Private adoption: Can CPS take the baby first?

It is my understanding that CPS will not take the baby if it is being placed for adoption. If the mother tries to take the baby home, then CPS may get involved. But even that really depends on CPS and the situation.

This was our situation. Older brother was in foster care and to keep "b" from going into foster care, birthmom chose to make an adoption plan with us through a different agency. DCFS even met with our agency and mom at the hospital and made it clear that if she did not follow through with the plan that the baby would go with her brother into foster care. Long story short... a few month later we got both kids because birthmom was unable to get our son "c" back.

My wife and I agreed that if the emom wasn't able to get her daughter back that would we probably take her, but I feel like the emom would need to come to us instead of us pursuing. It feels like we are a long way from that, but I do believe that it's been 6 months since the removal. How do you feel about having the son? Do you have any guilt even though you clearly shouldn't? Did the birthmom request you to take her son too? Thanks!

They would not have gotten him back. They are incredibly grateful that we got him now, because we have an open adoption because of his sister. We text at least once a week or so and have a visit at least every three months sometimes more if they come up here to one of the kids’ activities. DCFS recommended no contact with them after his adoption. They never even met his other foster mom. ---No quilt at all. I did not do anything to take him from them and I only did what I did to keep the kids together. We had no intention of adoption from foster care. We just heard about them losing him to foster care two weeks before "b" was born. My caseworker from my agency asked the bfamily if they would like us to put in to have him placed with his sister. I also sent her a letter that said that we would keep him but if they were able to get him back them we would support them in reunion if they were able to get him back. Bmom relinquished her son with the idea that we were going to adopt him. She just couldn’t get it together. She has three more kids now. Her mom has two and she has a newborn. It was really rough the first couple of years and establishing boundaries because there relationship with him was so close because they had him for the first two years.

Even though our son's bmom had an adoption plan in place, because she left the hospital AMA the next morning, the head nurse called DHR. I think it was hospital policy and they had not been involved in an adoption before perhaps. They were all dazed and confused by it! :rolleyes: DHR simply stated that if WE abandoned the baby, call back. No biggie.

We were in a private agency adoption that ended with CPS taken the child into their custody. If drugs are in system at birth, CPS will be involved regardless of private adoption. It will be what kind of CPS worker that you get will determine what happens. The CPS worker talked at great length with birth mom and birth mom changed her mind and child went into foster care. We were given option to become foster parents and petition in court but it was the most stressful and tense 4 days of my life in the NICU that I never wanted to deal with birth mom again. That baby stayed in foster care but is being adopted by a wonderful family so my prayers were answered that she would be ok.

Yes CPS can still get involved. My 1st DD was the 5th child of a sibling group of 4 already in care. As soon as they found out she was pregnant a plan was put in place to take the 5th (my now DD) I had her sibling at the time of her birth and she tested positive for drugs at birth (they don't test unless they suspect) so low and behold she is was brought in to care and as another poster stated it is up to the DFS worker assigned to the case to determine if you're going to get the child. Its a tough road. Good luck and be prepared for early intervention services if they are born drug exposed. C -

My only advice is that the expectant mom needs to IMMEDIATELY tell ANY and all CPS workers that have ANY contact with her before or after the baby is born that she has a domestic private/agency adoption plan in place including a family designated to adopt and provide the phone number and name of the social worker/agency/attorney that is handling the potential adoption. I say this because the birthmother of my sons had been working with our agency social worker again during portions of her latest pregnancy and had said that she was considering placing and if she did wanted us to adopt. Well, she decided that she wasn't going to make a final choice until baby was born. I knew she was leaning strongly toward parenting. The day after baby was born, CPS worker came to see them at the hospital. The first worker said they were just monitoring because of a concern earlier in the pregnancy and that they would be checking in with them over the next few weeks, etc. Birthmom said ok. Then a few hours later another worker showed up with an order to remove the baby. Then birthmom asked about private placement and they said too late because mom didn't tell first CPS worker she was going to place. If mom had said I'm placing through this agency with this family right up front, CPS would have allowed it to happen with the stipulation that if she didn't place, they came back in on the case. So now baby is in foster care and we're trying to work through that to possibly adopt if mom's rights are terminated. It's a mess. So if CPS contacts her, she needs to tell them right away about her placement plans.