Lost in a kinship adoption

We had Guardianship Custody of my Sister's Daughter, for 5 years, with the understanding that Mom would get her back after completing State Prison Sentence. All of our Parties state 'It's been a difficult transition, and we are still transitioning.' In your case, I would be concerned with the effects it would have on the children?? My Niece is able to rationalize and verbalize. That she has 3 sets of Parents. Her Bio Dad is not in her life, and she does pretty wonderful with this concept. Some Kids are not able to be as verbal?? You should as Guardian have some rights to privacy and ability to bond with the children also?? Are you able to discuss this issue with your Case Management as well also?? If so could I ask please what do they advise you?? Juli

I am Sorry, I missed the Adoption component previously!!! Juli

WavesofChange, If you don't get many responses try copying the post and posting it on the Adoptive Parents main (1st) forum and the same with Foster Care main (1st). Use the same title just add X-Post. Kind regards, Dickons

Dickons, Thank you, I will try X-Posting. Since we are not actual foster parents I didn't want to step on any toes, however our situation most closely mirrors the foster care experience from what I can gather. Juli, No problem, it was a long post! We don't have case management as CPS and other agencies were brought into the case after the kids were in our custody. Sassy Pants is verbal, and is in weekly therapy, however now she is starting to have conflicting feelings about her First Mom and how she ended up needing to come into our home. I want to set Sassy and Smiles up for success not just now, but when they are older and possibly reunited. So it seems that cutting out First-Family would not be the right choice, however I am somewhat exhausted with how to fit their needs into my schedule.

I was hoping you would get some more answers. I am not BTDT. I am fostering my cousin's baby and is headed to adoption by us. I don't know your kids first mom but maybe reality struck and she doesn't like it. Take the time to bond as a family and ignore her request for now or Maybe, send her a message letting her know that you will get in contact with her when you're comfortable. Bottom line: She didn't have the time for the kids when it mattered, so she doesn't deserve to infringe upon your bonding time.

MomofEKG- thank you for responding! I do agree that this contact is purely convenience for her. I get to do all the work: parent the kids, go to my job, take pics of kids send her those pics, respond to her needs, etc. For whatever reason she never made the effort to show up for the kids. I guess as the responsible one in this situation I wonder if I should be holding myself to a higher standard. I ended up setting up a shutterfly account where I can post pics that only she has access to. I invited her to add pics of the kids from when they were with her- instead she uploads 5 selfies so that I can show Sassy and Smiles. Ummm.... no. I have decided that after the adoption- currently scheduled for May 2nd. We will take a break from First Family for a solid 6 months. I doubt they want pics from the adoption and I need to start getting my mind wrapped around these being "my" kids. You mentioned that you didn't know much about our FM, so here is a bit about her. I have no idea how she compares to other bio-parents. She is just 1 year younger than I am and in her mid 20's. She has one older child that was placed for adoption before Sassy and Smiles were born. She is fairly well spoken, and somewhat smart. As a mom she put her needs first always- boyfriends, parties, alcohol and pot. She was not a great parent however she was not terrible. She left the kids with first dad one day, the next day FD was arrested and she just never came back to pick up the kids. She knew where they were, family asked her to come get them and she never came. Which is how they came to live with us. She had unsupervised weekly visits with the kids, all she had to do was show up. She never did. Honestly, in a lot of ways I think that this was the easiest thing for her. Now she didn't have to fit the kids into her life. She loves them enough to care if they are safe, she knows they are with us. That is as much as she is capable of right now. Wow- long post. Sorry about that :) I guess it feels good to get it out there.

