Hello, I'm Whitney
Thu, 07/09/2009 - 05:43
My husband and I recently adopted a 14 year-old boy from the foster care system. We also have 2 biological daughters 18, and 20. My son had been in foster care for 10 years and has had some pretty difficult situations to deal with. Right now he seems to be thriving and doing very well.
Comments
Hello Whitney. Glad to have you here.
Thanks for joining our little community. I think it is great that you've chosen to adopt an older child. There are so many children in the foster-care system who simply don't find permanent families because they are "too old". I'm looking forward to reading about your insights into adopting an older kid.
How long did you know your boy prior to finalization?
We met our son on July 14th of last year, almost a year ago exactly. Our finalization was in February of 2009. It seemed like it took an extremely long time for us to get placement for a kid who had already been in the system for 10 years and was anxious to be adopted by us. We hit one bureaucratic wall after another.
I'm very excited about hearing input from everyone on this site!
I hope you feel welcome.
Lots of States have regulations that say the kiddo you want to adopt has to be in your house as a foster child for 6 months. Our kiddo was free and clear-we ended up fostering for about 7 months as well before finalising. Long before we stood up in front of the magistrate, we had already committed in our hearts to our little girl though. I will say this, having to ask permission of the county to do many things (like sports or travel one state over) with our child got old fast.