TTA (trying to adopt) Chat Thread

[Rainey Daye]

Okay, so I don't know if this will take off or not, but after having been on both a TTC group and a TTCAL (trying to conceive after loss) group here on Mothering this past year and actually getting to know some of the other mamas who were going through the same sort of stuff I was going through I thought it was worth a shot to see if there was interest in a chat thread on here for us to get to know each other better as we go through the daunting process of home studies and adoption agencies and the like. I know that I at least feel like I made some friends on the other threads and would love the same here. I don't tend to post too much outside my areas of interest on MDC and it is so very big and has so very many threads that a chat thread seems to be a great way to really get to know each other as we go through this whole adoption roller coaster!!

So what do y'all say? Any interest?

[Rainey Daye]

I can start with an intro, if that helps. 

I'm from Texas, but grew up all over as a missionary kid (and speak Spanish and Romanian fluently). I am one of seven kids. I met my husband online while I was living halfway around the world, but he is a Texan too and that is where we live now. We have one little boy who is a great source of humor and joy to us. We found out last year that he has asthma and a peanut allergy, so that is something we are coming to deal with on a daily basis now...but we are working with a nutritionist to try and keep him as healthy as possible.

We went through some health scares on my part surrounding the little guy's birth, then went through three miscarriages last year and a trip to the ER a few weeks ago (related to complications from the last miscarriage)...so we are considering all that a sign that we are meant to add to our family through adoption vs. conception.

We are only at the beginning of our journey and are nervous and excited to see how it all plays out. 

[Smithie]

Is your avatar a picture of you, Rainey?

[Rainey Daye]

Yes, only it's a "vanity" avatar!! It's a modeling pic from 10 years ago. I'm 25 lbs heavier and a bit lumper these days, thanks to marriage and pregnancy!! :-P

[MountainMamaGC]

We dont know what we want just yet, but we are saving our money just in case.

[Smithie]

Year and lumps notwithstanding, if that's the facial structure you've got to work with, you are doing OK.  

My DH and I were very intent on adopting from foster care a year ago. Now that we've fostered, we're a little more intent on doing more fostering - not opposed to adoption by any means, but not feeling like we'll regret it horribly in 20 years if all of our foster placements end up going home or to kin and we never adopt. 

[kathteach]

I have been lurking around this forum since 2006.  My husband and I are beginning MAPP classes next month.  I'm surprised how much there is to do to get the house ready for a home study.

[Purplegal]

I'd love to join a chat/support thread!

My name is Anna and I am in Arizona. DH and I have one 5 y/o DD that we had via gestational surrogacy (with my mom as our surrogate). We are now starting the adoption process to add to our family. We have done some classes and have the paperwork/fingerprint cards done, and our homestudy is scheduled for March 16.   We are trying for private domestic newborn adoption.

Looking forward to meeting others!

[Grace and Granola]

Hi!  I'm Heather and I live in Missouri.  We have two sons ages 5 and 6, who I homeschool.  We've just become licensed foster parents and have had one call which we had to say no to.  We hope to adopt up to two children through the foster care system, but we are happy to pour into as many little lives as we can while we wait to complete our family.

[bstandlee]

This seems to be getting off to a bit of a slow start, but I'll join! We are in the process of domestic infant adoption through an agency. We have applied for several grants and are waiting for the final funding to come in before we can afford to get our profile "active" and shown to potential birth mom's. It's a daunting journey, but we are very excited to be in this process.

[Smithie]

We passed our annual fire inspection. Um, hooray? 

In more exciting news, our foster license has been transferred to a private agency, as part of a county-wide effort to dismantle the social services behemoth into more manageable chunks. Our new licensing worker seems nice, has a lower caseload than our previous worker, and several of the government employees we've worked with previously have switched their employment over to this private agency. We are cautiously optimistic that they might attempt to match us with a child who actually meets some of our criteria beyond gender the next time around. They've also assigned a full-time private agency resource to dealing with the "my child's worker doesn't answer her phone" problem, tracking down medical referrals, birth certs, school records etc. So, all in all, I'm very pleased to see these people trying to improve on their business model. 

 

[lauren]

There were a couple of these threads before so if you're patient it will take off! Perhaps I'll go resurrect the other thread and see who was on there and see if they're still around.

[loveandkindness]

We are just beginning the process of adopting a special needs child from Russia.  We fell in love with her on Reece's Rainbow.    So far international adoption is very daunting!  I keep wishing I had a friend IRL who has been through this and could walk me through it.  Just looking at the list of paperwork we have to get together makes my head hurt.  And for very private people (like us) giving strangers the right to riffle through your financial papers and past makes me uncomfortable.  But then I look at her photo, and tell myself it is worth it!

