Dealing with losing child....

it is kind of like the child dies, but in a way it is worse especially if the poor kids had a bad SW and were returned to a very bad situation I had no problem foster kids for 2-8 months and really seeing b-parents do something to improve the lives of their children. I had all the trouble in the world fostering kids for 13 months (I knew them for about 2 years before as a respite provider) and seeing those kids returned to b-mom crack addict to live in a motel room. It also paid some kind of toll on my other here forever kids as they really did have a good relationship with at least 2 of the 3 foster kids. They are gone from their live forever as well. I even found out b-mom gave birth to tenth kid and most likely my kids (old foster kids) are in foster care out of state and their is nothing I can do. My name was given to worker who has the kids and if TPR takes place there and they need an adoptive home they may consider me, but they really did not verify that kids were in care their.

We are coming close to losing a 3 yr old my 5 yr old is very attached to. The lack of permanancy issues have been hard for my son, maybe even accelerated some because he was adopted at 3. My sister said she was listening to Dr Laura a while ago and someone called with a situation similar to mine. She said young children should not be having kids coming and going from the house. Makes sense to me. I would say wait until your kids are in their teens and can make more sense of things. Just my 2 cents. Good Luck what ever you decide.

Hi Sylvester, Right now we are fighting tooth and nail to keep our fost/adopt daughter who we have had since birth, she is now 9mos. We love her to death as do our 2 sons, 11 & 14. When she was placed with us we were told it was a pretty clear cut case and parental rights would be terminated quickly. Then.....Dad finally decided 7mos later to get his DNA test. (He was named as Dad from day one but denied it.) Now he thinks he is super dad and wants custody. Where was he when she was in the hospital with pneumonia? Where is he during her twice weekly physical therapy appts? Where is he in the middle of the night...every night? Unfortunately, he has all the rights and we have none. It is heart-breaking... I feel sorry for the people who wait 9mos with a bmom who then backs out, but in a way it must be easier than falling in love for 9mos and risking having the baby ripped out of your loving arms. I know I am venting and am truly sorry, but you need to know how gut wrenching it can be to be a fost/adopt parent on the wildest roller coaster ride you could ever imagine. On the other side, she has truly blessed our lives and we are not going to give up on her without a fight. She is our 2nd fost/adopt baby. The first one we lost to bmom who is actually doing well now and has made us the babies godparents. We see him at least once a month. The circumstances were much different in that she was at every visit and every Dr. appt from day one, unlike this Dad who has only just met his daughter. My greatest advice to you, is be careful... Love them and give them what you can in the time that you have them, hopefully forever, but know that the courts are in favor of reunification with birth parents in all but the most severe circumstances. All the best to you. JAG

