adopting from foster care

[Anonymous]

My husband and I have a 5 year old child. We have been debating adoption of an infant vs adoption of a young (younger than our 5 year old) child from foster care. I would love to hear some firsthand experiences from those who already have a biological child and chose to adopt another child (or children) from foster care.

How do you balance the needs of your first child with the needs of the adopted child? My fear is that our son will feel displaced somehow due to another child. I have other concerns, too, of course, but this is the biggest at the moment.

[Anonymous]

It is important to know that the vast majority of children under age 5 who are available for adoption are part of a larger sibling set, have very serious medical issues, or are subject to the Indian Child Welfare Act. If these do not appeal to you, you really have a few options:

a) wait a few years until your child is older and you can keep birth order while adopting a slightly older child. Barker and Adoptions Together have special programs in the DC area for this.

b) do foster care of a young child. But you need to be able to support the goal, which is nearly always reunification with the birth parents or biological relatives. If you go into it in hopes that reunification will fail and you will get the baby, it will break your heart and be rotten for the child. In DC, there is an option to only foster children who are likely to be freed for adoption, but there is still plenty of risk and you will probably wait a year or two to be matched with a child.

c) investigate international adoption, which comes with its own pros and cons.

As for how to balance the needs of your first child and one you might adopt, this is something everyone with multiple children must address--with the added ripple that parenting kids from traumatic backgrounds may require a different parenting style and a lot of appointments. The book "maybe days" might be useful for you to look through to get some language that would work for talking with your son.

[Anonymous]

Agree with PP ... my brother was adopted from foster care. He was the second child placed with my parents ... first was eventually adopted by a family member. He was placed at 24 months and adoption was finalized at 5.5yo. He was diagnosed with a terminal illness prior to adoption being finalized which may have impacted the process.

[Anonymous]

14:48 is wise. This is an anecdote, but from someone I know well and who shared a lot about her experiences. She was placed with a medically fragile newborn that she was told would almost certainly be available for adoption, as this was one of those rare cases where the mother's rights were severed at birth.

The child had special needs, so other family members were not willing to take them on. However, once the foster family got the baby past the first 6 months, the baby was much healthier but the adoption process was not yet complete. During that time some extended family expressed a desire to adopt the now-healthy infant.

Now, you can look at this as a sad story of my friend losing the child she thought she'd be able to adopt or a happy story of family reunification depending on your lens. But it was SO HARD. If you go into foster-to-adopt, just be aware that this is a possibility right up until the day papers are signed. If you can live with that risk, then it's the right decision for you.

[Anonymous]

Not the OP... but with a similar question: Can a couple in their late 40's adopt a foster child of 12-14? Or would they be considered too old? Child in question is, "available," for adoption. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not the OP... but with a similar question: Can a couple in their late 40's adopt a foster child of 12-14? Or would they be considered too old? Child in question is, "available," for adoption. Thank you.

PP, I do think this is possible. When I went to an information session at Barker, they described a similar adoption.

OP, we have a 5 year old and have considered foster-to-adopt, but have all the same concerns you have. The biggest problem for us is that we just can't fathom allowing our daughter to fall in love with a foster sibling and then possibly have to lose him or her. I wish you the best in your decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not the OP... but with a similar question: Can a couple in their late 40's adopt a foster child of 12-14? Or would they be considered too old? Child in question is, "available," for adoption. Thank you.

Definitely possible for a child that age. They're hard to place, and late 40s is a pretty normal age to have a young teen.