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Foster and Foster to Adopt

bambi05bambi05 member
in Adoption
My husband and I attended an information session in April about foster care and foster to adopt. We where lead here after 2 still births of our own. We spent the last several months focusing on our self's and build our self's back up from our 2nd loss (December 29th) and coming to terms with the fact that we are not willing to try a 3rd time. We have prayed about it... A LOT... and feel foster/ foster to adopt is the path we are meant to take. So, we start our training classes at the end of Sept. We are every excited and even looking forward to filling out the paper work. (Who looks forward to filling out paper work... lol) We turn our paper work in at our first training class and during that time a home study will begin. I have been working on the house, setting up bedrooms, (need help figuring how to decorate and such) moving all our chemicals up high, locking all our meds up things like that. I guess I'm just here looking for anyone's experiences, ideas, what all I need to do, things I should have on hand, how best to prepare... things like that. We are planing to have children 5 and under boy or girl.
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Re: Foster and Foster to Adopt

  • Foster1MomFoster1Mom

    Welcome to the board.

    They will test your love of paperwork...LOL  It sounds like you are already on the right path with the house. :) 

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  • mommytoconnormommytoconnor member
    Welcome.  Sounds like you're on the right path as far as getting stuff done for homestudy.  As far as decorating and stuff, I took the approach that I would only have a very basic furniture (gender neutral) and not decorate.  That way when I got a placement they could have some input on what color they wanted and you could have some fun time letting them help to pick out stuff like bedding and things like that.  It makes them feel more comfortable and more at home that you are letting them make a choice in how their room will look.  They don't have a choice to be in foster care.  I have found this to be a huge thing to help facilitate the transition. With that being said, I would definately have very minimal and basic stuff.  Get a convertible car seat, that way you can use it for infant and toddler (most of them go up to like 40-50 pounds or so). I like to get a stuffed animal to give the child as soon as they get there and tell them that this is special just for them. Have a few bottles,sippy cups,diapers, wipes,that kind of thing in case it's a baby.  You can always go shopping after a placement to get the fun stuff. Good luck.
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  • elissaann26elissaann26 member

    Congrats on beginning your foster journey!  I would suggest trying to talk to a social worker in your county to get an idea of what is required for your homestudy.  Our age range was 0-4, although we ended up being placed with a 5 and almost 2 year old.  While most of this wasn't required by our county, we got the nursery done with neutral colors.  We went with a dog theme since we joked the room was already the dog's room and now he'd have to share it.  We also bought or had friends give us enough clothing to have 3 outfits from newborn to 5T.  I will tell you that in our county this is not required at all.  But I would do this over again in a heart beat.  I knew that any child entering our home would have pajamas for that night and clean clothes for the next day.  This gave us some time to get to know each other before heading out on a shopping spree to buy tons of necessities.  We also had 1 pack of diapers in every size, along with a good variety of toys.  Most of what we got were from friends or from consignment sales.  I also was fortunate enough to have 2 baby showers prior to our homestudies that helped with some of our basics. 

    Please feel free to post questions as things come to mind.  I remember we had so many questions at the beginning and it was hard to find reliable answers.  Foster parent blogs were one of my primary reasources in the beginning because they "got" it.  That is part of the reason why I have tried to document as much of our foster parent journey on my blog as possible.

    Also, feel free to PM me or email me (redhead [at] redheadinraleigh.com) if you have any questions you don't want to post! 

    Good luck!  And enjoy the paperwork while it is still fun!

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  • cadgirlcadgirl member
    imageelissaann26:

    Congrats on beginning your foster journey!  I would suggest trying to talk to a social worker in your county to get an idea of what is required for your homestudy.  Our age range was 0-4, although we ended up being placed with a 5 and almost 2 year old.  While most of this wasn't required by our county, we got the nursery done with neutral colors.  We went with a dog theme since we joked the room was already the dog's room and now he'd have to share it.  We also bought or had friends give us enough clothing to have 3 outfits from newborn to 5T.  I will tell you that in our county this is not required at all.  But I would do this over again in a heart beat.  I knew that any child entering our home would have pajamas for that night and clean clothes for the next day.  This gave us some time to get to know each other before heading out on a shopping spree to buy tons of necessities.  We also had 1 pack of diapers in every size, along with a good variety of toys.  Most of what we got were from friends or from consignment sales.  I also was fortunate enough to have 2 baby showers prior to our homestudies that helped with some of our basics. 

    Please feel free to post questions as things come to mind.  I remember we had so many questions at the beginning and it was hard to find reliable answers.  Foster parent blogs were one of my primary reasources in the beginning because they "got" it.  That is part of the reason why I have tried to document as much of our foster parent journey on my blog as possible.

    Also, feel free to PM me or email me (redhead [at] redheadinraleigh.com) if you have any questions you don't want to post! 

    Good luck!  And enjoy the paperwork while it is still fun!

    This was very much what we had prepared.  We looked at it as what would be necessary to take care of a child in the age range we were looking at for a day or two - diapers, an outfit or two, pj's, sippy cups, bottles, etc.  That way we could get by for a day which would allow us to head out to the store and get more of the things we needed for the specific children that came into our home.

    Also making sure to have beds appropriate for the ages and carseats.

    Otherwise, I think our house would have been filled to the brim with everything we would need for all the ages we would accept (which is only 0-3 yrs old), and who knows if some of it would even be used.  

    Foster parents turned adoptive parents :)
    Adoptive daughter born 08/07/13... growing so fast
    BM due again end of March 2015 so any day!
    Bloggy blog
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  • morgan2Bmorgan2B

    Welcome. 
    After paperwork, classes, homestudy, etc. we were approved for foster/adopt last summer.  We are with great agency that has always respected the fact that we were most interested in long term placements vs many short term placements.  We were able to "get our feet wet" and help out great families by way of respite.  Two older children were mentioned to us last summer and kept coming up in coversation until we met them in March.  It was instant family connection and love the first weekened.  Parental rights have already been terminated and adoption has been their goal for almost a year.  They moved in June 29 and adoption should be final Feb29.  I'm briefly sharing our story so you can hear a success story.  DH and I have a platform for sharing more information with our family, friends, and community with the hopes that others will find it in their hearts to give back in some way.

    Best wishes!  Feel free to PM me.

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  • Foster1MomFoster1Mom

    I ditto checking with your county. Ours required a week worth of supplies for any age we are licensed for. So we now have tons of clothes, shoes, diapers, bottles, sippy cups, the list goes on. We asked friends, family, consignment/thrift shops are AMAZING. Kids grow so fast a lot of the clothes are in perfect shape.

    It is so great to see more foster & foster to adopt on the board. Please keep posting. 

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  • DaisyZHDaisyZH member
    Welcome and congratulations on starting the adoption process.  I'm so sorry for your losses, that is heartbreaking.  I'm kind of excited to start paperwork too, I'm sure that will change once I'm in the midst of it lol.  I don't have any advice, just welcome and good luck!!


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  • irismorningirismorning member

    I hope that you continue to enjoy paperwork, because it will come. During my DSons adoption, I also had to fill out paperwork as the custodial guardian to give to the adoptive parent, me :) . That paperwork took about 2 hours to complete. Just know that every form and every phone call puts you that much closer to your child(ren).

    Welcome!

    Mother of two wonderful boys! Blessed through adoption.

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