Foster to adopt

Kristina Hawk

Hi there   My husband and I are starting classes to become foster parents. We are looking to adopt an infant without special needs, any race, either sex. We were wondering if anyone has experience adopting this group from foster care? If so, please share

Thanks! 

Cissi64

Unless you are open to some special needs ( like Fred said, a lot are drug exposed) you may have a long wait.  Even is they are removed for something other than drugs,  they may end up with emotional or behavior disorders  due to abuse or neglect.

b2b999

Plus you have to know the main goal of foster care is reunification with the birth parents or in the alternative finding a kinship placement. It can be heart breaking, after months or years of raising a child to have that child be taken at any point.

PrincessShay80

We had an excellent experience with foster to adopt. We actually started off with domestic infant adoption and ended up with a foster to adoption situation (LONG story) pretty much the short story is our social worker through our private agency went back to work for the county in the middle of our homestudy. She kept our name and number and she called us with a foster to adoption situation a few weeks after our home study was done through our agency (we just had to transfer it to the county). We got our daughter when she was 11 days old, perfectly healthy. Her birth mom was a drug addict , and did admit to doing drugs while pregnant, but our daughter tested negative for drugs at birth and has never had any issues or developmental issues.

The case worker said the birth mother had a history of loosing children in the system and while it was legal risk placement she was pretty sure it would go adoption. It did, TPR was filed at when DD was 5 months old and her adoption was final when she was 14 months old (it took longer to get court dates then anything else) birth mom has never been in the picture and birth father is unknown.

Adopting healthy infants through foster care does happen- I have met several people through our local foster/adoption groups who have gotten infants (some perfectly healthy or with minor issues that resolve over time) and gone on to adopt them, it is a process, 2 years is pretty standard (I guess we got lucky) but it happens. You can also ask about where the safe haven babies go- I know several people who have adopted safe haven babies through the county that start off as foster babies.

I will say that it seems to differ from county to county and state to state, we have A LOT of infants in Las Vegas- I don't why people seem to come here to have babies and leave them here, we have a lot of safe haven babies.

Our county is fine with you being foster to adopt, if they know you are foster to adopt they try to call you with placments that look like they will go more towards adoption, although they never know for sure, a lot of time the case workers know if there is a history with birth parents or not.

Good luck, don't listen to the horror stories, it's all about waiting for the right call, and while it make take awhile it's all worth it.

ctbride08

If you are looking for an infant, you really have to be okay with the possibility of the child being reunified - that you may have to go through a few placements until you are matched with the one that becomes permanent.  The primary goal of foster care is to reunify children with their birth parents and in 99% of cases, that will be the state's goal for at least a year.  It wont be until the child is no longer an infant that the possibility of adoption may arise (2 yo + usually in my area).

And i definitely agree with the others 'non-special needs foster child' is kind of like an oxymoron.  In the vast majority of cases, babies are removed from their moms because of drug exposure.  

PrincessShay80

fredalina:

Shay, these are not horror stories. They are facts and statistics. It's a fact that children are not removed from perfectly capable homes where no drugs, abuse, or neglect was happening and placed with foster families to adopt. Infants are removed because of addiction usually, sometimes abuse or extreme neglect, such as being left alone.

What happened with your daughter is extremely rare. It involved some special treatment I've never heard of anyone else ever getting. In fact, you didn't "wait for the right call"; it came to you when you weren't pursuing foster/adopt at all. Waiting for the right call when you're waiting for an infant with no special needs is virtually a myth; why would the state waste money to license a family and do continuing education when they may literally wait 3, 4, 5 years?

Now, if someone is willing to accept infants who were exposed to drugs and alcohol (which means special needs in infancy but not necessarily later on --my daughter seems perfectly on track developmentally, ahead even), and the fact that their child may be reunified or given to relatives at any time before adoption, then foster/adopt may be right for them. But it's not right for those who want no special needs risks or the risk of reunification.

I would appreciate it if you didn't comment on my "special treatment" as you don't know the entire story, nor do you know anything about me.

I get at least 3-4 calls a week for safe haven babies and infants that are pretty darn healthy, I'm not saying they are not or were not drug exposed- but I'm not getting calls for kids that are all strung out or in the NICU, so who knows maybe it's different here.

mommytoconnor

I adopted from foster care.  As with the other posts, you have to know that the primary goal of foster care is to reunite with birth parents, if that can't be done then they look for a family member and only if those are not available would they turn child over for adoption.  The vast majority of children in foster care have been removed due to the parents drug use, inability to parent or neglect or abuse.  Now I am also an OB nurse who sees CPS take newborns all the time right from the hospital.  Every single one I have dealt with has been due to neglect of another child, prior history with CPS or drugs.  I will tell you that originally I had wanted to adopt and wanted a younger child.  Well four and half years later, once I revised my "preference list" numerous times, I received a call from CPS saying they would like to consider me for a placement of a drug exposed infant 3 months old that did have some issues, who was not yet legally free for adoption.  I took that leap of faith, as it just seemed right.  Well all of his "issues" resolved shortly after I brought him home.  It was about another 8 months before his parental rights were terminated, so at anytime he could be taken from me.  I was fortunate enough to finalize his adoption in June of this year and he is officially mine.  It worked out for me, but I will warn you that this is not the typical.  Most children in CPS are not without some sort of special need, however minor.  And if you are wanting an infant you will probably have a long wait.  You may receive several placements of infants that are reunited with their parents before one actually becomes available for adoption.  Hope this helps.