Hi Sylvester, I have been a foster/adoptive parent for 8 years, I have experienced the best and the worst from the system. I am a single mom I have 2 adopted children (girl 8 and boy 4), I also have 2 foster placements (boy 11 and girl 7, sibs), I have had over 40 placements in my home. Obviously my family has had our share of losses. Most of my placements have returned home to b family, several have been placed back into care and some are still home. People ask all the time how do people get through the loss of a child. There is no easy answer, yes it is probably the most painful experience any one could conceive of, and I agree with all of the responses above about how painful it is and how we as fost/adopt parents truly have no rights in the courts. The children are the ones we should be doing this for not for ourselves, it is the children that can't speak for themselves and who no one listens to because they are "just kids". My very first placement was an infant girl the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. Bmom has mental health issues, my fdaughter (L) and her four additional sibs were removed from squalid conditions and had all been abused in some fashion. The social worker said from day one if any case will result in a TPR it would be this one. Well 3 1/2 years later they returned my daughter to her bmom, I had also taken one of the sibs (K) when the goal officially had changed to adoption. So I had both girls (L & K) for 18 months before they were both returned to bmom. Shortly after I took L as a placement I took another little girl (B) the 2 girls were only 2 months apart in age so four over 3 years these 2 girls were essentially raised as twins. When the judge threw social service out of court (because they didn't cross their I's and dot the T's so to speak), we had only a short time to transition the girls home. Bmom promised to allow contact with us but when it came down to it she wouldn't allow it. I remember watching the social worker drive off with my kids the girls really having no idea what was happening. We have had no contact since then and that was 4 years ago this month. I have occasionally spoken with social services and the girls are still with bmom, the situation isn't good and the case has been opened and closed several times. So, I went from a mother of three beautiful girls to the mother of one beautiful and now devastated daughter in one day. Not only did I have my own pain to deal with I had a child who lost a twin and another sib at the same time. Both B and I got into therapy which helped significantly because handling ones own pain is hard enough let alone helping a child through it at the same time. With all that being said I would still do it again even knowing the outcome. The reason I would do it again is because I know I had an impact on the girls and that the love I gave them (for the time that I had them) will shape their lives forever. No matter how bad things maybe they will always have the foundation I laid for them, they will carry that with them for their entire lives. No one can ever take that from them. Even though I imagine that this loss feels like losing a child to death, I will be able to see them one day, maybe not until they are adults but either they will find me or I will find them. We never know even the littlest thing we do for a child makes an impact on their soul forever. I had a little boy age 3 1/2 in my care for 7 months, he was returned to bmom (not a good situation) and yes, I felt that loss too. I ran into him 5 years later at a group home, he was walking down the hall; I called his name he turned looked at me and spoke my name. I was surprised and said I can't believe you remember my name. He responded "I always remember you", he then proceeded to tell me how to get to my house and that each time he was driven by my street he would look for me. That is why I do what I do. It is for the children that we are all in this for. All I can say is to hope for the best and plan for the worst.

Why do they do this to the kids??? Did the boy get to come live with you? The one from the group home?? I still have nightmares seeing my babies (old foster kids) street walking or smoking crack (it has been 2 1/2 years.) I can't tell any one how sad it was to leave those poor kids. Knowing they were going back to hell. There was nothing I could do. Social Workers just don't understand.

Easy for me to say. We've adopted four times the first two times our boys were each 4.5 years old and leagally free. They had been removed from extremely abusive homes and where placed in abusive fosterhomes (which I made sure were reported and shutdown). So they experienced four years of horror before coming to our home. Next time around we discussed the legal risk choice and decided that we were in better mental health to handle the loss of a child then the children were to handle years of abuse before we could adopt them. FOSTERMOM's please do not take offense I am friends with many foster parents that truly love their kids. We just happened to find two set's that didn't. We have since adopted one and are foster adopting another baby boy. The first time was really scary, her mom was high on cocaine when she gave birth. She had given the hospital a fake name and left an hour after our daughter was born. So we lived in fear for a year while the parental rights were severed and we could adopt her. She is as "normal" as any other kid. Our older two are not. They have many issues due to the abuse they suffered. Email me if you wish to discuss. My email address ins included in my profile. :)

to Rindava You are right some social workers don't understand, but how can they? They don't walk in our shoes and they care with them their own sense of loss and failure when things aren't the ideal situations for the kids. The social worker that had to do the return of my girls was devastated herself feeling sad, frustrated, distressed and responsible for the situation. I know how I felt losing the girls and I know how the sw felt about, I can't even begin to imagine what she was feeling having to hold it together (emotionally) to return the girls to bmom. She didn't like the situation any more than I did but it was her job. It was okay for me to cry and yell and be visibly upset and lots of people poured out support for me. No one was there for her to cry with, no one thinks about what this does to the workers and certainly I never thought about their pain. Not that I want to take on anyone else's pain but this is very hard for them as well. The boy that I ran into in the group home has been placed in a pre-adoptive placement and is doing very well. I do see him monthly and stay in close contact otherwise. I know I made a HUGE impact on this kids life even for the brief time I cared for him. I will always be there for him; he had a great impact on my life as well. The social system I am involved with has put together a transition group which includes sw, managers, foster parents & adoptive parents; we are working at putting together guidelines for all transitions. I do believe that most of the time foster parents feel as if we are not respected as part of the team. If we are consulted, included in the process it makes all the difference even when we don't like and can't control the outcomes.

