I am writing a two part blog. This first one will be on fostering to adopt and the other one will shed some light on straight adoption.
States deal with the issue of fostering to adopt differently. There are some states that strongly advise you to foster before adopting, others that are indifferent, and then there are ones like our state of Oregon that strongly discourage it.
The kind of fostering to adopt I’m talking about is taking in a foster child who’s case is still new in hopes that it will be moved toward adoption. All children that have cases moving to adoptions through the state are technically foster. States typically refer to these cases as “legal risk” until the rights of the child’s parents are terminated (a process called TPR). Once the child’s birth parent’s rights have been terminated, the case is often referred to as “legally free”.
There is some concern on how ethical it is to do fostering in hopes to adopt. When you are a foster parent, you are working for the state and your job is to work with them with their case plan. Foster parents do have some voice and it can get ugly if a foster parent’s motives clash with the State’s.
The benefit to fostering to adopt, is you get to know the child prior to any lifelong commitment. For parents hoping to adopt a baby, it’s an opportunity to know them from the earliest age possible. It means for the child, if their case goes to adoption, they don’t have to deal with a transition to a new adoptive home.
The choice whether to get into fostering with the hopes to adopt your foster child really depends on the family. It was out of the question for my husband and me! There was no way, as much as I wanted to be a mom that I was going to accept a baby, and risk having to return them.
After the placement of our first son, I was granted the honorary title of “Mommy” and my feelings changed some in regard to taking in a foster baby. I realized if we did lose a child, I would still be a mom. We took our second son in as a foster placement because the case looked like it may go to adoption. Risky move on our part! It was emotionally very difficult for me. Part of me wanted to love him unconditionally, the other part of me needed to guard my heart. There were a couple times we weren’t sure if we’d lose him.
The loss of a family member can be devastating—especially if you don’t agree with the state’s permanency plan for them. I hadn’t realized the impact that losing a child might have on the family as a whole until I heard about it from other foster parents. My second son was my older son’s brother whether adopted or not! My first son had already experienced enough loss in his short life and I didn’t want him to lose any more! The stress levels in our home were horrible as we worried constantly how we’d go on if we lost our littlest son.
Thankfully for our family, the case moved to adoption and we got to adopt our son. Do I regret our decision? No, our son was worth everything we went through. Would I do it again? No way!
(Melissa is a Families.com Christian Blogger. Read her blogs at: http://members.families.com/mj7/blog)