We adopted internationally 9 years ago, started foster care 8 years ago and we have adopted two of our foster children. We are in the process of adopting one foster child age 17. We also accepted placement of 2 girls ages 5 and 7 to adopt, we are their 7th placement. We are totally insane!
I’m a foster and adoptive mom living with my husband in suburban New England. We recently adopted our four-year-old son "Grover", whom we fostered for just over two years prior to finalization. Now we're looking to what's next on this crazy journey...
I have been a foster mom for just over a year.
We finished classes and training at the beginning of summer and got our first placements on July 19th.
I'm a young, new foster mom who is also trying to conceive at the same time. I got my first placement in July after waiting four months. "Moose" is a handsome little medically fragile boy, age 3 months (corrected age 4 weeks now). My life as a single by choice, TTC-ing, young foster mom, inspired by Rebecca at fosterhood.
My husband and I are in the process of becoming licensed foster parents. Our report is being sent in this week so we are expecting our first placement within a month.
We are new-ish to foster care, and our goal is adoption when possible. We received our 1st placement 3 days after being licensed in April 2011 - a one month old baby girl. 6 weeks later we were placed with twin 2-year-old boys. It has been a crazy 10 months, but we wouldn't change a thing. Our adoption of the boys should be final next month! Thank you for sharing your journey, it is so nice to know there are others out there. :)
My blog is our story of starting out with intentions of adopting internationally and then getting into foster care. We are in the process of foster-adopt with twin 5 year olds.
I started blogging over a year ago to share some of my "crunchy" mama tips with friends. It turned into my journey to become a foster parent and hopefully very soon an adoptive parent! We have 3 biological and have taken in 3 foster children in 3 months, which gives us 6 under 6! Crazy times at our house, but we're loving it!
We are not fostering right now because after we adopted our last two we had to close our license because of the state law about only having 6 children under the age of 18. Our oldest is now 18 but I am not ready yet. My husband and I will be married 20 years this year, we were married at 19, everyone said we were to young it wouldn't work. They were wrong.;)We have 6 kiddo's, 3 adopted and 3 biological. We have fostered on and off for the last 13 years. We have had some kids come into our house for the weekend and we have had our heart's broken when a little one we got as a newborn and thought we were going to get to adopt was sent with a relative 6 weeks before she turned 2. I have seen the system work and fail. I have seen kids that shouldn't go back to bio families go back and I have seen kids that shouldn't have been taken in the first place stay in the system to long. I have had really good social workers and really bad ones. I have been asked by judges to speak at court and have been completely ignored. I have compassion for foster parents and love to pray for their families. Fostering is the hardest work you will ever do but the rewards are priceless.
We have three biological sons, and two foster kids- boy and girl siblings that we have had for 7 months. All of the kids are 7 and under, so it is a little crazy around here!
After discovering severe infertility after the birth of her son, Mie & family decided to venture into foster care with the hopes of adopting a sibling group. Within 2 years she'd had 10 foster kiddos, adopted 1 beautiful girl, and became a passionate advocate for orphan care
http://crashcourseinparenting.blogspot.com/
My husband and I have been doing foster care for 11 months. We have been married for 5 years and have been unable to have children of our own. We have had the same three foster children for 11 months (all boys with the same mother). We are open to adoption but the plan is still reunification at this time. I am thinking this case is going to be open for a long time so who knows what the future holds!
http://cherubmamma.blogspot.com/
My husband and I have fostered for about three years -- not all consecutive though. We were licensed for two years when we lived in the Midwest. We adopted a baby boy at birth and also cared for a 2yo boy for six months while his family worked towards reunification.
Due to several major cross-country moves, we had to take a break from fostering until last year. After going through all the trainings, homestudies, background checks, etc. again...we got our license in the farthest southern part of the country possible in the fall of 2010.
We have only had three placements since September 2010. We've also done lots of respite for other foster families.
We've got two additional kids in our family (our biological book-ends).
We've never actively pursued adoption. Though, if the doors opened, we'd like to adopt a sibling group. For now though, we're just riding the foster parenting roller coaster.
Due to several major cross-country moves, we had to take a break from fostering until last year. After going through all the trainings, homestudies, background checks, etc. again...we got our license in the farthest southern part of the country possible in the fall of 2010.
We have only had three placements since September 2010. We've also done lots of respite for other foster families.
We've got two additional kids in our family (our biological book-ends).
We've never actively pursued adoption. Though, if the doors opened, we'd like to adopt a sibling group. For now though, we're just riding the foster parenting roller coaster.
My husband and I have been fostering for 6 years. We ave had 14 placements. 3 of those were long term. Currently, we have an infant baby boy (4 months) who we are hoping to adopt but the current goal is reunification. We also have 4 bio children.
My husband and I have been foster parents for 14 months. We've had 5 placements... four have returned home (one just last week). Tank, placement #5, is set for adoption by non-relative (US!!)... we are so excited to add to our family. We have one bio son who is turning 2. The boys are only 4 months apart :) Yep, we love crazy! We are hoping to get more little ones soon.
I have been a single foster mom for over 17 years. During that time, I have had 17 foster children placed with me in 13 cases (3 sibling groups). I have also provided respite for close to two dozen other children for one to ten days.
I have adopted three of my foster children and am considering another foster placement soon. My first four foster children moved on to non-relative adoptive homes. Two others went on to be adopted by relatives. The other eight returned to a parent, although two later disrupted and the child in each case was eventually adopted by non-relatives.
In addition to my three adopted children, I pick up a former foster daughter every weekend and for most school breaks. She is counted as part of our family. I have been lucky to remain in contact with all but three of my foster children for at least several months after they left my home. I am still in contact with five of those children today.