Two out of three 'ain't' bad -- it's unthinkable! It is hard to know where to start and what exactly to say. We have loved and 'lost' a daughter through Foster to Adopt. But we have also loved and adopted two other children through the same process. We picked our daughter up at the hospital shortly after birth. After 31 months (yes, almost 3 years!), a new State Social Worker was assigned to her case for less than 3 months. Despite much long-term evidence of neglect on the part of the birth mother, and with no signs of any attempts toward improvement, this worker along with a newly appointed Judge who believes in reintegration at all costs, decided to send the almost 3 year old to live with her biological mother with whom she had spent very minimal time. An entire team of experts who had spent years on the case decided that Termination of Parental Rights was necessary and warranted. At the Pre-Trial hearing for the Termination proceedure, this one worker and Judge decided to take the matter into their own hands and go for a "trial" reintegration which would be supervised by no other than this State Social Worker herself! While I could go into great details about the unethical proceedures used by this State Social Worker to get "her" way, my point is simply this... no one can predict the outcome of a case because any number of uncontrollable factors; the scariest one of all, the Human Factor! My heart aches daily for our daughter who is living in, shall we say, less than desireable circumstances. Such a beautiful soul dealing with evil circumstances. Every second of every day I struggle to focus on being the Mom that our other children deserve, while dying a bit inside. It is the worst imagineable hurt that no words can come close to explaining. The price that our other children are paying is steep. Our 9 year old son, who has a heart of gold, now has the worries of an adult. He doesn't laugh as often as he used to, and his interest in outside activities has waned. Even his teacher at school wonders where the outgoing, friendly, and hard working boy is hiding. While we did all that we could to prepare him for the possibility that something could go wrong with the adoption of all 3 of our Foster Children, he still lived with them and loved them as if they were his biological siblings for their entire lives. Our other 3 year old daughter, only 4 months older than her "sisiter" who is no longer living with us, is missing her "twin." They are best friends, and are lost without the other. She refuses to let others play with toys or blankets that were her sisiter's favorite. She asks daily when her sister will come home. Our youngest son, now 2 years old, exhibits the least signs of stress, but even he looks for his sisiter daily, and still won't sit in "her" chair at the dinner table. While I couldn't and wouldn't trade our time with our daughter for anything in the world, I can't say that I would make the same choices that led us to each other if I had truly believed, even for a second, that such a loss was possible. A tough call for those of us who desire to build a family through adoption. And your worker is correct, it is next to impossible to adopt a young, healthy child through a State System unless you are the first placement for the kids through Foster Care. Not to mention, it is next to impossible to say "no" when they phone you with a newborn who has the "potential" to go to adoption, and who needs a loving family to care for them right now. Our children need loving families who can devote everything to them through unconditional love. We, as one family, would take in and love an entire house full. For us, right now, the costs of having to deal with a system designed to protect only the rights of the adults, and not the inherent rights of the children, is just too expensive! Instead I focus on being the best CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate for children in need of care), and searching for ways to improve children's rights in our court system. Will we consider adopting through a State System again? Possibly. Would we encourage others to learn about adoption through Foster Care? Definitely! Would we recommend adoption through Foster Care? Probably, but with reservation.

I cried as I read some of your posts. There is so much emotion in feeling as if these innocent children are being neglected by the very system put there to protect them. I can relate to the comment about a child being returned for errors in crossing the t's and dotting the i's. It happened to a toddler in my care whose bmoms case involved stacks and stacks of paperwork. It is almost like the sw's are being trained and/or reprimanded at the expense of the children. Many of the sw's I have worked with are truly there for the children, unfortunately many more believe that reunification is the only option. It takes a while to determine who is who. I can also relate to comments regarding doing this for the children because nobody else will. I agree and say that to myself each time I cause another commotion at CPS advocating for a child in my care. I too cannot say no when I get those phone calls in the middle of the night for placement. The alternative for that child is just not an option in my mind. I filed a complaint with CPS re: an abusive fhome that a child in my care had left and still have yet to hear of the results. I had to complain to 4 people before my complaint was even taken seriously. CPS states a lack of fhomes as a reason for looking the other way. I was told by one sw "remember that the complaint is from a child and needs to be taken with a grain of salt." In my mind, because it is from a child is exactly why it does need to be taken seriously. Don't automatically asume the child is lying!!! The system needs to change before more people will put their emotions and families on the line to become fhomes. I have considered becoming a CASA worker but for now am focusing my energies on putting my experiences and reasearch into a book. Even if I don't ever get it published it will be a means for me to address what we as citizens can do to make a positive change in a system that is so obviously broken.

