My head is swimming..........

Hipretty, We have adopted twice from the state of Fl. We are hoping to adopt two more from the state. If we don't find a child from FL. we will go interstate. Are you saying that I may not use my homestudy....which is still current.....with another state? I did not know this. We are not looking for infants, so our going regular domestic is not an option. The first 2 we adopted from Fl. were 9 weeks and 13 months old when they were placed in our home. How did you find out about the home study not being transferable?? The other possibility might be to get a private home study through a lisenced agency and have that agency send them out. I am getting slightly overwhelmed by the whole system myself. There seems to be so many needy children and so many loving homes wanting children......but we just can't seem to get there. What part of Fl. are you in? Saj

Hi, again, hipretty! I'm still not from Florida, but know how to answer most of your questions. Honestly, most of the questions you have can be answered from a non-state-specific viewpoint, so you may want to consider posting in the General forums, and only using the state-specific ones when you get down to the technicalities of the law. The General boards are just so much busier you'd get a lot more viewpoints. Anyway. If you think of "the state" as an agency, the whys and wherefores get a lot easier to explain. Because that's what "the state" is for adoptions. DCFS (or whatever you call it in your area) is in all essence, an agency. With it's own workers, rules, and ways of doing things. If you think of it that way it makes sense that a different agency might not take the DCFS agency's homestudies. Another point - if your DCFS homestudy is done for free, or at a reduced cost, and you choose to use it somewhere other than your state DCFS, you will likely have to pay DCFS back for the cost of doing the homestudy. Some states require payment before they will allow you to take the homestudy out of the office, because you "might" use it somewhere else. Others wait until you're matched somewhere else before requireing payment. Really, it isn't worth doing all the DCFS stuff if you haven't *decided* to adopt through the state. (Yes, plans change, but don't use DCFS for the homestudy just becasue you think it's cheaper or faster. Just use them if you've decided to use them!) It's best to decide what avenue you'll use to adopt a child, then choose the agency, then find out what their homestudy (and other) rules are and follow them. Tax credit stuff in a nutshell: 1- The adoption tax credit reduces the amount of money you owe the IRS in the year you adopted. Get an old tax form out of your records and find the line that says "tax liability" - it's only a couple lines from the end of the form - that is the amount you owed the IRS that year. 2- When you adopt, keep track of your expenses. If you spend less than $10,000 then that number will be important. If you spend more than $10,000 then the $10,000 amount becomes what's important. If you owed the IRS $7,200, and spent $5,000 on your adoption, then you really will only owe the IRS $2,200. If you owed the IRS $12,000 and spent $5,000 on your adoption, then you really will only owe the IRS $7,000. If you owed the IRS $7,200, and spent $10,000 on your adoption, then you really only owe the IRS $0. (And you can claim the remaining $2,800 next year). Yes, you MUST adopt first. (There is an exception made for adoptions that fall through. But worry about that only if you need to.) It makes sense, because you have to keep track of your expenses - you can't guess. And costs: Adoptions from birthparents in the USA who willingly sign over their rights to a child they have custody of seem to be running from $5,000 to $20,000 (and sometimes more). Obviously it's cheaper if you find the birthparents on your own, if there are no medical or maternity or living expenses, if nobody involved wants counseling, and if there is no legal issue (like a missing birthfather). Add in any of those things, and you increase the cost. Agencies won't quote costs because every adoption is different. After all, do you know any two people who gave birth whose medical costs were *exactly* the same? Medical costs in adoption are the same. Even parents who choose an adoption plan for their child "shortly after birth because of financial/emotional difficulty" have expenses relating to the birth and care of the child, and its still traditional for the adoptive parents to pay those. Yes, some agencies are cheaper and some more expensive. They should be willing to mail you a list of their fees. Many fees won't be determined until after the match, or even the birth, but they should be able to tell you their application fee, matching fee, how long they keep you on their rosters as waiting parents, whether they "pool" all the medical fees of their birthparents and share out the cost among adoptive parents or whether each adoptive parent is responsible solely for the medical costs of the birthparent they're matched to, how much money the adoptive parents lose if the birth parents back out at some stage, etc. An agency not willing to commit to a flat figure is being realistic. Good luck!

