foster families, staying in touch?

We have not received our referral yet so this is based on what I have heard from others. When the kids are in foster care it sounds like on the first trip your visits to the kids are at the foster parents house for a couple of hours a day. Plus you visit them there on the second trip before picking up the kids. I can't guarantee that is always the case but have heard so from a couple of families.

I have e-mail contact with the nuns from my son's orphanage who cared for him. I do plan to take him when he is older. My daughter is from Russia and so we want to make a trip when the two of them are teens and visit Russia and Poland in the same trip.

Our kids' foster family have kept in touch, emailed us, mailed birthday cards, etc since we've adopted. We emailed them photos regularly in the first year. To be honest - I'm not thrilled with this arrangement at all. I wanted a closed adoption because I wanted to raise my own kids and not feel that I'm trying to raise kids that belong to someone else. Nor do I like the feeling of "living up to the expectations" of another family. It's very stressful and frustrating to get the emails every month asking how the kids are doing, as if I'm raising THEIR kids. I just want to say "they're doing fine. They're being raised by us. You've had your chance to adopt. You didn't. Now get on with your lives." Yes, I realise it's harsh, which is why I haven't said that. But honestly, that's how I FEEL. If you WANT the communication with the foster family, you definitely have that option. But I just don't feel that's healthy for the foster family to continue feeling attached to the kids. It's not healthy for the kids nor is it healthy for the new family trying to form a bonding.

During our daughter's adoption, our first meeting was held in the foster family's home, and all subsequent meetings for our first trip (5 days). When we went back for the bonding and paperwork periods, we picked her up from the foster family home and saw them periodically during the 6 weeks we were in the area. They also arranged for our daughter to have her First Communion at the local church so we had a huge celebration at their home as well. Today, we have email and snail mail contact with our daughter's foster family. We also went back to Poland this past summer for vacation and visited with the foster family for 2 days during our stay. We see no reason to cut them out of our daughter's life. They loved her and took care of her for 2+ years. Their calling in life is to foster children, not adopt. We are thankful for their influence in her life because prior to that, well, life was hard and difficult. We also have the unusual situation in which the foster family is in touch with the biological family (very small town). We were able to be informed when our daughter's biological father and grandmother passed, along with the health reasons behind their passing (valuable information I believe). ******************************** My son was from a state orphanage. We still have email contact with the orphanage director. Due to serious paperwork and legal issues, our son languished in the system for almost 7 years. The director personally took our son under her wing and he often joined her family at her home and on family vacations. She thanks us profusely for the updates because most families take the children and run.......and the very people who loved on our children for some matter of time, are left empty. We gave our son the opportunity to visit the director and his orphanage when we were in Poland this past summer. He wasn't interested. We fully respected his choice, and although the orphanage director was disappointed, she also totally understood. ******************************** Also during our trip this past summer, we were able to visit our youngest daughter's orphanage (since we weren't present at her original adoption). She was from a Catholic orphanage. To say that the Sisters and Mother were happy to see her was very much an understatement. We learned that it is very, very, very unusual for any of the kids to ever return to the orphanages. I think it was healing for our daughter (again, we went only with her permission) to visit. The only ongoing communication we have with for this adoption is photos and letters back to the in-country worker who passes the information on to the orphanage. ********************** So, three different adoptions, three different care situations, and contact specialized to each situation. Heather

Polishmom - thanks so much for sharing! It's so true what you write, that the folks who care for these kids do feel sadness when their job is done. I thank God for my opportunity to foster Baby V, bc w/o that experience, I may not have thought non-birth family needed to be kept in touch with after we adopted our child. It's not about "you had the chance to adopt, you didn't, so buzz off". How totally uncaring to have this approach. if every foster family adopted every child they ever fostered, well, they'd run out of foster families real quick, if for no other reason than simple space limitations! Not to mention we abroad wouldn't have the chance to adopt. Granted, there do need to be limits in place, and everyone involved in any level of open adoption must know who the parents are now and the rights and responsibilities that come with that. But what is the harm in simply maintaining correspondence with folks who once loved your child and whom your child loved as well? I'm very happy to hear that your experiences with visiting the orphanage/foster family have been positive, and that the folks there welcomed such a visit. Just goes to show they do care.

