Want to adopt - foster or international?

[Serenity Now]

.

Edited by Serenity Now - 1/1/11 at 9:55pm

[annethcz]

I can't weigh in on fostering, because we went the international adoption route. I will say that escorting is a possibility in some programs, if you think travel will be an issue. Also, travelling to bring an adopted child home doesn't always have to be a drawn-out, multi-week process. When we adopted DS from Ethiopia, we were out of the country for less than a week. Both DH and I travelled, and my mom stayed with our 3 young children. Five years later, and my kids still remember how much fun they had when they spent a week with grandma. At the time, they were 5, 3, and 1. I was nursing the 1yo (and the 3yo occasionally), and the week absence didn't make a dent in our nursing relationship in the slightest. If we were to adopt again, I wouldn't have any issues traveling alone (without DH)- although it was really nice to have him there, I could've managed on my own.

I don't want to confuse you by throwing out more options, but escorting or travelling alone may be something for you to consider.

[Serenity Now]

.

Edited by Serenity Now - 1/1/11 at 9:56pm

[marsupial-mom]

The foster-adopt program vary widely depending on the state and agency. Plus, they change over time, so stories you've heard about fost-adoot programs from 5 or 10 years ago might be dramatically different today.

My foster training was free. I felt that it was worthwhile even if I'd chosen another adoption route. So why not just get started on the process and try to learn more about it from the inside?

[RedOakMomma]

Re: international adoption.

Escorting is very discouraged in many programs, and (I believe) should be stopped almost entirely. Even with adoption from Korea, which was always the most escort-friendly, most of the big agencies are stopping that practice. It's just not what's best for children, even if it is schedule/life-friendly for adoptive parents.

OP, you may be able to find an international program that doesn't require a long length of travel and/or one that doesn't require both partners to travel. We adopted from Korea, where travel can be condensed to about 4-5 days (though most families take at least a week).

I know it's hard to disrupt your life to travel...really! (We have/had two severely special needs sons that we'd never left before adopting.) But it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing...the same as giving birth and needing a week or two of altering your life drastically. Whatever pains there are in arranging it, traveling to meet your child, meet their caretakers, meet their life and country, are WORTH IT.

International adoption takes a long time. Surely, with 1 or 2 years to prepare, there are ways to overcome issues of work, of child care, etc. I know when you look at it from a certain angle it seems impossible, but as you adopt, and when you see those sweet pictures/videos of your child-to-be, you will do ANYTHING to be the one who holds her in that scary transition from the life she knows, across an ocean, and into your family. I thought we wanted to escort (the whole special needs thing), but once I had information on our daughter, I would have given up anything and done anything to be the person who comforted her through travel and through leaving the only family she'd known. She was heartbroken and terrified, and we were her parents. It's our job to see her through that, yk?

And hey...almost nothing in adoption comes easy. At least get a vacation out if it!

[Serenity Now]

.

Edited by Serenity Now - 1/1/11 at 9:56pm

[Sierra]

Well, let me speak to foster adoption.

Originally Posted by Serenity Now

So I'm looking in to foster adopt. I have read so many times that people tried to foster adopt for years, and then gave up and went domestic. But, then I know a woman IRL who adopted 3 kids from the foster system and is very happy with the process.

We were foster parents before we switched over to a foster adopt program (which in our state meant having dual homestudies on file and being familiar to both the foster care and the adoption workers but not necessarily getting called only about situations in which foster-adoption was likely). However, switching to the program required us to switch from a private agency to the state. We had to re-do almost the entire licensing process.

It took a long time for them to complete everything and for us to receive in the mail our license and copies of completed homestudies that were on file. Probably ten months or so...if memory serves. That said, we had a non-adoptive placement within a month or two of getting that done (we knew from the get go that was going to be a very short term placement), and then my son was born within four months of us having our license. He was placed with us at 1.5 days old. We adopted him at thirteen months. We then received an unexpected call four months later about then-six month old dd. She was placed with us about two weeks later. After that, everything slowed down greatly. We were not able to adopt her until she was three.

Realistically, what is the foster adopt process like? We'd like an infant up to 18 mo (my youngest is 2, so I want a child younger than her), and we're open to special needs, but only to some specific things.

