Our Pastor and his wife have two boys of their own. Something major happened with her uterus after the 2nd baby and she's not able to have any more children. She was devastated, cuz she'd always wanted 5 or 6 kids. They decided to go the Foster to Adopt route. I was talking with her in December, and she said they were almost done with the preliminaries and would soon be "open for business"....she was sooo excited! She said she wanted her two boys to be the oldest, like your dh said, and since she had two boys, she'd really like girls that were younger than her boys (who are 6 & 8). In January they got a placement in their home: 2 girls, ages 2 and 4! It was absolutely PERFECT! The girls are sweet! Their mom grew up "in the system", and is not meeting all the criteria for getting the girls back. So they are hoping things will son go through for them to start the adoption process. The beginning of June they got another placement--a 4 month old boy, who looks for all the world like the girls! So now they have kids ages 0, 2, 4, 6 & 8! PW (Pastor's Wife) is an AMAZING mom to all these kids! She was meant to be a mom! She is sooo patient and good with them! It's a bit scary to Foster Adopt, because of the possibility of losing your heart to them, and then they're taken away from you. However, if your heart can handle it, it's a WONDERFUL service! I'm am praying for all of you with baby blues, and considering or doing the Foster to Adopt! May God richly bless you with what He knows is best for you!
You know I used to think my dh and I would always want a baby around. The way we had our 4 we did always have a baby around. LOL We even tried again after #4 but lost that one. Now we are really liking (for the first time) not having to carry so much "stuff" when we go out. lol But the little boys we are trying to adopt have stolen our hearts. So we will see how this pans out.
I just can't help but believe that someday we WILL adopt. My husbands heart will be opened up to it. I've always brought up adoption to him even before we had our last child. He's just not opened up to it. I think he's afraid that he won't feel the same as he does with his own. I would think he would know better being that he was basically adopted as well. Anyhow, I can't help but think that we will adopt someday. It's funny that both of my good friends have foster children that they will soon be adopting and a good friend of his is now working at becoming a foster parent so that they can adopt 2 girls whos parents have lost parental rights. The girls are currently in another foster family with I believe 8 other foster kids. Our friends have been spending a lot of time with the two girls and are VERY excited about becoming parents. My husband is being extremely supportive of them. So who knows.
I noticed somebody mentioned how expensive adopting can be. I think I have said this before on here, but our adoption through foster care only cost the filing fee at the clerk of court's office. I think it was $36.00 and the county paid that back to us when the adoption was final. We did our own paperwork for our last two adoptions and it is very easy to do. You just fill in a bunch of forms. Our first two adoptions we had lawyers but the county paid the fees. Every state and probably every county has different rules I am sure, but it never hurts to ask what kind of things are out there to help in the cost of adoption. The Dave Thomas Foundation would be a good place to look. You can get the info at most Wendy's or just look online. I am so pro adoption that I drive people nuts. Even though we don't plan on adding to our family I still go online and look at the foster kids waiting to be adopted. It kills me that there are so many out there waiting for a family.
I think there are a lot of families that could give loving and neutering homes, it's just the adoption costs that would wipe out their savings. I think that should never be an obstacle and perhaps adoption agencies/govt agencies should make it easier to get these kids loving homes without breaking the potential parent's bank account.
I called a few agencies over the last few days to see what private adoption would cost. Most were about the same: It's $200 just to apply. Then another $300 for the homestudy series. After that it's 15% of your annual income! And, of course, if you don't adopt locally (which apparently rarely happens. one woman told me that in 12 years she's only adopted out one baby locally) you have to foot for transportation to and from the baby's location to let the birth parents interview you and then to pick up the baby. For a frame of reference, if you only make $20k in a year, the adoption fee would be $3000. There are organizations that do give grants, some up to $3k. Most are specific to denomination, type of child (i.e. minority or child with disability), or even specific children. But it's an option.
But what if the kids don't want to be nuetered? :lol: Sorry, couldn't resist! :lol: Your real thought was great, so I don't want to take away from that, I'm just hopeless I guess! Things strike my funny bone.................
It is easier and less expensive to adopt from foster care. I know lots of people just want little babies, but there are lots of other people who would love to have a child who is a little older or even a teenager who needs a forever home. There are so many kids in the system who are available for adoption right now! I tell people who ask us about foster care, if every church had just one foster family in their church family and that family adopted one or more of their foster kids, there would not be such a need for forever families. Every kid should have a soft place to fall. Foster care/adoption isn't for everyone, but if you feel led that way at all, you owe it to yourself to look into it.
This is on a different part of foster care. I don't know if this is true everywhere or not, but here you are not allowed to homeschool foster children. Once they are adopted it is your choice, but until then they have to be in public school. I think they allowed homeschooling once for an older girl, but she may have been pregnant. I never heard for sure. I said public school, but we have some Amish foster parents around here and I don't know what the rule is for them. They have their own school about 30 minutes from here. I don't know if their foster kids can go there or if they have to be in public school.
Im in georgia and when the lady came a few weeks ago to do our homestudy, she said the same thing. You cannot homeschool foster kids here either.
