Reply to Adopting after secondary infertility

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. My mother actually adopted a family friend's older child out of foster care recently and foster to adopt would be our preference. The issue with foster care is that our first child is still preschool age and we wouldn't want to go out of birth order. Plus we're in DC and my understanding is they have pretty much a 0% adoption rate/100% reunification rate. We'd be amenable to moving to another jurisdiction with more conducive foster to adopt policies, but wouldn't be able to do that for at least a few years and emotionally our family will need to be complete and able to move on from the hardship of infertility and failure by then.

What is the answer then? I would rather not have another child than "buy" a child or participate in shady adoption practices, but no, I'm absolutely not going to bring a traumatized, high needs older child into my preschooler's home. That is not safe or fair for anyone. Are we just out of luck then?[/quote]

The goal always starts out as adoption but I know five families that have adopted from DC foster care once the goal changed--two took newborns, and three took older kids. The adoptions took a few years while DC saw if the parents were fulfilling their case plan and if there was a relative who was willing and able to take the kids. This was hard for the foster families, but they understood it going in and could understand DC's policy of encouraging kids to be raised somewhere in their families of origin.

Fostering while being open to adoption if the child needs it is great, and in DC you can say that you only want kids younger than yours (but expect to wait a little while, especially if you will only foster one kid and[b] refuse to take kids with special needs[/b]--most of the kids who come into care are older, part of sibling sets, and/or have disabilities). But you're right that in DC you cannot foster assuming that you will adopt the first kid that's placed with you. Most kids are reunified. 
[/quote]

Wanted to add that of course, you can refuse placement of a child with known, diagnosed special needs but many impairments will not show up until later. Considering that many children enter care because of parental addiction and mental health issues, there is a higher-than-usual chance that the child will have been exposed to or inherited these. That doesn't mean OP shouldn't do it, and certainly babies placed for private adoption face similar risk factors (I've definitely heard of moms choosing private adoption knowing that if they don't, the child will likely be taken into foster care) but it's something to know.[/quote]

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