For National Adoption Month, Here is Our Adoption Story

By: christineh Tuesday November 1, 2016 comments Tags: adoption, champion mom, foster care, foster parent, National Adoption Month, parenting

My husband and I have been married for 18 years and have 5 wonderful children. My husband has been a Real Estate Appraiser for 15 years and we own our own appraisal firm. We both are also licensed Real Estate Agents. Seven years ago my husband and I, and our 4 biological kids, started the adventure of becoming a foster family. We went through hours of classes and home studies. We felt we were prepared for whatever came along. We were not. Don't get me wrong, if I had to do it all over again I would, but I would also do it differently. I don't think any number of classes or books could ever truly prepare you for the emotional roller coaster that is the foster care system.

We went into the system by opening our home to 0-5 years old because I felt with 4 other children in the house I wanted to keep the birth order in place. We were open to adoption when the right child came into our home. After 9 months of classes and a very intense & invasive home study, we were finally cleared to be a foster family. After being licensed as a foster family for little less than 2 weeks we got our first call for a placement, a newborn baby that we would bring home from the hospital, grow to love for 9 short months before being told that we were going to be moving to adoption. We were so excited if everything went smoothly we could have baby adopted by his first birthday. Then without warning the call came. They would be removing him from our home and placing him with a non-biological family member who would be adopting him. 9 months after he came into our home he was removed and placed with a stranger.

We were not sure we could do that again and took a break to grieve and decide if we could continue. After a few months we talked to our kids, who were ready to open our house up to another placement. We informed our caseworker that we were ready and 2 days later we got a call for placement of two 4 month old cousins who were expected to be a very short term placement as both bio parents were eager to do whatever it took to regain custody of the boys. We thought this would be a good placement for us and allow us to move back into foster care slowly with the short term placement.

The boys came to our house with very little but at the first visit with the moms they both brought clothes, formula and toys and were both very nice. We talked about the boys and they told me their likes and dislikes. I told them I would take care of the babies but was hoping for them to get their boys back quickly. This situation was different than our first placement because we had visits with bio moms and interacted and got to know them. After having the boys in our house for 2 months one of them still did not like being there, he just never clicked with the family. We were loud and always on the go and this made the baby very irritable and crabby. He was in constant need of quiet and calm. This just didn't fit and made the entire house on edge. We talked to the case worker about it and she asked us to wait it out for 2 weeks until mom had her next court hearing because there was a good possibility that she would receive custody back. 2 weeks later she did and I had the pleasure of returning her son to her.

We still had the other baby but were expecting that at the next court hearing he would also be returned to mom and then we thought we would take a break as a foster family for the summer and then decide what was next for us. But then a week before the hearing mom didn't show or call for her visit, same thing happened the next week and at the next hearing. After 6 weeks, mom finally showed back up ready to try again and we started over with reunification. This continued for 9 months. She would disappear for 6-8 weeks and then come back, ready to do what was needed, only to disappear 6 weeks later. During this up and down time both our case worker and GAL (guardian ad litem, the child's court assigned attorney) left our county and we were assigned another case worker and GAL. This is when things got frustrating, the new case worker decided he was going to start the case over and act as if mom had not disappeared and start her parenting plan all over and reinvestigate all bio family members even though they had all been investigated and deemed not a proper placement. At this point we had had baby for almost a year and had been working with him on attachment issues that we were finally seeing a breakthrough. It broke our hearts to think that he would have to go through all of that again, so we talked to a private foster organization and it was suggested we hire a lawyer to help us with our rights as foster parents in speaking for the rights and best interest of the child. We were lucky in that we didn't have to use our lawyer much but he was there to help speak for us and baby at a few hearings and met with the GAL a few times. Four months later mom's rights were terminated after failing to show to a hearing. Our status was changed from foster to adoption and we were assigned an adoption case worker. Six months later we headed to court for the last time to finalize our adoption.

We discovered that our new little one needed lots more attention than we had believed he would so after his adoption we decided to put any further fostering on hold and concentrate on the 5 kids in our house.

Here is a list of a few things we learned about foster care that we didn't know or understand fully and things we wish we had been told or done.

*Just because you are taking in infants does not mean the child will not have "issues." All foster children should be considered trauma kids even if the only trauma they experienced was being removed from their home. This will still have an impact on them no matter how old they are. You have no idea what these babies could have experienced in the womb or in the first few months of life before they were removed. Just because they may not be able to remember their subconscious does recall and you constantly come across new triggers that can send them into hysteria for seemingly no reason.

* Foster parents have more rights than you are told you have. You have the ability to speak on the behalf of the child if they have been in your house for a certain amount of time. I am not a lawyer and don't want to misrepresent anything so I won't go into more but I highly recommend that if you become a foster parent and think that at any point you may adopt, find a lawyer who is familiar with foster parents' rights and laws and meet with them to find out what your rights are and how best to speak for the child if the need ever arises. We learned after the fact that our fist placement was taken out of our house illegally but because we were not familiar with the laws and our rights as foster parents or our placement's rights to have others speak for him so we didn't know we could fight it.

* When becoming a foster family, you have a couple of options. You can go through the county of your choice. It does not need to be the county you live in. We chose not to be licensed in the county we lived in for a few reasons and after going to information meetings in surrounding counties we choses one we felt comfortable with. The other option that we were not aware of until after becoming licensed through the county is the option to be licensed with a private organization. There are pros and cons of both so I would suggest doing your homework and researching the option that you feel most comfortable with.

* Don't think you have to do it alone. Take advantage of all the benefits offered to you. Respite care, counseling, free events and trainings. Friends and families support are important but they can't always understand the process to help you navigate things. You need people who have been where you are, and unless your family or friends have been there, they just cannot help the same way.

* The worst thing you can do to support a foster family is to ask probing questions about the kids in their care, especially when you have not fostered yourself. One of the jobs of a foster parent is to protect the child's story and the why and how they are now living with you is their story and theirs to tell. It is really hard as a foster parent to not answer probing questions from well-meaning family and friends.

In honor of National Adoption Month, we have chosen to share our adoption story in hopes that it may help other families going through similar challenges.

Champion Carpet, Carpet Cleaning

A Colorado Family Legacy for over a quarter century

Champion Carpet cleaning has been serving Colorado families and business with superior customer service. Our quality speaks for itself and when coupled with our family values you will see why some of our customers have relied on us for decades. It's so clean you will feel like a Champion!