Tag Archives: foster child

Should You Consider Adoption Part 5

The last concern that we heard when we were starting the adoption process was a shocking one for me. I heard from some of our extended family that it is not possible to love an adopted child the same as you can a biological child. I personally cannot understand that the idea is even out there in the universe. I do not have any children biologically but I cannot imagine loving them any more if I had given birth to them myself. When my daughter was about 1 she was diagnosed as failure to thrive, they kept running all these … Continue reading →

It’s Official We Are A Family

Rebecca is officially free for adoption! We had already finalized Steve and George’s adoption they are officially ours. The time has come to make Rebecca ours as well. In our hearts and minds she was already a Woolard but on paper and legally she was a ward of the state. The court date came pretty quick because we had already had her in our custody for the mandatory 6 months. The court procedures are pretty basic, you walk in with your lawyer and the judge asks if we want to adopt the child. If the child is old enough they … Continue reading →

Missed Visitations

The biological mother was following her reunification plan, she has a job and a place to live but now she has her new husband who also had to follow the reunification plan. When her and her new husband got together is when the mother started to miss appointments. She missed a counseling session then she missed a visitation. If the roles were reversed I cannot imagine anything being more important than visiting with my baby, but I am never going to be in that situation. It is really annoying when we drive the 70 miles to the visitation and the … Continue reading →

Reunification is Not an Option For Me

The day after our face to face with CPS and the biological mother to our kids I was feeling a little more hopeful that case worker would finally be thinking that reunification is out of the question. Why would they consider reunification to a mother who just married a guy out of the blue that is obviously abusing her? They wouldn’t right? So why is it that the case worker called and said they were adding the new husband to the reunification parenting plan? They were going to offer him counseling and parenting classes that were going to be mandatory … Continue reading →

The Visits Continue

We continued to go back and forth to the supervised visitations for a few months but there was no end and sight. So far the biological mother had been going to the visitations and was working the reunification plan. Because the biweekly supervised parental visitations continued and it was getting harder and harder for us to get out of work a half day every other week the CPS case workers offered to pick Rebecca up for one visit a month if we could drive her for the second visit. Given that we lived an hour and a half away it … Continue reading →

The First Visit

One part of the conversation that I had with Rebecca’s CPS Case Worker that I have not yet mentioned was that the biological mother was entitled to visitation. She was going to be allowed 1 hour every two weeks to have supervised visitation with my little girl. I did feel a little better that they would be supervised but I did still not like this. We lived about an hour and a half from the town where Rebecca was born so for the first visit we drove her down for the visitation. The case had been assigned a new case … Continue reading →

CPS Was Planning Reunification !

A few weeks after the New Year started we got a call from the case worker for Rebecca. She said that the biological mother was going to fight for custody of her. I immediately began to start crying. This sweet little girl had only been in our family for a few weeks but she already had a huge piece of our hearts. I cannot believe that the CPS case worker was actually considering reunification. I asked her how that could be the biological mother abandoned George under a car the end of July in Houston when he was two months … Continue reading →

Taking Them To The Dentist

AS I mentioned in a previous entry Steve was not in a good foster home he came to us with severe lice, no clothes that fit and not potty trained at the age of three. When the boys came to live with us we gave them a few months to adjust to being with us and to learn to trust us. We set up a dentist appointment for both boys, George only had a few teeth but Steve had all his baby teeth. When the dentist examined him he asked why we had not taken care of our sons teeth. … Continue reading →

Our First Social Worker Visit

When a child is placed with you in Foster Care you have to do visits with both your social worker and the state’s social worker. Most of our visits came from our own social worker. She would drive up about every two weeks, to see how they boys were adjusting and if we had any problems or concerns. When our first visit came we were very concerned we really did not know how it was going to go. Steve was still rather shy and we hoped that all would go well. We thought we made good progress so far, we … Continue reading →

Foster Parents

When a child is in the foster care system the foster parent’s role should be pretty straight forward. You open your hearts and homes to children that have been removed from their biological families care. You offer these children a safe place to live in a caring family environment. You care for these children as if they were your own, with the knowledge that this is a temporary place for them to be. Most foster parent’s go into position for all the right reasons, to give an innocent child unconditional love and a safe place to call home. However, there … Continue reading →