How are all you Floridians doing?!

Well, I am a "soon to be not so" single mom of 3 VERY active toddler boys.(Ages 1 (15 months), 1 (22 months) and 3 years old). I adopted my 2 oldest boys in November 2007 and the other I am expecting to adopt no later than May 2008. My two oldest came to me with a pending TPR date set, but mom and dad both relinquished and ONLY (note the sarcasm) 5 months later I adopted them. My youngest son's case plan was reunification from the beginning and he was expected to go back home on Jan 11, 2008. But 3 days before that his bio mom left his 2 and 3 y/o bio siblings (who had been reunified in Nov 07) in the house alone for 2 days and they IMMEDIATELY changed the case plan to Adoption for all 3 children. All 3 are expected to be TPR'd on Feb 4, 2008. His mom is now a fugitive and I seriously doubt she is going to show up to fight the TPR, as she will be arrested immediately. My son's dad (all the siblings have different dads) is trying to fight custody (so I've been told) but he has done absolutely nothing on his caseplan in the year's time his son has been in fc. He has no job and has no place to live, so I don't really see him being a problem. And besides that his VERY OWN MOTHER wants me to keep her grandson, so that says a lot about his character and besides that the agency, the cw, and the GAL all want me to adopt. All of my boys have been with me since April 5, 2007. I just got relicensed and I am waiting on my new license to come in the mail anyday now. Other than that, I "discovered" that I was in love with my best friend of 6 years in Sept 07 and we are now in a relationship and plan to get married this year. We are currently not sure of the exact date, but are praying for mid July. He loves my boys and my boys love him. Although my 3 y/o :hissy: is having a bit of an issue sharing his mommy (But he has that issue with everyone including his younger brothers) I have pretty much decided not to take in any more kids as I plan to move out of the state, although I may still do respite. Guess I'll have to wait until I give birth before I have the chance to get my girl, because future dh says no more adoptions for a while ( sigh) but I guess it's for the best right now....3 adoptions in 12 months is enough (RIGHT?!?!? lol):eyebrows:

Thanks for sharing! I've been reading your story through out the year--but it's nice to be able to see how it all played out in one post. You have had a VERY busy year=) Congrats on ALL the beautiful people coming into your life!

Hello FLORIDIANS!!!! Well, our niece has been with us for 7 months after an 11 month fight. Bio Mom TPR'd voluntarilly in August 2007 and Bio Dad was TPR'd involuntarilly the same day due to abandonment. Bio Mom is still in prison for drugs, due to be released within the next month or so, and Bio Dad is currently in Jail awaiting trial for 8 felonies...what a wild year it's been. I am awaiting starting our adoption home study here in Florida. The agency overseeing our niece is very slow, making excuses, and we are contacting an attorney today to see what they can do. We shouldn't have to wait 6 months past TPR to even start the home study! BTW: makarios79: we contacted 2 attornies here and they wanted a 3500k retainer! YIKES...so we'll contact the one you referred me to and see what she can do for us. So, we sit and wait...hoping to get this finalized this year. It's been a wild ride...and long and we're both very frustrated at the system. Once this is all over and done with I am done being a foster Mom. We're just glad we have our niece here. That is one step in the right direction!

We've been in and out this year as we purchased a home out of state and will become "snowbirds" for the next few years. We've just not been able to stand the heat during the summer. We had a sibling group of 4 for the first part of the year and it ended sooooo stupidly - but after removing them from us - in a panic over nothing new (and nothing to do with us) - they went to r/u 2 weeks later. We did some respite and took off to visit family, do a family cruise on the west coast, found a house and purchased it, and came back in November (because DH got sick and we were later than planned in returning). We opened our home for a sibling group of 3 - that all have developmental issues that we were not told of - Bio's not working case plan and our ability to "hold out" has somewhat become nil - so we've asked that they be moved to a home more geared to thier issues. They are older than our preferred age - and I let myself be "talked into" them coming - a whole nuther story. So they will be moving to a different home within the next few days. In December we brought a newborn home. He was returned to Bio at the juris hearing. So we only had him a couple of weeks. He was home for awhile and is now back with us. He has been back less than 2 weeks. . . and we have an allegation regarding our lack of care of him. . . . How many FALSE allegations can bio make before county comes back on them? I know this bio is nuts and so is her hubby (not bioD). I mean seriously nuts as well as having mh issues. She presents really nicely - then she opens her mouth. . . . We are going on a cruise in February (my birthday) and will not take anything but respite once the sib group leaves. Our kids are coming to visit over spring break and bringing all the grandkids with them. . . . So I have lots of February/March good things to look forward too. Hopefully the county will get thier """ together and TPR baby quickly and he will go to at least a concurrent home before we leave for the summer. So that's how it is with us!!!!

My birthday is in February too! Feb 22nd. When is yours? Have a fun time on your cruise! I've been on 6 and we are going to plan a family one once the adoption is final!

You might want to check into what services and benefits you would loose if you move the boys out of Florida. I could be wrong but I think you loose most all of it including the state college tuition waivers.

