The Adopted/Fostering Thread

[DoctorDoom]

Are you an Adoptee? Have you adopted? If so, I figured I'd make this thread. Thanks Paradox.

[Gordon Smith]

I was adopted. I also have three adopted sisters and three foster brothers who remained with the family permanently.

[Schornforce]

I am an adopted only child. Hurrah!

[DoctorDoom]

I am an adopted only child. Hurrah!
Hurrah indeed.

I was abandoned at 8, went through a series of...complicated events before finally being adopted by my family at 15. They've been the parents, and the support, I've needed :)

[pariah-1972]

i'm adopted only child too.:)

[DoctorDoom]

It's nice to see I'm not the only one out there...or rather on here.

[Pól Rua]

I'm adopted. I have two brothers, one was adopted conventionally and the other was a cousin who came to live with us. Eventually, he was fully adopted.

[pariah-1972]

I don't want to get all political but i was wondering if being adopted has changed your views on abortion?

[DoctorDoom]

I don't want to get all political but i was wondering if being adopted has changed your views on abortion?
.... No one should have to go through the hell that can be caused by being abandoned. But for some it wasn't like that. The answer to that question depends on the individual. I honestly don't have an answer.

[Cayman]

I was adopted when I was a baby. I know some general stuff about my birth mom but very little about my birth father.

[LtMarvel]

My dad was adopted. And we never talk about/visit his side of the family (his adopted parents both passed on before I was born). I know all about my mom's side.

I'm interested in adopting a child. However, the expenses look scary! Any thoughts?

[glue]

Hurrah indeed.

I was abandoned at 8, went through a series of...complicated events before finally being adopted by my family at 15. They've been the parentst, and the support, I've needed :)

Isn't eight considered old to get adopted?

If I was ever going to raise a child I'd definitely want to adopt.

[Ben Morgan]

I'm adopted. I have two brothers, one was adopted conventionally and the other was a cousin who came to live with us. Eventually, he was fully adopted.
I think it's great that people are still willing to adopt monkeys :p

[rick]

I think it's great that people are still willing to adopt monkeys :p

Especially ones with poop flinging issues.

Must be the natrual kind heart of the Aussie people. :)

[DoctorDoom]

Isn't eight considered old to get adopted?

If I was ever going to raise a child I'd definitely want to adopt.
Depends on the situation.

And this was more of a formal adoption than a bunch of legalese. It's...complicated.

[Typo Lad]

My wife and I have discussed adoption and/or fostering as an option down the line. mainly because pregnancy really, really messed her up. She couldn't eat solid foods and was having an allergy to water, basically.

Right now, that's not looking as set-in-stone as before.

[Michael P]

I was adopted at birth. My parents are two of the most important people in my life. I can honestly say I wouldn't be the man I am today without them.

My birth mother recently got in contact with me. We've exchanged letters. It's a very... interesting time in my life right now.

[Lord of Denial]

I am an adopted child as well. Was adopted at 3 and had the most wonderful parents I could have hoped for.

Me and my wife recently had a second child but before that considered adoption. When the kids get a little older I think we will look into adoption again.

[Gordon Smith]

Isn't eight considered old to get adopted?

If I was ever going to raise a child I'd definitely want to adopt.

I wasn't formally adopted until I was eight, but I had been living with that family since shortly after my birth. I would have been adopted sooner, but legal issues held it up. The social services agency did not approve of a Catholic family adopting a Protestant child, and my parents had to fight them all the way up the bureaucratic chain of command to a provincial cabinet minister in Toronto to get approval. I even had to be baptized into the Catholic church to seal the deal, although I thought that was silly at the time and still do.

[Gordon Smith]

My birth mother recently got in contact with me. We've exchanged letters. It's a very... interesting time in my life right now.

I wonder sometimes what the hell I would do if one of my birth parents ever tried to contact me. I'm not entirely comfortable with the notion. Ah well, I'm nearly fifty now, so I guess it's rather academic.

[pariah-1972]

I think i'm too scared to actually try and contact my birth mother even if i knew how it would be a very intimidating thing that i don't know if i could handle.
:o

[Titan76]

I'm not a adopted or foster child but my parents have token in a lot of kids and my mom took in two more when she and my dad divorced.

I have two adopted sisters, one adopted brother, four foster sisters and one foster brother that my parents took full guardianship over, my cousin's son, and my sister's ex-boyfriend's son are the two my mother took in after her and my dad split. I also have an older full blooded sister and another older half blooded sister as well. Full House ain't got nothing on my family.;)

[Lord of Denial]

My birth father tried to contact me last year and actually started a thread about it here.

I will just say it did not turn out all that well.

[pariah-1972]

My birth father tried to contact me last year and actually started a thread about it here.

I will just say it did not turn out all that well.I'm sorry dude i'm sure that was very painfull.:(

[Lord of Denial]

I'm sorry dude i'm sure that was very painfull.:(

To me family has never been about DNA so I went into it with the feeling that this person could be a potential friend and nothing more. I had a great father and was not seeking another one.

It did hurt but not as bad as if I went in there looking for a long lost father.

[pariah-1972]

To me family has never been about DNA so I went into it with the feeling that this person could be a potential friend and nothing more. I had a great father and was not seeking another one.

It did hurt but not as bad as if I went in there looking for a long lost father.Well thats good that you appreciate what you do have which is the important part of the whole thing, hell me and my adopted father don't even get along but i don't cry about it ya know? it is what it is.
i agree with the family is not your dna statement.

[DoctorDoom]

I've spoken to my birth 'parents'. I can barely call the them that. Did I get the answers I sought for years? Yes....and no.

