# The Joys of Being a Foster Parent/Adoption



## Me&2Girls (May 11, 2007)

Havtahava said:


> I don't want to hijack the thread, but if you ever want to talk about foster parenting, I'm game. I've had 17 foster children and still keep in touch with some of them.


Kimberly, since you've offered  I thought it would be a great idea to start a new thread. You and I have had a lengthy conversation about foster parenting and I want to let everyone know how much I admire you for your commitment to children in need.

For those of you who don't know, both my girls were adopted but started out as foster children. I was a "therapeutic" foster home - which meant that I didn't get the easy ones. 95% of my agency's children ended up never going back to their parents. The training I received was heartbreaking - imagine learning how to deal with a 2-year old who had been sexually abused. The conversations we had with social workers were the stuff that TV movies and Special Victims Unit episodes were made of.

Now for the good part - the children. They are so beautiful. I was very lucky and picked up both girls directly from the hospital at three days old. I'd tried to have children for 12 years and had 8 miscarriages. Between the insurance company and myself, over a quarter of a million dollars was spent trying to keep me pregnant. When I think of the time I wasted, the money spent, all I say to myself was that it was God's way of making me wait for my two fabulous girls. Adopting foster children can be easy or hard depending on their individual situation. Both of mine were contested by the birth parents. So you make lots of court appearances and hold your breath because any day the court can decide to place them in another home or give them back to their parents. I had a wonderful agency to work with that gave us legal training and support - not all are that savvy.

Anyway, this is an open exchange for all for your questions. And please - never call me a hero. I was the one who wanted children and couldn't have them. They've done so much more for me than I for them. Only the head of Pediatrics at Children's Hospital in LA was ever able to understand that. So ask away. And Kimberly, thanks for opening the discussion, your home and heart to so many children.


----------



## mintchip (Apr 19, 2007)

:hug: Thank you! Lisa,Kimberly and others who are there for these children:hug:


----------



## luv3havs (Jul 27, 2007)

This is going to be an interesting discussion.

We'll find out how many forum families were built by adoption.
Adoption/foster care touches many families and I suspect that many of us have experiece with one or the other.

DH and I had 3 sons and wanted a daughter so we turned to adoption to add to our family.
We ended up with 7 children. 
All of my children who came to me by adoption were born in South America.
They have enriched our lives beyond words.

I write this with tears, as Wednesday, July 23, was the 2nd anniversary of the day my beloved Julie, age 26 was killed by a drunk driver.

Can't write any more now.

later,


----------



## mckennasedona (Feb 20, 2007)

Kimberly, I didn't know you were/are a foster mom. Wow!
I commend all of you who took in foster children.
My DH and I spent so much money and time trying to have children but it wasn't meant to be. At the time, insurance didn't cover it and the necessary meds were around $1000.00 per box. After months and years, that adds up. That left no money to even consider adoption because it was/is just as expensive as fertility treatments. We decided not to go the foster route because I simply couldn't handle it if a child I loved and cared for was sent back to a terrible situation. My heart and soul, literally couldn't couldn't have taken it. DH either. He fully admits that he likely would have committed a crime to keep a child safe, that crime being leaving the country instead of allowing a child to go back to a terribly troubled home.


----------



## Leslie (Feb 28, 2007)

God bless you all for stepping up and doing what is right, even though it can be so difficult and, at times, heartbreaking. Not so sure I could do it. :hug:

I have many friends whose families have been built through adoption. One family from our church just received their _22nd_ foster child last month (they've been blessed w/the adoption of 3 of them).


----------



## Me&2Girls (May 11, 2007)

Oh Nan, I am so sorry for your loss - I can't even imagine the terrible heartache. My Maya would love to be part of your family - she's always asking me for a little brother. I tell her that I only have room for two since I only have two arms. She offered to hold the baby. OY Vey? What do you say to that?

Susan, I know your pain. It's very, very hard. I've always thought that the fertility programs really need to include an escrow account for adoption - I could never have afforded a private adoption. Friends were spending $50,000 to go to Russia just to adopt children who looked like them. As you know my girls look nothing like me and it really hasn't been too difficult.