Hi Saj, Thank you for sharing some of your adoption information. I wonder if you would not mind sharing a little more, as I have so many questions, and are still have not exactly in agreement with my husband about all our choices.(are we ever:-)???) Saj said: Are you saying that I may not use my homestudy....which is still current.....with another state? No, it seems as if another state will accept a Fl state homestudy sooner than another agency in Fl. what I am saying is after sifting through the various posts here, I have seen many posters state that they were disatisfied with how things were moving and after moving to another agency, (within the same state) they had to start from square one, because their DCF homestudy was not accepted (not good enough???) meanwhile the questions all seemed to be of the same variety. So I cannot understand why the originals would not have been accepted. Unless it was for the purpose of extracting even more $$$ out of a couple. I try not to be cynical but come on. So I got panicked. But you are already more experienced here. Did you foster first to be able to get 2 little ones??? Again and again I have read here about people adopting infants from the state. Yet when I went to my orientation the sw said "If you are looking for baaeis, you are looking in the wrong place" I would love a baby boy and perhaps an older girl. I would love to adopt a sib pair like that. But DH says "let's take it one step at a time, first one, then later another". Saj said: The other possibility might be to get a private home study through a lisenced agency and have that agency send them out. So if you did this,and adopted from agency 2 would you have to pay 2 private agencies for working on your case??? I am trying to figure out what is affordable for us. Ideally I would want an infant, but I thought that option, was strictly through private adoption. Infants are never on the Fl site! As I said also looking at a toddler or little one later on. We are in Central Florida. Thanks for your input! Good luck to you matching up! Love & Light, Tee

Hi DianeS, I was was replying to Saj, and did not realize you responded too until I hit send. When I composed a response to you, the site logged me out when I hit send. I hit back toretrieve the letter, but lost the whole thing. Thank you so much for your detailed response. You brought up some really important facts. DianeS said: Another point - if your DCFS homestudy is done for free, or at a reduced cost, and you choose to use it somewhere other than your state DCFS, you will likely have to pay DCFS back for the cost of doing the homestudy. I had NO idea DCF would do that. I know understand what happened to all those posters! Yes you are right that every pregnancy and delivery costs a different amount. But what I had been looking for was a starting figure just as you gave me... "$5,000 to $20,000 (and sometimes more)" I wanted to know if it was a possibility for our family. What I had been hearing through the grapevine so to speak, mostly from people who have not adopted was that adoption was upwards of $35,000. That is a lot more difficult for me to perceive as a starting point than $5,000 to $20,000 (and sometimes more)! Thank you so much for all the time you took to go into detail here. I have a lot to show and discuss with DH. Perhaps the direction we had chosen was really not well thought out. As it is we are to start MAPP class Jan. 5th!!! My head is still swimming :-), but at least it is now swimming with real questions, and not just panic! Good luck to you both. Love & Light, tee

Thank you for telling me I'd be better off posting in the General forums, my questions really have not gotten a lot of 'hits" Love & Light, Tee

I think Dianes answered most of your questions....except you pronounce Saj........S - short a- j. Just like it looks. :) We did foster first. Believe it or not, our babygirl was our very first placement. She is biracial. Our son was our second placement. He came 2 weeks later at 13 months. They are not biological sibs. Our son came with lots of baggage, but through lots of TLC and an early intervention program, he is a healthy, happy, developmentally on target 4 year old. It just worked out this way for us. Once we began the adoption process, we stopped fostering. But during the fostering time, I was called constantly to take in babies. Sometimes more then once a week. Now I am trying to find out if I must start from scratch again with the MAPP classes and all. The agency (we are privitized in my area )has not returned my calls or emails. We are in Pinellas County. In case your husband doesn't already know, there are subsidies that follow the children from the state. Their college is prepaid at a state college and all of their medical and dental is covered. I know these are not things that make a difference in choosing which rout you go in, but since the husbands usually are te main breadwinners and worry about those items, it might make your husband more comfortable if he was aware of that. I know from our stand point, the biggest problem I had with my husband in adopting out two little ones was the thought of having to put another person through college. Good luck in your MAPP class. Both my husband and I enjoyed it a lot. Sincerely, Saj