Sad and Mad! Too strong emotions to deal with:confused: We had a fson who was physically and mentally disabled...His parents were lower functioning...I did respite for him for 4 yrs. , all his cares he stayed with us a lot during the summer, total trust of the parents he had very bad behaviors while around his parents but with me he was good it took me 4 yrs. to get him to that point and in good health. He lived with us as a foster son for 6 mo. and then all of a sudden his extended family got involved, who only had seen him 2 times a yr. they all of a sudden were willing to 'do whatever it takes' :mad: He went back home and I was told to stay away The family went as far as accusing me of hurting him, the s.w.'s didn't believe them but it hurt! and to this day I worry about him still because I know he was put right back in the same situation,,nothing has changed,, and that is so sad :( because he is the one suffering and no one seemed to 'care':rolleyes: I hear about him every once in awhile and pray for him. I had to go on a medication to deal with the loss because I knew things did not change if they would have changed it would have been different sad but different. I have 4 kids and a grandchild and they miss him to this day and ask about him and wish he was here. I am thankful I have faith because that is what got me threw this. I am happy to say we have another foster son who is TPRed and we are hoping to adopt he is also physically and mentally handicapped. I have read all the posts on here and I feel for each of you...God bless:D

jssamnksk, You sound like an incredible person!!! I am sure that you and your family made an irreversible impression on that child that nobody can ever take away from him. Bless you and the work that you do for these kids that need you so much. You are truly an inspiration to me.

All your heartwrenching stories break my heart...your thoughts your feelings, sound so much like the way I feel when I lost my son to adoption, its nice to know that we all share simular feelings on the loss of a child, whether biological or foster/adopt. Thank you for opening my eyes.

We adopted through Fost/adopt 3 times also. Our last placement has been an 11 month old who spent all but the first 10 days of his life with an excellent foster family. He has been with us for 4 months now. He grieves for his foster parents from time to time. I can always tell when he is crying for them. It breaks my heart to think of the loss for one so young and for his foster family. It is a hard system as we can and will be the best placement for him, but why should he have to suffer such heartbreak and loss. My other two have been through even more. Our first son was 11 months when he entered foster care and then had 3 more placements before he came to us. I remember crying with him also. The flip side of this is his ability to love as nurtured by the foster parents. It is a gift I cannot describe. It is happiness, joy and love. Our middle placement did not grieve and the effects of her early life have crippled her ability to have relationships. It is significant to see first hand the difference that this foster parent love can make. I am considering becoming a foster parent but hesitate at the effects on our kids after reading these and other posts. Anyway it is an incredible service to the kids to love that way and unrecognized and un appreciated enough. God bless you.

Hi I just want to say a few words about the loss of foster kids and and my kids..yes they are sad because the fkids have to leave but they also knew that this was and is always possible and I think it has tought my kids to be strong to love and to beable to let go but never to stop loving or forgetting. We talk about them often and have memories and pictures and that is something no one can take away. I have a wall in my living room and I have the foster kids pictures up there right along with my kids pictures. They are never forgotten :cool: Take Care

Hello. There is always some risk in fost-adopt but two things have happened in recent years to lower that risk. One, it is now accepted social work practice to do everything possible to help foster parents adopt the kids they have formed a bond with- if there are no bio relatives available. A good fost-adopt program will screen potential placements and give you a child that is very likely to be your child permanently. Second. The Adoption and Safe Families ACT (ASFA) of 1997 created severe penalties for states that return children to unsafe environments. This has saved lives and made more children available for adoption much faster. If you know of any child who is being returned to an unsafe environment, you can report an ASFA violation to the agency, the child's social worker, judge or CASA. You can take action. The best interests of the child has now been defined as Safety First. Only you can decide if the remaining risk is worth it. But whatever happens, be open and honest with your old kids (and age-appropriate in your explanations.) They can be amazingly resilient if they are told the truth. Regards, Rita Laws