adopted child will then need either a medical exemption which she'll likely be unable to get seeing as she will have had vax likely with no reactions prior to placement with us - we will prob have to keep her current. I hate how bullied I feel in all of this.

Then again, there is legislation being submitted and maybe by the time we want to adopt again, the laws will have changed So we'll see. For now I just know we need a medical exemption. We will get a 2nd opinion confirming that medical exemption as well. We will also get an adoption atty who is willing to defend our right to not vax our bio dd. I already have the name of one.