We adopted our niece and had similar issues with Biomom. Biodad is in prison and still is and probably will be there another 3 yrs or so. Biomom had phone visits for awhile from age 8-11. After age 11 the conversations became inappropriate (she told our daughter about her escapades with drugs/guys etc...) so we discontinued them. Our daughter was 6 when she moved here. Biomom was in prison for drug conviction/parole violation so she really had no contact from age 6-8. Biomom is my husband's half-sister. Since I was the more neutral party (hubby had a hard time negotiating contact) I handled it all. Once phone visits were inappropriate we cut her off. She also was writing to her thru a po box. She lives in Idaho, we are in Florida. I communicate with her via Facebook but our daughter has had zero contact with her since age 11 and she's now 14. Our daughter recently got a facebook account and asked to "block" her biomom because she didn't want contact or issues (biomom is on drugs again). I think once the kids get old enough to understand they can give signs on what they desire regarding contact. I think at age 5 and 18 months I would protect them if there is anything going on inappropriate or negative. Just because biomom is wanting contact does not mean you have to oblige. You are the parent once the adoption is final. There's a reason she can't parent and you are there. Set boundaries ASAP and follow through. When the kids are older and can communicate let them ask questions and be honest about it all. We always talk about choices in our house...I hate to say it but what biomom does (a lot of bad choices) is something our daughter now realizes she doesn't want in her life. She's an inspiring singer, going into HS for the arts here and has a lot of things going for her. Once she's 18 her entire CPS file we have had since age 6 when she came here is hers. Until them we discuss a lot of it and I am honest with her when she has questions. Best way to go about it all is remove yourself from the "relative" part of it, decide what you'd do if this child was biologically yours and your husbands (without a biomom involved) and would you allow contact. Do what is best for them at this time and maybe later on you can tweek it as things change :) PS: We never released our address to biomom. PO boxes worked better for contact in the beginning. But with the internet now you can find someone if they own a home so it's pretty easy. If you want limited contact maybe consider a PO box and have the kids write. I don't know if your kids biomom is living close to you but in our case she was across country so it was much easier to limit contact. Good luck!

Thank you for your insight! Biomom would love to have visits, and so would the 5 year old. She asks to see "D" (she has always called her by first name, never mom/mama,etc.), but wants to come back home with my husband and I. Luckily I am the non-related person, and frankly the related part is a stretch. Try this one out: the kids are my husband's step-brother's children. Except that DNA ruled him out on the 5 year old, and no test was done for the 18 month old. So I feel zero emotional attachment to these people, and they were not a big part of our lives before this. HOWEVER I want to do the right thing by this little girl. As she tells me "D dropped my off one day and never came back." I don't know if closure exists when you are 5, I just want her to feel as good about herself as possible. There is a large part of me that thinks that there should be some level of contact between Sassy and biomom. If I am wrong it could really set her back emotionally.Our bios live VERY close. In fact we are moving and purposefully not buying in certain areas to try to avoid an accidental supermarket siting. I never knew this would be so hard! I love the bad choices concept, we use that quite a bit about biomom and biodad. I think it is great that your daughter wants to set boundaries, clearly you raised a very intelligent young lady. I hope we are able to do the same! Thank you again for responding, it really does make a difference for me.

We have an awesome therapist for our daughter. We found her thru a referral via CPS. She works with traumatized children (in courts and foster children). Our daughter absolutely adores her and it seems to work wonders for her. I credit therapy and our huge involvement as the force that helped her be so mature for her age. I also believe kids that have a tough life seem to take things not so much for granted...not that normal kids with no trauma don't but I think the ones who have had a rough life really seem to know what is important. The reason I say that is my eldest (biodaughter) who's 20 still has not got it together but our 14 yr old daughter does already. People say she's quite mature for her age. She has impulse control issues and PTSD due to abuse but with therapy she has learned great coping skills. I suggest, if you can, get the 5 yr old in therapy. At that age they can learn to talk it out...and even play therapy is a good thing too. I swear by having the right therapist. Also the therapist can guide you in visits, etc...and help afterwards if there is regression.

I'm happy to hear that you are taking a break as a family. Your 5 year old sounds very smart. I do agree with the therapy suggestion. She seems to be coping well at this time but I would want to be proactive about the abandonment issues she may be suppressing. I'm glad you were able to feel better after your vent. I really understand where you are coming from. G's dad is in jail and will be for a long time and his mom seems to forget about him whenever he is not around. She is always too busy with her boyfriend or partying and doing drugs to bother working her plan or to visit. Friday she asked to see him for the first time since February. It irritated the crap or of me and the visit isn't scheduled until Tuesday. :rolleyes: Congratulations on the upcoming adoption! Just a few days left now:)

Another good place to Xpost - Kinship adoption subforum: [url]http://forums.adoption.com/relative-adoption-support/[/url] Welcome to the crazy world of kinship adoption Honestly, 5 years in, i can say this was the best thing I've ever done in my life. I wouldn't redo is for all the tea in China (adopted my niece) That said, the time near finalization is very stressful. because we're "kin," BPs can make all sorts of assumptions. Once you are at finalization, you're going to need to write down some extremely clear boundaries.. how many pictures /visits/emails/calls per year, etc Its hard, i know. especially if you're worried about hurting people's feelings. But I can attest, problems continue to escalate until you drawn a line in the sand and stick with it good luck