First Time Foster/Adoptive Parents Seeking Support

Congrats on you upcoming adoption placement! I went through a similar situation. A cousin by marriage had a daughter at a young age. Long story short, she was not ready to parent. Baby girl was finally taken into state custody and luckily placed with grand parents. During this time I guess bio mom decided to do what was best for her and place her for adoption. We were asked to be the adoptive resource. Even with moms consent and her naming us as the adoptive parents, and everyone on board including grand parents, it took 2 months to gain temporary custody of little love and then 6 or so months to finalize her adoption. Living this child will be the easy part. The hardest part of my daughters adoption has been having a close relationship to her bio mother from even before little love was brought into this world. It's been difficult for families to except their new roles. And it's been hard setting boundaries. I hate seeing bio mom hurt and I feel so thankful that she picked us for her daughter but at the same time, I have to protect my daughter now that I'm her mother. There have been times where I have had to put my foot down and threaten that if bio mom couldn't stay consistent, I would stop all contact, and I have had to act on this threat more than once because it's not ok for my daughter to be exposed to some intoxicated or someone who only wants to show up for fun holidays. Luckily things seem to be going ok lately, but it's a constant struggle. My biggest suggestion with this journey would be to lay out expectations and boundaries from the start. It will save a lot of heart ache later. Example: little loves bio mom thought I would still be "aunt" and she would still be mommy and thought I would allow overnight visits etc. I wish I could allow visits like that but fact of the matter is, little love was taken into custody for a reason and bio mom had A LOT of growing up to do before this could happen. Nearly 2 years later, she still isn't there yet bit getting closer. Good luck with everything. Spend as much time with this sweet baby as possible and love her with everything you have. The rest will come naturally. :)Eta: sorry for the typos, I'm on my phone!

Wow! This sounds so much like our situation! It's very validating to hear others' perspectives. I am also glad you mentioned the part about boundaries. My husband and his sisters were adopted in closed adoptions. So I have very little personal experience with open adoptions. I do want the child to have a good relationship with her parents, but I also don't want her to be confused. My plan had been to lay out the ground rules with everyone ahead of time so that expectations were clear. Fortunately, the birth mother and I have a good relationship so hopefully that will maintain. We're set to be emergency certified as our state is currently 6+ months backlogged with adoption certifications. The caseworkers hopes that this will allow us to have her sooner to start the bonding process. We'll see what "sooner" really means. Having worked in this field for so many years I know that DHS' sense of urgency and what the rest of the world considers urgent often are a far cry from each other!Thank you again for your input. :)