K, you are assuming a lot of things in your process of adoption. Just because you are a fantastic foster mother, doesn't mean that everyone else are like you. You'd be wise to be very careful going into this process without assuming anything. The foster families in Poland get money from the government to do so. While some are absolutely wonderful caring people such as yourself...there are others who do it solely for the money. They take kids into their homes, mistreat them, abuse them, neglect them, and then stand in the way of potential adoptive families by refusing to declare in court that the adoptive family is worthy of adopting. There were some horrific stories I've heard first hand of foster families that did it purely for the money and not because they cared about the children. Fostering in America is nothing like the foster system in Poland! Don't assume that it's only loving families that get to foster. Most foster families in Poland will not spend a penny for any dental health for their foster children, and not a penny for their mental health. If you saw and lived the results of this you wouldn't feel so lovey dovey with the foster family. Not when you're sitting there at the American dentist office with three children and 19 cavities between them and a $6000 bill. From the moment we met our kids they complained of such pains in their mouths that they couldn't eat anything solid. You are assuming that all foster families in Poland love their foster children and that the children love their foster parents. Don't assume. I speak from experience - this isn't the case with everyone. I sincerely hope your will meet the foster family from heaven that will match up to your dream foster family and that you could have a wonderful relationship with them. But I don't want you to feel crushed when you realise your adopted kids had not only suffered with their biological parents, but also with the foster family.

hylo - you make a good point, though I think most others assume the worst... either way, no one should be assuming anything one way or another since every situation is different.

We have a foster family situation. Our girls lived with a wonderful foster family for 4 years. They have fostered over 20 children. We have such a love and respect for them and their two grown daughters that we named our girls (middle names) after their two grown biological daughters. We email pictures every couple of weeks. We have only been home for a couple of months so we are still waiting to show them pictures of them with the foster family. I think this spring I will put together a little photo book for them containing pictures from their life in poland. I just want our communication to be a little better before we talk about it more. We also plan on flying the foster mother and father to the US in the next two years. As a thank you and to see the girls. They girls mention them every once in a while with joy and happiness in their voices. I agree that they could have adopted the girls but knew that their calling was to foster them until we came along. I thank God everyday for them and their sacrifice to give my girls a loving home for so many years. They are all the more better because of this loving environment they had. As of now we plan to keep in touch with them forever hopefully we can visit them in Poland again someday.

We do keep in touch with the orphanage that our daughter was at and send in pictures several times during the year. We also send a box full of kids vitamins and vaseline (their request list) in Jan each year. This year they sent us a Merry Christmas email just to stay in touch. The orphanage director speaks English so that probably makes it easier. In our case, the orphanage did a great job caring for our daughter and she had bonded with the physical therapist there. We feel the work they did basically gave her a chance at life and we will be forever grateful. Every professional that we come in contact with is amazed at the care they provided and the progress they were able to attain. She has thrived even more since coming to live with us, but they gave her a foundation from which to grow. We also had to spend our full bonding and after court time in the town with the orphanage. So as we were out and about we ran into the orphanage workers quite alot. They were always so respectful about coming up to Alissa and the family, but also always reported back to the director how happy Alissa was with her family. Maybe because we saw them so much, we feel it is important that they continue to see how well she is doing. Maybe I'm also doing a bit of "mom bragging":) As our daughter gets older we will involve her in putting together the annual gift to the orphanage and we'll be back in Poland for her to experience the culture and at some point visit just to say hi. They are also the best link to the birth family and siblings. Right now they aren't giving us any info/pictures, but as she gets older, I suspect they will. Once again I think that each case is different. You may go in with one expectation and come out with another. For example, we had decided that we wouldn't change our daughters first name because it "was hers", we liked it, she was older and was probably used to it, etc. However, after being with her for 2 months she still couldn't/wouldn't say her name. The day before court we decided to switch it to her middle name and give her another name - which she easily said and switched to. It was a surprise to us, the family, the court, the orphanage, etc. But since our daughter was suffering from PTSD and we didn't know what was triggering it, we decided we needed to do something that we had previously not considered a possibility. We told the court that in the US kids used their middle names all the time, and if as she got older she wanted to switch back we would encourage it. You'll face many different decisions, with much background information that you will probably never disclose to people. You will feel like you are being judged on those decisions all the time by people that feel like they "know" what you should be doing - but in reality only you know the information and can make the appropriate decisions. So you may decide that continued contact is good, you may decide it is bad, or somewhere in between. Either way, only you can make that decision once you have all of the information in hand. I have to say, the one and only absolute I have learned from this process is that you never really know the background information and therefore, I'm more aware of trying not to "judge" others.