[excitedtobeamom]

loveandkindness-Hang in there with the paperwork!  We did an entire dossier for T@il@and and boy is that a lot of work.  A year and a half later we did all the paperwork for a domestic adoption and boy is it a lot of paperwork but keep copies of everything.  It makes it way easier the next time you do it or if something gets lost.  We ended up adopting domestically 9 months after we started that process.  It looks like we won't be adopting internationally as their has been no movement in that particular country in our case and we started in 2008!  We did just start the process to adopt again domestically.  We are so excited to add to the family again. 

Can you post a link on your child on Reece's Rainbow?  I would love to see who you are adopting. I often look at all the precious children on there.

[brandyshea]

Can I jump in here?  We are just now getting started with the process for domestic adoption.  Going through a private agency.  We tried to get pregnant for four years, including two rounds of IVF, neither of which worked.  

All of our paperwork is almost completed and then we will have our homestudy.

[loveandkindness]

Originally Posted by excitedtobeamom 

Can you post a link on your child on Reece's Rainbow?  I would love to see who you are adopting. I often look at all the precious children on there.

 She is no longer listed on RR since we are not fundraising through that site.  We have been advised by the agency not to put any info about her on the internet (photos, medical info, etc) because the country does not like to see private information about their citizens broadcast online.  Kind of like our HIPPA laws, and since she is not yet ours, it is not our right or place to talk about her medical issues or past life.  The basic info I can share is that she is 5, was given up at birth, and has had 3 surgeries which were considered very successful, but she still has many challenges.

I am trying to remain laidback about all the adoption issues, since I have a tendency to obsess over things I care about.  It is a little easier for us because we thought our family was complete, and had never thought about adding another child until recently.  So I am already busy being a mom, and if this adoption falls through, which I know many of them from this country do, then my main concern will be about the child and I won't have to deal with my own emotions quite so much.  We do have the option, if we are not able to adopt her, to sponsor her medical care financially.  However, that doesn't make up for a mama's love and hugs . . .

[excitedtobeamom]

loveandkindness-It sounds like a good plan.  I tend to obess as well.  Adoption is an emotional rollercoaster that we have very little control over.  I thought my next child was going to be a Asian toddler and things turned out very differently but it has all been such a blessing.  I hope everything works out for you!  Keep us posted!

Brandyshea-You are at a very exciting point!  Keep us posted! 

[MountainMamaGC]

Just started doing some paperwork. I am pretty excited about moving forward with this.

[FLFosterMom]

My DH and I have 3 bio DDs and planned to adopt 2-3 boys via foster care.  We were licensed 21 mos ago and got our first placement that day--2 toddler boys.  We still have them.  Plus, they were joined by their 13 mos and 6 wk old bio sisters at 9 days and 7 days old, respectively.  We are just starting the home study process to adopt them.(our newborn is not actually free for adoption, yet.)  Our plan was to be foster parents for a while and adopt one day if the right situation presented itself.  We never imagined we would end up adopting the first children we took in.  Their adoptions are supposed to be finalized this summer.  They already feel like ours so we're all very eager for it to finally be legal.

[Rainey Daye]

We are just starting the process. We haven't done any of the paperwork yet...but we are going to being going to either an informational meeting tomorrow night or to an adoption info expo next week on Saturday...or both!! I also just got two books yesterday that I ordered from Amazon. One is one I had out as a library book and got about halfway through and then decided I wanted to own it...called "You Can Adopt". The other I have heard good things about on various adoption blogs called "Adopt Without Debt".

My DH is open to adoption and has actually mentioned it a few times on his own without me bringing up the subject. He is just really worried about the financial aspect of it. We worked so hard after we married and before kids to knock out a lot of the "stupid debt" that we had. We had gotten it down to one car payment, a student loan that we'd knocked down to less than $12,000, and a couple thousand on credit cards (besides our mortgage, of course) when our little boy came along. But with the debt incurred from an emergency transport to the hospital from a planned (and already paid for) home birth, several health issues for all three of us (root canal-me, asthma-DH and Bug, migraine-me, ulcer-DH, GERD-DH, etc), and three ER trips (eclamptic seizure-me, peanut anaphylaxis-Bug, hemorrhaging from miscarriage complications-me). Well, needless to say, we are almost back to where we started on the whole debt thing...except the "stupid debt" has been replaced with medical debt!! So yeah, the financial aspect is our biggest roadblock.

If it wasn't for money, we'd be jumping into it enthusiastically...with both feet...immediately. Instead, we are dipping our toes in while trying to figure out how to make it happen without going crazy into debt. Yes, we are open to foster adoption, but we want to keep birth order and our Bug isn't even three yet so we'd have to go young. Plus there's the whole possibility of loss with foster children and after three miscarriages in the past year, it would be hard to go through the possibility of losing foster children as well (though obviously a different kind of loss).