Why is so hard to decide?

Sounds like you don't want an open adoption, and that's fine. Adoption doesn't necessarily have to be open; you can have a closed adoption domestically or internationally, even from foster care (although in that case even if you don't have a bio parent you would have state worker involvement, at least for the first few years).

Thank you for your replay Manzana when I started I was excited everything seemed right but the more I Knew the more made me have second thoughts just wondering how normal that is or it is because adoption is not for me.

Once a foster adoption goes final there is no more social worker involvement. The child is yours to raise and love as your own child. It is up to you (depending on the state you live in) as to an open adoption or not. I do not feel that my AD is not mine or that I am sharing her. I am the mom she turns to when she falls or is sick. I am who she turns to for a hug. I am her mom. She does have birthparents and we choose to stay in email contact with them once or twice a year to stay up to date on medical issues of the family or if they are pregnant again. They do not know our last names or what town we live in. My heart doesn't know the difference between biological daughter and an adoptive daughter. We were placed with her and finalized in 10 months and no more social workers after that day. Only you know if adoption is right for you but I don't want you to think that foster/adoption has prolonged social worker/state involvement after the adoption. IF the child is a legal risk child then it may take longer to adopt or it might not go to adoption at all. Work with your adoption worker as to what you can handle as an acceptable level of risk for your family. Good luck on your journey.

Once an adoption is final the child is yours to raise how you see best. The bio parents become like anyone else outside of your family, and you can choose to have little to no contact with he birth family. If a child is adopted from foster care often the bios are not safe to have visits with which is why the child was in care in the first place. We will send pix a few times a year to our STBAS's biomom, but we will have no visits for a few reasons.

I am going to disagree with others. Yes once adoption occurs they are yours legally but biologically they belong to another family. That fact will never change and you need to accept that adoption is not a cure for an inability to have your own biological child. Yes you love them the same, youwill be their mother but there is always the unseen biological family in the background even with infant adoption. Byacceptingand embracing their biological self you can have an open and accepting relationship with your adopted child. Children are not possessions, they yours to raise and set free to be their own person. They need to be free to love and accept their whole selfs, which greatly includes their biological self.

I am wondering if you are confusing fostering with adoption here. When you are fostering you do not get to make all the decisions for a child or necessarily raise them totally as your child, because they are not. However, as others have remarked, once an adoption is finalized you are the only legal parent, and you do get to decide how to raise them. As to this, yes, the birthparents will always be a factor in a child's life. Even if the adoption is completely closed, you would have to accept that you are NOT the only parent your child has. You may be the only day-to-day parent, the only parent who is caring for an raising them, but they do have birthparents who are a part of that child's identity. If you are adopting from foster care they may very well have more or less clear memories of living with them. It is different from raising a biological child; as my son gets older, I start to see traits that I know are from his bfamily and others that I don't know. I don't have as many answers for him about the questions he will ask about himself as I would if he were my biological child. None of this makes him any less my child, and none of it makes me feel any less like his mother. It does make me sad sometimes at what I cannot give him (biological connection, answers, etc). Adopting through foster care you may adopt an older child, so you will have missed out on parts of their lives, and they will have a history you will not share. I talk to my friends who are biological parents and they don't have many of the thoughts and questions that I have in parenting. Many of the feelings in parenting are ones we share, but there are many also that are different. It is not the kind of parenting that all people are cut out for. I have friends who are wonderful parents who would be terrible adoptive parents; at least one of them is someone who did at one point consider adoption, and luckily realized that is was not something she wanted or would be able to do. You are the only one who will be able to figure out if adoption is right for you. Can you see yourself as the parent but also accept that your child has other parents? If you are fostering to adopt, can you accept that you initially will not be able to make all the decisions, and that you may or may not be able to adopt in the end? How are you with uncertainty? Can you try to answer a child's questions about their background honestly and without being defensive, and be okay with them knowing about their "other" family and potentially caring about that family? You mention helping a child, but adopting is not the only, or even necessarily the primary, way you can help a child in foster care. If you think that fostering or adoption is not going to be the best thing for you, you could consider volunteering, mentoring, or some other role that could help.