Our adoptive homestudy stated that we were willing to adopt children from 0-6 years old, but they knew we had a preference at that time for the 0-3 range and generally kept calls about more longterm placements within those limits. As experienced foster parents, especially as experienced former therapeutic foster parents, we felt like we had a good handle on the special needs we were most equipped to handle and those that we were less well equipped to handle. We were able to specify on our homestudy the situations for which we felt most equipped, and generally, the department really respected our limits.

Also, as a foster parent, you can always say no to a placement that you don't think you can handle at any given time for any given reason. You get a call, you ask questions, they give you the information they are allowed to share (some of it you won't receive until way down the line...after the child is with you and very soon before the adoption when you get to see the full disclosure file), and you go from there. At one point we did consider the placement of a three year old, but it was definitely heading to termination so adoption was likely, and we realized painfully after some reflection that we weren't the best candidates to be the child's forever parents (I think that might have been after ds was already with us but was still a fosterling). That's an okay thing to do, and it doesn't mean they'll never call you again.

That said, with dd, we were given inaccurate information. She had some special needs that we were specifically told she did not have, and this didn't become apparent until after some months in our home. While I don't appreciate being lied to (and I now feel that is basically what happened), I am so glad that it worked out this way. Had we known the issues dd struggled with, we might not have felt equipped to deal. But, dd is an amazing fighter and she is doing *awesome.* Truly, this kid is incredible, and I am sooo lucky to be her mother.

Since I have 3 kids, I have no strong desire to have a newborn again. I won't be unhappy to get a newborn, I just don't feel a burning desire to have one. And with our insurance, and lifestyle, I feel that we would be a great family to a child with medical special needs. And I really want another child. I want to watch another little person grow up, and mature, and thrive, and be able to enjoy being a mother to another someone. Maybe that doesn't make sense. I'm not sold on domestic adoption for some reason, I'm not sure why. Should I look in to it more?

I have gone back and forth about domestic adoption, but don't feel entirely personally comfortable with some of the ethical issues that arise. I've actually started to go down the route of domestic, and for reasons beyond my control, it did not work out (we had a family that seemed like they were choosing us -- in a time when we weren't really looking -- but they changed their mind for reasons they stated were geographical in nature...they ultimately chose a family who lived in another state).

When we did travel that road, we felt a lot of weight for walking the ethical line for everyone involved, even at our own expense. For example, we made an effort to give the family *lots* of space because we did not want their adoption decisions to be about us. We tried to really encourage them toward independent counseling and wanted them to feel like they could change their minds without giving a lot of consideration to us. This may have been costly in terms of the family's feelings about us (I'll never know). Would they have been more likely to stick with us if we had become involved in the pregnancy, kept in better touch, asked to be at the birth instead of leaving it up to what they wanted, not prefaced every statement planning our involvement with things like "if you do stick with an adoption plan..."? Maybe, but we chose to take that risk because we wanted to be able to live with ourselves ethically and didn't feel like we could if they started considering our feelings about things and our attachment to the adoption.

Foster adoption is certainly not an ethically clear road to take. There are ethical questions that arise, as with all adoptions. However, what I can say from my experience is that I did not feel that I was a coercive factor in the plan being made for adoption (I know that my children's parental rights would have been terminated whether I was in the picture or not); that I am glad to know that my children's parents were given support (which I saw provided with my own eyes) and a shot at improving their lives so they could parent the children; that I had information and was able to keep a sense throughout the process on whether I felt there were ethical concerns around the social workers actions etc...where there were ethical questions, I generally had a feeling about what they were; that I was holding the "ethical ball" as a part of a team that included social workers, guardian ad litems, judges, therapists, and myself and the birthparents, among others (there were some checks and balances along the way); and that I was able to get to know my children's birthparents as parents to my children and not just pregnant people. I am glad about all that.

What was hard were the moments when it looked like ds or dd might leave our homes and it wasn't always clear that they'd be going to good circumstances. I am lucky that I've only ever said goodbye to foster children, not children who were placed in my home as fosterlings but for whom I was a pre-adoptive placement. I am lucky that the two kids who came to me as foster adopt kidos stayed with me. With dd, I had ds to worry about too...how would he be able to handle things if dd left. It was really hard, and I am not going to lie to you...there were times when we thought "why did we do this to our family?" Looking back, though, I wouldn't of course change it for the world. I have these two amazing children to watch grow up, and I adore them more than anything. I am very happy as a foster adopt mom.