----------



## Posh's Mom (Dec 20, 2007)

I grew up in a neighborhood with a family that had many foster children in their home. Lisa, I guess times have really changed because I used to babysit for the foster kids and they didn't have to background checks or fingerprints on me. I was about sixteen at the time. I fell in love with caring for these kids who had started out with nothing and worse, abuse. The children were 3 years, 2 years, and 6 months. The 3 year old boy was the worst off, he had been shot up with heroine as a baby and had severe brain damage from this. The other two girls were basically high functioning but they had this hunger for attention and love. I held them the entire time I was with them and I could just feel the love radiating between us. I knew at that young age of 16 that I could give this type of care, but that it would be a really difficult thing. Those kids grew up in that house, but with so much red tape the family was never able to adopt them. Now the kids are all adults and the boy lives with the family and the girls are on their own. The girls have turned out to be absolutely gorgeous girls, and I am still in contact with the one who was a baby at the time I babysat. She found me on Facebook and asked me if I remembered taking care of her as a baby. I must have had some sort of impact on her, and that makes me feel really wonderful.

I do realize that these kids come from unbelievable situations and that it would be hard to see them "trying to work it out" with abusive parents. I also realize the effect these situations could have on my small children and so this is why I want to wait. Basically, even if I can just start volunteering with kids that are in high risk situations I think it would be a good place for me. I am thinking about volunteering at a Crisis Nursery and/or the local Community Action Preschool. I don't expect this not to effect me somehow, but I truly want to give these kids something and at the same time be able to continue to give my own kids the attention they deserve and need.

I love reading your stories and would love to hear your suggestions.

Lastly, it was really amazing as my son was adopted by my husband at age two, even though my husband was able to be there since day one at the hospital watching him being born. We had a visit from a social worker before the adoption went through and she told me it was so nice to be in such a positive place that she has to go and see really ugly things. I asked her how best to open up the information to my son that he's been adopted by his dad and she advised me to take lots of pictures of the adoption event and let him ask me the questions. Every year we celebrate adoption day and my son and husband go do something special together. We take out the pictures of the adoption day and every year he asks more and more questions. I know there will be some time when the questions will get really complicated. For the most part I totally forget that he isn't a "blood" relative of his dad and you wouldn't know if you didn't know...I also love to tell him that he's lucky because his dad "chose" to be his dad, and that not everyone gets to choose their children.


----------



## mckennasedona (Feb 20, 2007)

For us, it wasn't that we wanted children who looked like us. If we had chosen to foster we probably would have adopted all of them. 
To be totally and brutally honest, we also didn't feel we were able to take on a teenager with lots of emotional problems. Babies and younger children yes, but I don't think I would have been up to parenting an angry, abused teenager and unfortunately the foster system is full of just such teenagers that need homes.


----------



## Posh's Mom (Dec 20, 2007)

mckennasedona said:


> For us, it wasn't that we wanted children who looked like us. If we had chosen to foster we probably would have adopted all of them.
> To be totally and brutally honest, we also didn't feel we were able to take on a teenager with lots of emotional problems. Babies and younger children yes, but I don't think I would have been up to parenting an angry, abused teenager and unfortunately the foster system is full of just such teenagers that need homes.


Very honest. I commend you Susan. It would be really hard with messed up teens. I actually worry about how I'm going to handle my eight year old when he's a teen. He's a good kid, but he's always been so intense. I'm trying to work on respect NOW while I can still carry him.


----------



## Me&2Girls (May 11, 2007)

Susan, you are so right - getting the young children can be so hard. And the older ones take sooo much work. We were told that it took one year for every year of age in an abusive situation to "turn" things around. And some are never okay. The reattachment parenting classes were really an eye opener.


----------



## Leslie (Feb 28, 2007)

I've often said, "If God had us start life as teenagers, rather than as cute little babies, we'd all be only children."


----------

