Adoption through foster?

We are in the process of adopting through foster to adopt. This is our 3rd placement (though 5th "call" on a child). Though to be fair, our first was not a possible adopt situation, so we really have only had 2 placements in the house we knew we might adopt.

The hard part with foster to adopt is that family can surface at any time. The 2 we got called on, but were never placed, family stepped forward before they officially went into the system.

Our first actual placement, they told us up front that there was family in another county so we knew she would not stay, but we still had lots of fun and it was a good trial run for how things would work in the system.

Our second was a heart breaker. She was placed with us and we were told that there were no suitable family, but one appeared after 2 months so away she went. Hard, but that is the risk you take.

Our current placement is looking promising but we are months (maybe years with how CPS works) away from finalizing. If family appears between now and then, well, they go to family. But the circumstances in our case make it unlikely that family will appear.

I would advise that you start to make friends with placement workers. I know in our county, that letting placement know you are looking for a possible perm placement helps make sure you are offered placements that are more likely to become perm. In our county, the placement workers will keep your number handy if they know personally what you are looking for (age, sex, situation, etc).

What is it that you want to know? I can tell you a bit about my experience, but without specifics, I may not be answering your question at all.

My (then) husband and I put in an application with L.A. County in the spring (?) of 2002. We started MAPP classes in the fall of that same year. We had our home inspection, got our fingerprints done, had physicals...did all the stuff that's required before becoming an approved foster home. In March 2003 we got a call that there was a 5 year old girl they wanted to place with us. We were very excited -- talked to our social worker, saw a picture of her, started to plan, went out and bought bedroom furniture for her -- and then we were told that the child's grandfather had surfaced out of nowhere and had decided to take her in. We were upset, but I began to hope that the little girl's grandfather was a good man and that she would be happy and safe with him. We never heard anything about her after that (that wouldn't have been appropriate), so I hope she's healthy and thriving now. :)

Three months later, we were called about a 2 year old boy. We met with his social worker and ours about 2 weeks after the first phone call and were given a history of the little boy's life up to that point. We knew we wanted to meet him and were very interested in fostering and then adopting him if he became available for adoption, so we set up a meeting and got to see him for the first time on July 1, 2003. We met with the boy, his foster parents, and both social workers at the DCFS office where we took pictures and talked with the foster parents for about an hour.

We then had ten visits during the month of July, including one overnight visit. We got to bring our son home on July 31, 2003. He was not yet legally free for adoption and had weekly visits with his biological mother, which I took him to but was not allowed to participate in. His mother's parental rights were terminated at the end of October 2003 and we switched over from being foster parents to adoptive parents. Nothing changed, really. We still had monthly visits from his social worker and life continued as it had been. We were led to believe that we would finalize our boy's adoption in the spring of 2004, but there were legal loopholes that caused things to be put on hold for an additional year. We finalized our son's adoption on June 22, 2005 -- nearly two years after first meeting him and more than three years after filling out our first application to foster.

If there's anything else I can help with, please let me know.

Aloha!