We're still in the process of being licensed. We took all the classes and just sent in our fingerprints last week. I can't wait to get the call that we are officially licensed :)
awesome computer nerd husband. CHECK. child with special needs they told us to abort. CHECK. her twin gone at 15 weeks pregnancy. CHECK. child without special needs. CHECK. 2 unexplained miscarriages. CHECK. 1 emergency surgery to remove ectopic pregnancy and fallopian tube. CHECK. decide to do foster/adopt. CHECK. surprise pregnancy as we sign the paperwork to be licensed, due in July. CHECK. newborn foster baby. CHECK. Don't tell me God doesn't have a sense of humor. What will happen next?
My husband and I have fostered for 3.5 months. We started at age 24 with no kids of our own (hopefully will have bio children in the future) and are loving it so far.
We will only foster one baby at a time under the age of ~6 months at time of placement. Since January we have had a (now 10.5 month old) boy who is cute as can be. He will be a long-term placement, but no current plans to adopt him. We are open to adoption, but not looking for it at this time.
I blog about our little man (Boogie) at www.foryoubylove.blogspot.com
We will only foster one baby at a time under the age of ~6 months at time of placement. Since January we have had a (now 10.5 month old) boy who is cute as can be. He will be a long-term placement, but no current plans to adopt him. We are open to adoption, but not looking for it at this time.
I blog about our little man (Boogie) at www.foryoubylove.blogspot.com
I'm Debbie and we adopted our daughter via domestic adoption in 2008. We have an open adoption with her first mom and family. We are feeling God's call to foster very strongly right now and started the training and licensing process in Sept 2010. Our end goal is to adopt but we want to foster for a bit first. Might be a year might be 5 years. We look forward to seeing what and who God brings in to our family.
We started fostering in July 2009 when we recieved our first placement, a 7 week old baby girl. We have now been chosen to adopt her over the relatives that were interested and she is now legally free. We also have another baby who came to us as a newborn in March of 2010. She is a foster/adopt placement, and we hope to adopt her as well.
Entering my 3rd year as a single foster mom. Most days I think "I Must Be Trippin'" when I talk about all of the craziness that is Foster/Adopt Land in one breath, and how much I LOVE MY LIFE in the next. Because I DO love my life, and I wouldn't change a thing.
http://jointhelarksnest.blogspot.com/
http://jointhelarksnest.blogspot.com/
we have been foster parents for 4 (almost 5) years now.
we have had 4 placements...
2 of those have been adoptions.
1 of those was able to go with a family member.
1 of those will be joining our family soon!
I'm a wife to my very best friend and a mama to our three little girls. I do not have it all together- in any way. I strive to live for God daily and I could not get through one day (happily, sanely) without him. I'm a stay at home mom and I love, love, love my children & children in general. Even on the "I wanna pull my hair out, hide in the bedroom for an hour, I can't wait for bedtime!" kind of days (which is at least twice a week!)...I wouldn't trade it for anything.
My current interest's include foster care, (attempting) to sew, (learning) to take great pictures, praising my God, loving my family, writing, child advocacy, breastfeeding, cloth diapering, crafting, (learning & praying about) homeschooling, reading, & re inventing myself daily :)
My name is Melissa. I have been married for 14 years. I have 6 biological children (I had 6 in 9 years) and 3 adopted. I have been a foster parent for almost 10 years. I love to scrapbook, read, play games, and watch TV. I sound pretty awesome, right? I have a great husband who loves kids as much as I do. We also love to travel but hardly do it. So that is definitely on the bucket list.
I live and breathe kids. I am heading down a new road now, with adopting special needs kids. So I guess the purpose of this blog is to answer questions and share things that like or that have helped me. I am just trying to raise as normal as possible kids. Here is my story of how I am doing it.
I live and breathe kids. I am heading down a new road now, with adopting special needs kids. So I guess the purpose of this blog is to answer questions and share things that like or that have helped me. I am just trying to raise as normal as possible kids. Here is my story of how I am doing it.
My husband and I have 3 biological children and one day God called us to do more. For the first time in our lives my husband and I know without a shadow of doubt God's will for our lives...Fostering. Knowing when we stepped up to this calling we would see the system fail at times but we continue to look everyday at what we "can" do while a child is placed with us. We had already been approved for kinship adoption so we pressed on to become a licensed foster home. We sold our home because it was not large enough. Moved into a larger home and became licensed April, 2010. It continues to amaze me how many times people say to you, "Oh that is so wonderful that you foster but I could never do that because I would get so attached to the children". I just want to say, "Oh really, that's strange.....I've never thought of getting attached to the children"! Instead, I always respond by telling each person that the pain we feel when a child leaves us after we have gotten attached and love the child is nothing compared to the pain this child felt in an abusive and/or neglectful situation. Thank you God for setting our feet upon this path...
When I began the process of adopting 3 older siblings, I fed my children many fresh from the garden, foodie-inspired meals. I thought that they might soon love me as much as they loved the food. BUT they were so used to processed foods and fast food that they didn't like my food. And they definitely didn't want to have anything to do with me. We adopted the "no thank you bite" rule and I adjusted my cooking (and parenting) somewhat to accomodate their tastes. It's been almost three years. We've finally started to come together as a family. We've graduated from the "no thank you" bite. No more boxed mac & cheese. We're cooking for real now.
Monica here! We've been fostering for two years and have had the honor of loving 13 children in that time. We are currently adopting our second placement. Something we never imagined (or at the time we began fostering) wanted to do. But here we are in deep smitt with this kid. I love fostering. And I LOVE foster parents. I'm loud and proud of what we do!
http://mamamem.blogspot.com/
My Fostering History in a Nutshell: 4 placements all ending in reunifications; Waiting for our next call!
http://mamamem.blogspot.com/
My Fostering History in a Nutshell: 4 placements all ending in reunifications; Waiting for our next call!
