Need help sorting this out-fostering vs bio, deciding when we're ready

[HeatherAtHome]

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Edited by HeatherAtHome - 5/5/12 at 5:23am

[lauren]

You are wrestling with some super big questions! And hard decisions. A couple of thoughts come to mind and I'm pretty sure you will hear this from some of the other members that are living the life with foster children--- these questions -- bio vs. foster children, are pretty different from one another. In other words, the notion of having a biological child, who statistically is pretty likely to be healthy and ready for love, is a very different decision from the one to accept a child who has already had a pretty difficult life, even if placed with your family as an infant. Infants removed from their parents are often drug exposed or the parent has such a negative history from past children that the parent is very high risk and may have engaged in high risk behaviors during the pregnancy. I am pretty sure that the foster care stipend is a drop in the bucket compared to a child's true costs and I have heard others say that here in this forum many times.

The motivation for fostering seems quite different for many seasoned foster parents than the motivation that most couples have when considering bio children. 

Your partner sounds like someone who really likes things in order before moving forward. Yet the first lesson most parents learn when they either conceive or foster/adopt, is that they have to give up control and past perceptions, because things rarely proceed how they were imagined ahead of time. The 'perfect baby' conceived in love can be born with a very colicky tummy and a very high needs, spirited temperament. The foster toddler placed with you can be an abused child that resists love and hugs. The foster infant could be fetal alcohol and developmental experts might not pick up on it for a few years, while the damage to the brain is already in place, with limitations for the future. Conversely, all good things could work out beautifully, regardless of how you build your family. Anything can happen.

[lauren]

P.S. Your house is over the top lovely and so charming! I love the lime green!!

[HeatherAtHome]

I guess we're just about ready to have kids but not sure how/when exactly to move forward.

I'm in Canada so the healthcare aspect is taken care of. I would say that it's more the extra time and energy we'd need to take care of fosterkids. I would be a SAHM and we would (hopefully) be taking in kids 4 and under. Up to two at a time due to space (house and car).

I'd done a lot of reading into FAS so I'm a little bit aware of those issues. 

I may have posted this before, but I feel like time is running out. We can have a bio kid now, and foster later when we're in the right place. OR we could foster now.... but run the risk of never having kids who stay with us and possibly having trouble conceiving the longer we wait. 

It's funny because I tend to be the one who has a hard time relaxing about things (couldn't tell, eh?) but now I feel like DH is holding us back with indecision! 

Oh, and thank you for the lovely comments on the house! I feel self conscious sometimes because it's not a newly built mansion. lol I like to say that our house has "character". ;)

[Polliwog]

Heather, first of all, your house is wonderful. I prefer older houses with character to many new houses. I can't believe it's been a year and half since you told us that you bought it. Time really flies.

I don't know how things work in Canada, but all of my local (and many of my extended or online) foster parent friends who wanted to adopt a child ended up doing so. I've adopted two of mine and am now trying to decide if it's time to have a baby in the house (my DD just turned four and is no baby, LOL.)

[Smithie]

1. Your house is great.

2. You are turning 30 and want the option of biokids. I would not wait. Maybe DH needs a little shove from Mother Nature. 

[HeatherAtHome]

(I really do write to much but it helps me to process it all! Thanks for helping me through this!)

I *think* I'm fine not having bio kids. Count me in as someone who said "wow, that looks like it really hurts." I'm not 100% sure, but I think I'm fine. 

What's important to me is:

• having a young baby in our home. I would really miss the newborn age. 
• having kids that stay. They don't all need to stay, but say if we had a whole bunch who came and went but a couple who really need a forever home. 

[karne]

Editing because part of my post was used in a way that didn't feel great.  I believe it can be helpful to seek the help of a therapist when major life decisions are being made.  Best wishes.

Edited by karne - 2/22/11 at 4:00pm

[marsupial-mom]

Heather, you sound a lot like me! Some thoughts...

On bio kids and fertility:

I thought I was fine not having bio kids too, and I AM fine not having bio kids, but as our foster situation gets more and more uncertain I find myself more and more interested in having bio kids. I just crave some higher level of certainty. I WANT chidlren and this fostercare game is likely going to leave me older, less fertile, and without a child. I'm almost 35 now and we waited this long to go to a fertility specialist. Turns out that our lack of bio kids is due to male factor infertility. So, this whole time (the last 5+ years) I thought pregnancy was out of reach because I didn't want to do IVF or have surgeries or whatnot but the truth is that I could probably get pregnant with donor sperm (which DH is fine with). But now that I'm nearing 35, the chances of pregnancy are so much slimmer than they were when I was 30, with or without donor sperm. That's just biology. I'm not sure I would have chosen a different route 5 years ago, but now looking back, I do wish I had really understood what all my options were. I highly recommend figuring out all your options and sitting down with DH to discuss things. A lot of men don't really understand just how dramatically female fertility changes in a woman's 30s, so you might want to have a serious discussion about it.

On family:

You talked about your sister. I don't know if you're expecting help from her or not, but let me share a little. My family was all supportive when we told them we wanted to adopt from fostercare. I kept them informed all along the way, however, when it really came down to it, they weren't as supportive as I expected or desired. For example, the fostercare laws in my area require that babysitters get licensed (have a background check, complete some forms, etc. if they babysit for more than 6 hours or overnight or in other situations - and we have to get permission to leave the county, etc.). My family acts like I'm just making it up and that I could just let them "take him for a day" without making them follow the laws. They say I'm overprotective whenever I just follow the laws. They don't seem to understand that they could mess this up for us and get our FS taken away. So I guess my point is that even though plenty of people will say they support you and even offer to help, it's all on their terms and you can't really count on them for much. Foster parenting is isolating, heck any kind of parenting is isolating, so I highly recommend trying to find/make support networks before you get involved.

