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I am new to this site, like just signed up today! It is very large with lots of information, but a bit intimidating and overwhelming. As most of you know adoption is a major decision, and ours hasn't even started yet. Here's my story:
We live in a very rural town, only about 1,200 people. Foster parents attend the same church we do, as does the birth mom! We found out the two girls living with the foster parents were up for adoption. We decided to spend some time with them, there aren't a lot of people in this community who will step up and give these two precious girls a home. That was a year ago. We have since found out they have two siblings, who are not located in our community, each has another foster home, one in Hutchinson, KS and the other in a group home in Kansas City. The two middle girls who are not in our community require more specialized care than we can handle. Did I mention that we are in our early 50's and our children are grown, and we have a grandchild with one on the way? Yikes! So we are interested in the two young ladies we have known for about 3 years. We started spending time with them about a year ago, and finally decided that we would take them if the state will split them up. My sister has an adoption disaster story which made us more than reluctant to do this. But the more time we spend with them the more attached we get.
Our case is unusual in that we started to spend time with them before we had decided to adopt them, as well as needing a sibling split. The agency, St. Francis, has been utterly awful. They haven't followed through on anything they have been directed to do and it is taking forever. The odds of these 4 girls being adopted together are very slim, considering 3 of them are special needs. They haven't lived together for 3 years. My husband and I feel trying to make them live together after being apart so long is not a good idea, but it is always the position of the state to get them adopted together. So now we wait for the sibling split decision, which seems to be taking forever since birth parents gave up their rights over a year ago. We have a court hearing in August that will hopefully put the decision to split in the forefront. St. Francis has dropped the ball in so many things in these girls lives. We feel they are torturing the girls just so they can do all the requirements on their part, that should have been done a year ago. The girls are frustrated, we are frustrated and time seems to be standing still.
I know I must have rambled and left out vital information. Please feel free to ask questions or comment or give advice! Like I said previously, I'm new and a bit overwhelmed and don't have any friends on here yet. Any help or friendship would be appreciated. Thanks all.
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Welcome Taunja! We're happy to have you here. So to clarify . . . you are planning for adopting the two sisters for sure if the state approves having them adopted without their siblings? Is there anything specific about adoption or the adoption process or adoptive parenting that you're wondering about? Have you fostered the sisters at all? What sort of time have you spent with them?
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Yes we are planning to adopt the two sisters for sure, if the state will approve a sibling split. We have not fostered the sisters yet. We are hoping after our court date in August they will agree to have them moved into our home so we can foster them as we wait on the decision. We have spent a considerable amount of time with the girls. One is 15 and one is 8. We spend most weekends with them, and they have stayed at our house when their foster parents have gone on vacation. We have started to take them camping this summer and they share a room at our house with our granddaughter when she is here. They have started to call us mom and dad, and have been asking us to adopt them for over a year now. We have told them that if the state will let us just adopt the two of them that we will. We explained to them why we couldn't take all four of them, and they seemed to accept that. I guess I'm just asking for any hints or advice on what to expect, what we can do to hurry the process along, if we can hurry it along at all. I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed and unsure at this point because we don't have any contact with anyone except the CASA worker to get our information. We did just start our parenting classes that the state requires you to do and we are getting information from that and from the worker. We hope to have them completed along with our background checks so that if the court date goes well, we will be ready. Thanks for responding to me! I was feeling pretty alone! :)
I had an instance yesterday that was frustrating and happens quite a lot. Both girls are 50% of the time very aloof and seem to care less whether we are with them or not. Then the next time they see us they are very affectionate and totally engaged in everything. Is this normal?They are always saying they want to be adopted by us or no one. So I really think they want this as much as we do. Should I follow their lead, and if they aren't engaged not push them. I asked the 8 year old yesterday if she ever missed me and she just said sometimes and ran out the door to her ride. I'm always so excited to see them, but often they are indifferent. Any insight?
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