Has anyone adopted through foster care or a foster parent?

Question

My husband and I are considering becoming foster parents so that we can adopt a baby through the system. Has anyone done this.. what are the chances of being able to foster infants only and then the possiblity of adopting a child. Thanks in advance for you help.

Answer 1

Im a foster parent who specialises in infants and alot of agencies from my experience wouldnt like it if you applied for their books with that being your sole intention. You can nominate your age group though. Also adoption through foster care although it does happen isnt as common as you might think and can be a very lengthy process. This is because especially with babies if they are given up when they are born then they only go to foster parents until their adoption through an agency is finalised. The other thing to consider is that you never quite know which babies will go into foster care permanently because the courts tend to put them on short term orders and reevaluate their cases every 3 - 6 months because they would much rather an infant eventually go back to their biological parents where possible. Fostering babies is very rewarding though regardless of wheather or not you get to adopt at the end of it and there are so many babies in need of care. I would just suggest researching your local agencies as they all have different policies. Best of luck

Answer 2

Why do you want an infant?  Even infants are not blank slates - they come with a unique history, personality, and their family characteristics.  And ALL adopted children, infant or not, come with trauma from their losses.

Answer 3

yes, my brother was adopted by his foster parents. They r no more, RIP.

Answer 4

Rebekah is right with her answer.  Most Agency's dont want you to just become a foster parent for an infant age group.  They like it where you would be more flexible with your foster children.  Adopting a infant foster child can take years......being a foster paretn for toddlers and school age children can be very rewarding as well....and you can adopt a child of that age if they are free for adoption.

Answer 5

the way I understand it is you donot have a choice on who comes into your home when you get the call you have to accept..

Answer 6

There are many many lovely children in foster care in need of a home, why restrict yourself to infants?

Answer 7

My husband and I became foster to adopt parents to a 13 day old baby boy in 2005.  20 months later we finally went to court to adopt him.  It was the best day of our lives and we knew that this was the right direction for our family when we looked into Foster to Adopt.  

But just recently, we got back on the waiting list and we were  placed with a 2 day old baby boy.  After a month in our home he was removed to live with relatives.  My husband and I have since decided not to do Foster to Adopt.  Dealing with case workers who are over worked and confused most of the time about what case they are working on just got to be to much.  We did deal with a very difficult case worker in our Foster to Adopt son's case, and an even more difficult one this second time around.

Just know that if you do decided to go the Foster Care route, that you probably will be placed with several children who will be removed to go to relatives or back to the biological mothers, before you finally are able to adopt a child you raised from infancy.   The case workers number one goal is Reunification to parents and secondly, to relatives.  Foster Parents are last on the list.

Don't let anyone tell you that you will not get placed with an infant, because they DO place infants....but you might not get to adopt them for awhile, or at all because Relatives can pop up in the picture.

The fact that we were able to adopt the first Foster child placed in our home is very uncommon. We are very lucky that it turned that we adopted him only after waiting 20 months in the Foster Care System.  We were told by the Adoption Caseworker that most families average 4 to 5 placements before they are finally placed with a child they are able to adopt.

Good luck!  :)

Answer 8

my mom and dad have had foster kids for about 20 years and during that time they have adopted 7 children.  one was 2 days old when she came to live with them and another was 2 weeks.  As a foster parent, you can tell the case worker what age you want to have and usually that is the age range that you get.  With all the kids that they have adopted, my parents got the first option for adoption because they had had the kids for so long.  They are now all between 16 and 9 years old.  Good luck to you!  It's really worth it.  I wouldn't give up my brothers and sisters for anything!!