It's In The Paperwork!

I had to turn down matches before for different reasons...& I always felt the guilt. However, I knew they were legitimate reasons that we were not the right family for the child--medical fragile, when we lived too far from an equipped hospital, behavior issues that would put my other children in danger, etc.--so, taking the child out of guilt would have been doing him/her/them a disservice, not helping them. So, all I could do in the end was pray they found a family that could meet their needs.

I turned down several calls while in the process of adopting. The day we got called about or oldest son, the worker wanted to know if we wanted to look at the file of an 8yr old girl too. After asking a few more questions about the girl I told the adoption specialist "no thank you". There was a chance she had acted out sexually ( we had a 10yr bio-daughter). We got a call for an older teen boy who was in a treatment center, NO. On our oldest son's adoption day within moments of leaving the court house we got a call for a boy/girl sibling group. We did not have room and both the children had ADHD and other behavior "issues". We were to busy trying to help our son (then 4yrs) with his own "issues". When we decided to adopt the second time we didn't get any calls. I contact an adoption specialist about a little boy. She claimed he was a bit "slow" but after speaking to his foster mom it was clear he would never be able to live on his own. A few weeks later we got a call from our worker saying "how do you feel about a boy" When I told her we were interested in either a boy or girl. She said "well then how would you like to come pick your newborn son up from the hospital in an hour and half. Of coarse we said YES (he will be 6yrs on June). When our youngest was 5mo we got a call for a newborn baby, but it would have required us to travel a lot for medical appointments AND possible birthparent visit. There were several more that I turned down because they were way out of our age range.

wow I never knew in the system there was such luck to have a full blown new born to adopt that was awesome. Me and DH want 3 mo. up to 7yrs open to either or we have a foster Newborn and it's not been easy so we ruled out new born for sure unless it's very needed.

look at my signature line, lol TWO newborns ! all mine now!! lol my thoughts on this are, BECAUSE they were newborns, straight out of the hospital, *I* KNOW, that NOBODY ever hurt them (after birth), nobody had a chance to beat them, shake them, brake their bones or whatever else horrors some babies have to endure, before they come home to a safe foster/adopt family... there is no hurry to rush into anything. If you and your husband don't feel comfortable about a situation, then that situation is not for you. I know you want to adopt, but take your time :) we looked at photo listings too, years ago, but never moved farther then having the info forwarded to us... the issues were way way too much for us... so we proceeded to foster, in the hope to adopt, and just month after switching agencies, had our first baby placed, and some time later, our second. BOTH looked like they are going towards adoption from the start. It took a while, but... here we are... all done :)

Yeah that gives me some hope. I know for a fact lil man and lil miss will RU biomom is working hard to get them back and applaude her for that yeah sometimes it irks me that she has no conception of us trying to help her because she sees us as the bad guys for what ever reason.

yes, and I cried myself silly the night I withdrew on one of them and a couple days later we got the call to interview for our current and forever daughter. When the social workers came to visit, the backup social worker that was there to take notes, etc, was the same worker for the child we withdrew on. Our comments on why we withdrew on that one actually seemed to help us validate why we were perfect for our daughter :love: We'd turned down others, but that was the first we'd expressed specific interest in and withdrew after our home study was submitted. We said the whole time, we had to remember if that child wasn't the perfect match for us, didn't mean they wouldn't find a home, that she could be the perfect match for another couple. If we'd taken that one, we'd have missed out on our wonderful daughter we have now. I can't imagine life without our 'lil angel.

For those that turned down placements that you didnt feel were right for your family, were you also accepting matches between that time period? Do they write you off as foster/adopt parents if you decline too many matches in a row or in general?