On newborns:

I don't know what your area is like, but where I am the newborns in the system are usually drug-exposed. Now, with some drugs (like cocaine) that's really not a big deal so long as they don't have other issues. But if it's alcohol it could be very challenging. You say you want a newborn or young child but can you manage that level of risk and committment? Moreover, the newborns are less likely to become an adoptive placement. In my area, they try harder to reunite newborns with bio family, giving the bio family more leinency. So if your goal is to adopt, then be very careful about which placements you accept. If I were to do it over again, I would be more hesitant to belive what the workers told me. 

On your home:

We needed to do a few things before our home was ready. But it was no big deal. They came out, told us what we needed to do, we did it. They came out again and saw it was done and licensed us. We continued on and did the other improvements that we wanted (new flooring, plainting) and just updated the case workers as we went. The main thing is just to keep everything safe. Never leave tools out, etc. Duh! We found that we became more motivated to complete our home improvements once there was a baby in the home, so that aspect was kind of a win-win. I suggest that you just go ahead and get licensed.

On permanency:

I suggest that you get licensed for more than 1 so that the chances of adoption are more likely for you. That is, if you can handle being a new parent and a parent of many children at once. Even if you just accept one child at first, at least your options are open and you can take on more kids when you feel ready. I've noticed that there's a significant bias against only-children in our culture and particularly in fostercare. They don't look at it like "It's great that you can devote lots of time and attention," they see it as being selfish or weird. So any way that you can avoid raising eyebrows, the more likely you'll be able to achieve your goals.

[Smithie]

"the best thing DH and I ever did..."

...was for me to pull the IUD and have that third baby.  I didn't lie. But I made my position clear - your wife's body is in babymaking mode, and sex with me is going to result in a baby. 

Heather, if you want to parent a newborn, I swear to Bob that the easiest way to get one is to make one (if you're fertile). I don't even have a placement yet, and I've already worked harder to get my adopted child than I worked to get my biokids.

Your dreams of fostering and adopting through foster care won't go away. Mine didn't. But I didn't feel strong enough to get on that path until I had kids that nobody could take from me. YMMV, obviously, but for me and DH, our belief in fostering was greatly strengthened once we had biokids. Again YMMV, but I don't think I personally was equipped to foster five years ago. I've gained a lot of skills and a lot of empathy since then. 

[lauren]

Bouncing off of Smithie's ideas, another positive about having bio kids, if you're able to, is that you will have a baseline for what is typical or within the range of normal for development, behavior, attachment, etc.  You'll know what attachment "feels like" between you and a bio child, so that when it either is or isn't present after a while with a foster/adoptive child, you'll be able to put your finger on it.

[Polliwog]

Do you need to parent a newborn of your own or would fostering one who might leave be sufficient? I never had a desire to have a bio-kid but I love having a tiny baby in the house. And my experience has been pretty different than a PP. Here a young baby is more likely to be fairly quickly TPRed as opposed to an older child. And here, pretty much anyone can watch my kids. Some situations require a background check but most (like some sitters and all playdates) fall under prudent parenting. I just have to use my best judgment.

[HeatherAtHome]

Originally Posted by marsupial-mom 

I thought I was fine not having bio kids too, and I AM fine not having bio kids, but as our foster situation gets more and more uncertain I find myself more and more interested in having bio kids. I just crave some higher level of certainty. I WANT chidlren and this fostercare game is likely going to leave me older, less fertile, and without a child.

That's what I worry about. 
 

[nicolelynn]

I was in a similar place several months ago. I, too am almost 30 and growing up thought I'd be married with kids by 20 (just like my Mom). It has been a long hard road for me. We've been happily married for 6 years, but first we struggled with finances then my health. I was on these forums a couple years ago in tears that I couldn't TTC because of those things.

Thank God both issues resolved several months ago, so we finally started talking seriously about TTC or foster-adoption. We went back and forth a bit, I always thought I would have bio kids. But when it came down to it, I suddenly realized what I truly wanted was to foster-adopt. I literally had feared for my life several months ago, and when I was given a second chance at life the emotion just welled up that I couldn't wait to foster-adopt.

I was a progression, though. I, too wanted a newborn. Now the only thing holding us back from going older than 10 is our age (DH is 27, we feel it would be strange to parent someone he isn't old enough to be a bio-parent to..and none of our family or friends have kids that old). I don't feel deprived of my desires either, my desires have just changed. As a PP said, older people looking to foster usually have a different mindset than younger people wanting bio children....I guess I just skipped right to that haha. That's just what I've come to personally.

[HeatherAtHome]

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Edited by HeatherAtHome - 5/5/12 at 5:25am

[Polliwog]

Sounds like a good plan to me.

[Smithie]

Me too! How considerate of the universe, to throw that clarifying experience your way.

[HeatherAtHome]

 That's one way of looking at it! But I seem to get 'clarifying messages' for both ways! I just try to go with the idea that if it's the right thing at the right time it will just happen. 

[JoyFilled]

If you are Canadian, a stay at home mom and want permanent kids I can introduce to 20 kids that need homes in my community alone between ages 2 and 15.  You would be a huge asset to the foster system.  If they can't find you any kids in your community you are more then welcome to move to mine.  :)

[tiffani]

congratulations on making a decision!!  are there rules in your area saying you can't pursue both a bio child AND getting licensed to foster all at the same time?  then just roll with whatever happens first?  you may get licensed (which takes a while, I assume) or you may get pregnant (which may also take a while -- the pregnancy takes a while at the very least, which is why it did make me sort of giggle when a leaky roof scared your dh off ;-)) and you may delay one or the other for a bit, but if you want to start parenting soonish, why not take the plunge with both? get licensed, pull the goalie (as they say) and become a family, however it happens?