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Hi. I am new to this forum. My husband and I have an 18 month old bio daughter. We are considering doing foster-adoption, and starting the process sometime in the next year or two. We have both always dreamed of loving and caring for a child or children who need a home. My husband was also adopted as a teenager and it made a hug difference in his life. We are open to sibbling groups, but I would assume it would be best to try to add younger child(ren) to our family so our daughter is not displaced in sibbling order. Has anyone adopted with bio child(ren) already in home? What was the experience like for you and your child(ren)? Was there anything you wish you had known going in?
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We had two bio daughters before we decided to foster. They were 13 and almost 16 when their baby brother came home (he was 4 months old). Just over a year later we adopted our son. His BM gave birth to our fourth child only three weeks after our sons adoption was finalized. You can see from my signature that we just finalized her adoption recently.It was a stressful two years for all of us. My oldest two are just now sharing with me the amount of stress they felt at the thought of losing their little brother and sister. Several times in their cases it looked like bios or a family member would take them, it was a true roller coaster!Thankfully, we have our two little ones and we cannot imagine life without them! The love I have for them is just as deep and fierce as the love I have for my bios. Our family is now complete and we get to enjoy watching all four of our children as they grow up. We have two in high school and two in diapers, but I would never, ever change anything!Good luck, adoption is such a blessing!
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We had two bio daughters before we decided to foster. They were 13 and almost 16 when their baby brother came home (he was 4 months old). Just over a year later we adopted our son. His BM gave birth to our fourth child only three weeks after our sons adoption was finalized. You can see from my signature that we just finalized her adoption recently.
It was a stressful two years for all of us. My oldest two are just now sharing with me the amount of stress they felt at the thought of losing their little brother and sister. Several times in their cases it looked like bios or a family member would take them, it was a true roller coaster!
Thankfully, we have our two little ones and we cannot imagine life without them! The love I have for them is just as deep and fierce as the love I have for my bios. Our family is now complete and we get to enjoy watching all four of our children as they grow up. We have two in high school and two in diapers, but I would never, ever change anything!
Good luck, adoption is such a blessing!
I had two bio sons before we started fostering. They were 6 & 4 when our daughter came to live with us, as a foster placement. Things have gone rather smoothly as far as that is concerned. It was a limiting factor on what placements we could safely take. Birth order isn't just a developmental concern, but also a safety one & we had to turn down several placements because of it.By the time her younger sister came to us, as a 5 y/o, I had another baby. So, that placement was out of birth order. It has been an issue to a degree. Because my toddler is not old enough to protect himself, there has to be line of site supervision. In fact, my toddler is spending 2 weeks at his grandmothers right now, because I have an exam that I have to study for & she's been lashing out...I can't study & maintain line of sight to keep everyone safe. So, arrangements had to be made to make sure everything was done. Overall, it's working out but it can be difficult.
zmom- first congrats on your adoptions. I hadn't thought about how stressful that could be for my daughter and the grief she might have to face at potentially losing a sibling. Do you have any recommendations for how to combat that or help your child deal with it? Should we look at adopting already available children instead of fostering do you think?
NDN - those are good points about the safety concerns. Thank you for mentioning that. I had thought about it in terms of older children (teens) but hadn't really thought about a five year old also creating potential safety issues for a younger child. By the way, I checked out your blog and like your "#NotYour Mascot" post. Good luck on the bar. I'm an attorney, too (public defender).
We had two birth kids when we adopted. One was grown and out of the house and the other was 17. We got Emily when she was 11 and she is now 13, 14 in June and we are getting ready to start again, but we will definitely stay younger than her to keep the whole birth order thing. I thin it's easier but not necessarily essential.
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There is a Huge Need for Sibling Group Foster to Adopt.
What I would consider with your Daughter is.
Could she handle at age 3 or 4 going from a Single Child Family to Multiple Child Family and sharing you as her Parents??
For our Family, our Kids don't have issues, but this is extremely rare.
Your husband has said 'Adoption made a huge difference in his life.'
Foster to Adopt is not an easy or always happy process either.
Besides his experience, what do you know about the process??
Most of the Children are traumatized, and have alot of issues.
If they brought these issues on to your Daughter, for long term.
What would your response be??
Could I ask why are you debating Sibling Groups vs. a younger child??
Juli
Yes, our bio child was 5 when we adopted a sibling group from foster care. She transitioned very smoothly. Though I didn't understand it at the time, I am glad we kept her as the first/oldest child. She has relished her role as being the big sister, sometimes a little too much. ;) She calls her siblings her best friends, and they call her the same. There is a some rivalry between her sibling who is a year younger than her, but I think that is pretty normal for all siblings who are close in age. While they may argue some, they also play very well together. It has worked out very well for our family despite people's worries that she might be traumatized.
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Sunshine Mama, Have you gone through with getting a foster child yet? My bio children are almost the exact same age as yours. 7, 4 & 21 Months and are all girls. I'm nervous also about going with birth order. We are starting the Pride classes in May. We are asking for only 0-2 years old also. JUst wondered how it was going?
We are fostering with 3 older bios, and we are adopting our little guy next month!
It has been a great experience for our kids. For our family this is our ministry, and we are a team helping these kiddos while they wait to go home or to family.
The biggest thing we do for our bios kids is keeping their lives normal with their activities, routines (not that we have much of a routine lol). This is hard with a new placement due to all of the appointments, people in and out, and so on, but we make it work. We do not involve them in any conversations concerning the child when we are talking to CWs or other officals (they go to another room where they cannot hear) nor do they ever meet the bios of the FKs (mainly a safety thing since we live in a smaller area, though we have never run into bios in public). Their job is to love this kids and play with them, and they love their job. :)
When we fostered while dd was younger it was hard when kids left, because she did not understand, but it worked out ok in the end. She had a little brother by the time we stopped fostering, so that helped I think.
I went into fostering when my dd was 5yo. She was taught that the foster kids were going to stay with us for awhile until they could go home. That helped some. But she still had difficulties with kids leaving. However when I ask her if we need to stop/take a break she gives me this incredulous look and says NO! They need us!
Blessed to live this life of service with her. I'm grateful to God that after 3 years we actually have 3 kids to adopt now without question-family search DONE 2y ago. Here, foster parents are 1st non-relative to adopt after TPR.
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We had bio kids before adopting from foster care. Our youngest bio was 6 or so when we started the process, so we asked for a child 1 to 5 years and got a toddler.
Our kids had been told all along that one day we planned to adopt, so they were not surprised about the process and seemed to accept it. Once our foster/adopt child was placed with us, one of our bios had some jealousy issues but nothing major and not for very long at all. Then again, because our bio kids already had siblings, they were not moving from being an only child to being a child w/siblings, and that may have made it easier for them to share parental attention and affection.