Hi Saj, Did I not spell that right? I do not see what you did differently than how I wrote it. Saj said: But during the fostering time, I was called constantly to take in babies. Sometimes more then once a week. OMG! Saj, how long ago was that??? I realize you are in a different county, but..still. I thought I could tell my son we were watching someone else's baby while the "mama" could not, (and then if they became available, hey...) but my DH thinks I am IN-sane. Truthfully he is closer to right, as my son has attachment issues and bonds innapropriately (to everyone, just not to us teehee!!!) if we had to give the babay back, there is no telling what would hit the fan! We have recently heard about the college funding. I was unsure of the medical, thought I heard at the orientation that was for special needs only. It does help...because of a financial windfall not too long ago. And you are right, I am thinking more with my heart and illogically, and he being the sensible is thinking financially! Thank you for sharing all that you have. Blessings to you in your search. Love & Light, Tee

Hi, I live in VA. We are foster parents. We completed everything for our homestudy but our state agency was just too busy to handle an adoption. They directed us to Commonwealth Catholic Charities. According to Catholic Charities they are required by law in this state to do their own homestudy. It won't cost us anything but it is frustrating to have to start over. Other state agencies are willing to accept our homestudy. You seem to live in a good state. I have noticed a lot more infants and toddlers in FL than in my state. Good luck

Hi toyjsu, I am so sorry you have to start all over with your homestudy. I hope that does not happen to us. My mom will be driving here every weekend to watch our bioson, for the Mapp. She works and is rearranging her schedule to be able to do that. Do you have to take classes again?? toyjsu said: I have noticed a lot more infants and toddlers in FL than in my state. Where are you seeing the infants and toddlers?? On the Fl state adoption site?? I am seeing no infants, except for a handful of multihandicapped younger children. What I have been seeing are children around 6 and up, with many of them also of varying disabilities. I am wondering if I am missing something in my searching. Good luck with Catholic Charities, at least you won't be charged for your 2nd go around with the homestudy. Love & Light, Tee

Hey, Over the past 2 months I have been watching the Florida website. They have had about 5 children under the age of 3 who I have checked into. I think there were 2 infants 12 and under). All of the children were African American. I have noticed all of them have disappeared from the website. Some had already been placed by the time I got a call back. Right now they have several children listed but all are African American except for one 3 year old. [url]http://www.myflorida.com/cf_web/cgi-bin/adoptsearch.cgi[/url] This link will take you to the website. Do a search of 3-0 children. The problem I have is if we adopt in our state from our waiting children, it is no charge. All of the waiting children I have seen in the book at the ss office contains children who are handicapped or older than we can handle. I have found other states like FL and Ohio to have children that fit but there will be a fee and I'm not sure what that fee is. We can't afford to spend thousands of dollars. Our county doesn't require the classes. They are not manditory. We have our first interview on Monday with catholic charities. I'm not sure if they require any. Since we are already foster parents she hinted waiving the class.

toyjsu , Not only have I not been seeing infants or toddlers like you describe, when I followed your link this is what it says: No children meet your specifications. Try raising your maximum age. It is not as though the page was expired, because the message is appropriate to the content on the site! I doubt they were adopted in the last couple of hours, don't you? I always do a search of "all", can I possible not be finding what you do because I am being less specific?? I figured if I searched all, I would not miss anybody. Thank you for the link. Love & Light, Tee

On that same page there is an option to click on adoption. click on adoption, it will take you to Florida's adoption homepage. Choose to check available children then put in the spec. ages 3-0. This should get you where I have been looking. [url]http://www.myflorida.com/cf_web/myflorida2/healthhuman/adoption/search/index.shtml[/url]

Thank you toyjsu, I was finally able to enter the site! I am not really sure why I could not get in on my own for the last few weeks. I thought the site was troubled. Now I will be searching again! Thanx again! Love & Light, Tee

Hipretty, Also, FYI there are many more children up for adoption then are on the site. The 2 children I am hoping to adopt have never been on the computer site, and they have been available for adoption for 8 months. The adoption specialist is working with several families for these two children. While I was adopting my 2, a foster to adopt fell through because foster mom was living with a man which was okay in foster, but when they choose not to marry, the state pulled the little boy. (2years old caucasion). He went to a single bran new foster mom who was AA. She fell in love with him and his adoption was final before mine was. There are lots of children out there. Yours will find you......all you gotta do is make yourself available. Sincerely, Saj