Anyone have experience with foster care?

[HIU8]

DH and I are discussing the possibility of foster care and/or adoption when DS and DD get a little older. I would have really liked to have a DC#3, but a third biological child is not possible anylonger. We thought it would be nice to foster/adopt a third child between the ages of 18 months and 4 or 5, but we want to wait until DS is 5 or 6. Just wanted to hear about peoples experiences.

Thanks

[lotsolove]

we are foster/adopt parents and have been for about 5 yrs. lots of kids come and go. Never take kids older/bigger than your own. We currently have a sib group we are hoping to adopt but it is such a long process. we have had dd2 since 5.5 months and she turned 2 this month and dd3 from birth and she is almost 10 months with no end in sight yet for adoption. Good luck!
lotsolove
mom to
bd L 4 in ff radian
fd K 2 in rf scenera
fd J 9 months in ss1

[heatherandlouis]

We are foster parents and have our son through a private adoption. Foster care is great but it takes the right person doing it for the right reason. Adopting through foster care is a very long and crazy process. Generally sibling groups are much easier to come by than single preschool aged children. These children also have lots of problems that will take a lot and time to get through. Everyone talks about all of the joy that you experience but there can be heartache as well. Call your local agency and attend an orientation so that you can get a better idea of what the job entails

[ang79]

My DH and I are actually considering doing foster to adopt and ideally would like to find a infant or toddler boy. Ideally I would like to wait til my oldest is in school (currently 3) but we've heard there is usually a waiting list for babies, so we are thinking of getting started with the process sometime fairly soon.

What state do you live in? We're in PA and my cousin works with foster to adopt families and she said that PA is one of the better states to do adoption in and from what she was saying it sounds like you have to do foster care with the child for at least 6 months, then you can start the adoption procedure, which can take up to a year.

[soontobe]

My parents are foster parents and have been since I was in 11th grade. I think it is really great (coming from a sibling's perspective) it can be really hard-depending on the specific placement and sometimes my sister and I didn't like the kid, but each placement isn't usually for all that long. in most cases we really enjoyed it even though sometimes we didn't like how much of my mother's time it took. it definatly taught us important things and you get some very good experiences.

it isn't for everyone-the mother/father really have to want to do it because at least with us there was always a lot of technical/legal stuff to deal with.

one of our friends who is also a foster parent said that "sometimes it is hard when they are there and great for them to go, and sometimes it is great will they are with you and hard for them to go"-SO TRUE!!!!

it really is a very important thing but if you are doing fostering you have to keep a carful balance of not getting too attached to the kids because they leave which can be really hard. not trying to sound down, just honest as i said I am thrilled that I grew up in a home that took foster kids-it's just good to have your eyes open