[Michael P]

I wonder sometimes what the hell I would do if one of my birth parents ever tried to contact me. I'm not entirely comfortable with the notion. Ah well, I'm nearly fifty now, so I guess it's rather academic.

Well, I'd always intended to look her up, because I'm a curious person.
All she did was beat me to it.

[Zero Hunter]

I was adopted as a baby also. My parents had a son who died as a baby then adopted me 6 years latter. Then they had my younger brother about a year and half after they got me. I have no idea about who my birth mother was except that I know she was 15 or 16 when she got pregnant. I really don't honsetly know if I would want to really meet her, but I have always been curious if I had half-brothers or sisters out there.

Fostering kids I just doen't know about. I have seen first hand some that have gone very well and ended up with the kids being adopted into families that really wanted them. I have also seen the flip side where the damn courts and social services get way to involved and keep wanted to reunite the kids with parents who have no businness ever seeing those kids again. I guess it all comes down to waht type of agenct you are dealing with when it comes to being a foster parent.

[Rob Allen]

Long before I met her, my wife gave birth to a son and gave him to a couple in Massachusetts to raise. She did this entirely privately. No courts or agencies were involved. She went looking for a good adoptive family and chose this couple. They kept in close touch over the years; the boy has always known who his birth parents were and saw them regularly. He also had plenty of interaction with his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

In the intervening years, both his birth parents and his adoptive parents divorced and married new partners (which includes me). This means the boy has eight people who have some sort of parental connection to him. Amazingly, we all get along great. Back in 2001, when he turned 21, the eight of us and him and a few others spent Christmas together on Maui. It was fantastic.

Today he is working his butt off trying to launch a new clothing company. His life hasn't been perfect but he hasn't had to deal with any anxiety about who his parents are.

[Gilda Dent]

My wife and I are qualified as foster parents, but the helpful folks at the local child welfare office have decided that having no parents is better than have a gay couple for parents.

We adopted a child last year, and she just recently passed the one year anniversary of her adoption. She was given up for adoption a week after her birth and placed with a professional foster mother while the legal stuff was worked out. She was just under seven months when we got her and now is a happy, health nineteen months. Emily adopted as a single mother, and her part of the adoption became final a year ago. I adopted as co-parent a few months later.

Her mother, being Guatemalan, was almost certainly Catholic, but our religious beliefs never entered into things. She hasn't been baptised--not required for Unitarians--and will be free to choose what religion, if any, suits her best when she's old enough to make that decision on her own.

We've started discussion working on number two. We've decided against going the biological route--Em doesn't want to carry a baby--so if we have another it will be another adoption.

She's lying on a bed in some crowded room
She's trying to sleep
There's not much else to do
The faces change around her
They speak to her sometimes
She's getting used to being left behind

When we find her
We'll belong to her
We won't see her first smile, we won't hear her first word
But ours will be the first heart she holds in her hands
She can keep them beside her in her very own room

This is Home
Where I want to be
This is Home
Let's make a family
Baby you and me

Lucy Kaplansky

[K'Nort]

- My parents took in foster children when I was young and my mother stayed home. Usually infants. Interim while appropriate adoptive parents were found, or while the biological parents resolved their issues.

- My father was legally adopted by his step-father. One guess what my genealogical last name is.

A close relative put up a child for adoption when in high school. Decades ago, so there was that 'whole home for unwed mothers run by mean nuns' ordeal. I wonder periodically whether she will ever try to find us.

- A friend in college had an unexpected pregnancy, tried to raise the baby (with her live-in boyfriend's full support) and they eventually decided they just weren't able to do it properly and gave her up. I've always thought that was very brave.

- Oregon went through a really heated debate a few years ago about unsealing adoption records. People who had been adopted argued that they had a right to know. But when they were put up for adoption back in the day, the law promised that the birth parents' identity would be kept secret. So to retroactively spring that on people who still do not want to be identified.... There's a no-win situation. The big argument was the (overblown, I think) trend about all health issues are genetic, of course. I still don't know what side I'm on there.

[morna]

Technically speaking I guess I'm adopted too. My biological dad died when I was 4 and my mother remarried (probably in a panic about raising two daughters alone) another architect almost immediately. Her new husband legally adopted my sister and me. My name was legally changed from Browne to Tudor. I sometimes wonder what things would've been like if I'd grown up with my bio dad. Relatives tell me he was quite a guy and super talented. shrug ... The dad I did grow up with was pretty great - he got me into sci-fi and used to let me look through his Pogo books.

[DocAbsurd]

My sister and I were both adopted:

I think it took around 6 months from my birth to official adoption. My birthing-unit was young, unmarried and Irish, that's all I know. Unfortunately, my records are still sealed and I'm still having a bitch of a time getting a birth certificate copy. And I've had enough health-related emergencies to need a bit of background.

My sister's adoption lasted well over 18 months; my folks actually started her adoption process months before she was born. Her birthing-units were older and fairly well-to-do.

And that's about all we know. I've never felt any desire to know any more about my birth with the exception of health. At my age, what's the point?

[Asa]

I was also adopted, along with 4 brothers and sisters. their were 8 born to one mother. I grew up with my sister, who my mother adopted after me. One brother grew up in africa till his adopted father died. We all met up in Iceland when we were old enough. I have a sister living in Sweden, a brother in Denmark, and another brother in the UK. Ilse of Jersey to be exact (wonderfull place too ). I have been to all these countries to visit them.

[Slam_Bradley]

I've acted as attorney on both of my sister's adoptions.