Sorry it's taken me so long to chime in. Well we still have the boys since August. As some have you read, we've been having a real difficult time with Mr. Talky. I haven't requested his removal and am really trying everything in my power to hang on. Every day is a new day with him, sometimes its good, sometimes its bad. Last night was a good night and so was this morning. So hopefully it stays as a trend. I would like to open my house to maybe one more child under the age of 3 :arrow: but unless things get just a little easier I'm afraid I will not be able to handle another kid. We continue to search for children that are available for adoption through heart galleries etc. Maybe we will come across a child that fits in to our house. Besides that nothing new in our lives. BTW - I am pretty sure you lose the stipend and medicaid for your adopted children if you leave the state. A co-worker adopted from foster care and lost all services since she no longer lives in FL. If she decides to move back, I belive they told her she is able to receive the services again. I also think that her son (even though they don't live here) will also be able to go to college here.

Even tho' we told placement when we took the sib group that we would need respite in February - if they didn't find perm placement for them before that (we are listed as an emergency and respite home only) - they waited until yesterday:hissy: . I made sure several weeks ago to follow up with them - the kids needed to stay in this school district as they all have IEP and ESE's here. I said - they needed to be moved before **** or as soon as they had placement available for them. Yesterday I get a call from placement at about 3 pm and was told that they would be moved to a different county - at 5 pm. I wasn't even home. The kids don't get home until 4:45 on that day due to visits. I called around and managed to get them "extended" one more night - so they can say goodbye at school and we could do something special last night. So that was managed. But they did not save openings here in this County for them. The excuse was "we have dailys that take precedence"~~~ Being the rude person that I am - I said they should move the newer kids to the other shelter. . . .:( and let these boys have thier placement back. No go..... So now they are moving to a different school district, as well as to a shelter that is about an 1 1/2 hrs away. There is a shelter here that they were in when we took them - so they didn't have to change schools or anything. I thought I gave enough notice that the State/County could assure that they would at the very least be able to return to that shelter. Nope, by taking them into my home (without info that would have led to us not taking them at all) I have lost them their place at the "shelter" that they were in!!!! Now they will have to change everything - and they wouldn't have had to if I'd have just left them alone. I feel bad about even taking them. They all have severe developmental issues that were not told to me - I have fought the school district for an ESE for one child that is just barely above "retardation" status, and another is deep in the process. These kids have been in the "system" since last summer and no one did anything for them to get services or special education evals. I am afraid that when they change counties - they will be lost in the system again. I just feel so bad for them!!! They have come a long way in just a few months, they are all now potty trained, can wait their turn (when prompted), have turned behaviors around in school (just the last 2 weeks), but still need dev assessments (which I haven't been able to get) and pt,ot,and speech therapys. Thanks for letting me vent!!!! Even trying to do the right thing just bites me in the butt!!!! I get soooooo frustrated!!

Actually I'll lose nothing. Granted I'll have a lot of paperwork to go through once I move. They can still go to college, but only here in Florida. Their medicaid transfers to the new state, I'll still get their adoption subsidies (they even direct deposit them) and I am still entitled to post adoption services offered by CHS. I asked them during my homestudy and they said it during an adoption meeting I went to and besides that it is in my adoption contract. They can't really expect all people to stay in the state until a child turns 18. There is a A LOT of military families here. They'd have nobody adopting if that was the case.

I'm not sure why your co-worker is not getting the benefits.. Did she do straight adoption? Was the child considered special needs? Did she sign an adoption subsidy agreement? How long ago did she adopt? My adoption agreement states all these things and I even asked them will they still apply if I leave the state and they assured me they would. I'm just curious to know why she's not getting the same benefits as I will when I move and other families I know who are moving or have moved.

She had told me she was still getting subsidies after the adoption. Her son may have not been considered "special needs" since he was a infant when placed with her and adopted at 18 months, and is CC. She adopted about 2 years ago. I met up with her for lunch about 3 months ago and she told me that. Not even Medicaid. It's probably because she didn't apply or transfer. She's the very PROUD (if you know what I mean) person to accept service.

We started this journey July 2006 with the hope to help some children and if possible adopt our little girl. As the two year mark fast approaches we feel blessed to have been able to provide a loving and stable home environment to three long term placements and 5 short term overnight and weekend placements.Initially we had a sibling set of two (boy and girl), they were with us for 6 months, were reunified with their bios and were sadly recently removed again. In August of 2006 we were blessed to be asked to take in a 4 day old baby girl, she has been in our care for 14 months and all roads seem to lead to RU. I know D's bio-mom 'loves' her but I am not sure she has D's best interest at heart, however, bottom line is she has done almost everything that's be asked of her in order to be reunified. We pray that God will always look over D and bless her with all the opportunities she deserves in order for her to live up to her full potential. D is a loving and very smart little girl, and we hope that if the outcome is RU that her upbringing does not dictate and/or trample her future.While we are extremely sad about the possibility that we may not be blessed with the opportunity to raise D, ultimately, the lessons we have learned from fostering are priceless; personally I have learned patience, to live one day at a time, and to love fully w/out drowning in what may happen tomorrow. While my children have learned to open up the doors of our home and their hearts to children in need.We still hope that somehow we'll be lucky to adopt our little D, but, whatever the outcome of this case, we know we are done fostering (at least for now) b/c along with the blessings, fostering has been consuming and we feel like its time we concentrate all of our love and attention on our boys, not the next court date, the CW's lies, the GAL, the biofamilies's drama, etc...Sorry this got long. Best of luck to you all in your individual journys!

Thanks everyone for sharing (I hope more of you will continue to share). I know reading about your life stories is inspiring and gives me the courage to carry on.