Anyone from Los Angeles County?

Hello! Well, we have been certified for about 4 weeks now and nothing. The waiting sucks. They say there are so many kids that need homes in la. Our agency is great, matches and cw's are all great. We are waiting to be matched with a 3 month - 1 year old boy. Don't know how long we will wait. Trying to have patience. Good luck to you!!

Thanks for the response wanna. So are you certified through LA County or a private agency? We are going through the county. I'm glad to hear some positive feedback on the CW's up there. Down here in San Diego, they treat adoptive parents like straight foster parents. We're hearing about a lot of fellow adoptive parents getting placements and then losing them after a year in their care. We also are waiting to be matched with a boy...actually, BOYS. We want a sib group of two boys. I've learned that you get placements a lot faster if you are open to taking sib groups..even if it is just two. Just some food for thought I wanted to share with you. Best of luck! I bet that little boy is already out there waiting to come home to you.

we are LA county. Do you live close to LA? I think it would be a LOT harder to find a placement from another county. We found our own fosterchild (long story) through Orange County. I never knew how difficult transportation would be. We were required to attend so so many meetings and then there was weekly bio parent visits, and we had to transport out fosterchild back and forth for all that, spending hours and hours in the car each week. I'd consider that before taking a child from far away. All that driving takes a toll, not only on you, but its not good for a child to have to live that way driving around all the time. I had great luck with all our social workers. We dealt with an agency in LA and also directly with the county workers which were fantastic. And Orange county workers were great as well. I find that there was lots of bad social workers who didn't know what they were talking about but that was all the workers who don't deal with directly placing. Once we actually get placed with a child, those workers have all been fantastic. High turnover but it was ok since they all were great. Now for the reunification. Sorry to say, but all counties are going to go to great lengths to have a child reunified. That is their #1 goal. I had to reset my brain to understand that to avoid extra hurt, pain and anger later. Expect your placement to get reunified. If you get to adopt the first child, that is great luck. We consider ourselves incredibly lucky in the fost/adopt world. We had one placement that lived with us over a year. They were expecting we'd adopt her but she ended up being reunified. Then we got a call for a newborn, they expected she might be reunified. We accepted placement and adopted her 11 months later. We are the happiest we could have ever imagined. Our family is perfect. Our child is the perfect fit for us. All the pain is worth it times 1 million.

Thanks much for the response Excited. We are actually in North San Diego County. It's about an hour drive (depending on traffic) to LA. Boy oh boy do we understand the reunification thing. We had an adoptive placement sib group for EXACTLY 18 months and they RU'd them with biomom. We were devastated. Our hearts are well guarded now. I'm glad to hear you had a good overall experience with the CW's up in LA. Down here in SD county, all we have to report is negative and all the reports from other foster/adoptive parents is negative. We deal with lots of "misleadings". Congrats on your recent adoption. That is great! I will have to talk to my husband about the possibility of having to drive for visits if we get a placement from LA County. We both have full time careers and we have already had our share of driving when our last case turned from Adoption to RU. Thanks again and enjoy that baby!!!