Your Questions Answered (vol. 1)

How does foster care/adoption compare to your Liberian adoption?

Hmmm. . . in many ways it is very similar.

• We feel like both of our adoptions have been very much a part of God's plan and that it was Him who called us to this.
  

• In both instances we have brought in sibling groups of older children.
  

• There were many unknowns with our Liberian adoption process and MANY unknowns about the children (just given the nature of adopting from a Third World country with a very small beauracracy!). We are finding out that the overabundant American beauracratic system, with all of the social workers and systems and files, does not necessarily decrease the amount of unknowns!

• We feel very strongly that it has been CRUCIAL to our children's attachment and healing for them to be home with us during the day rather than away at day care or public school (I'm not looking to start a debate here, just stating that there is NO way our Liberian children could have healed and bonded so well if they were away from us 8 hours a day nor would we be able to make any headway w/ our foster/adopt children if they were away and with "friends" for most of the day).

• A lot of the other strategies we learned while parenting our Liberian children through that very hard first year have been helpful in our new "very hard year" with our foster/adopt children: things like rocking, giving bottles, setting tight boundaries, severely limiting media, etc. . .

• It was/is hard for our adopted children to believe that this is really forever (at least, initially). For our Liberian children it was hard because their bio. parents had lied to them, they had lived in an orphange, and they were very confused about what "adoption" was for at least 12 months. . . AND, they weren't bonded or attached! For our foster/adopt children, there are less obvious signs of bonding and attachment issues, the older ones understand "adoption" in their head, BUT being in and out of many homes gives them a very confused idea about the concept of a "forever family" as well.
  

In some ways it has been different:

• With our Liberian adoption, once we had our children, they were "ours" for sure. As soon as we boarded the plane for the U.S. I had no fear that anyone or anything would take them away from us. With foster-adoption, there is always that nagging fear in the pit of my stomach that something could go terribly wrong and my children could be declared "not mine" at any point before the adoption is final. Of course, in our heads and hearts they are "ours" for sure. . . I just pray that "the system" doesn't decide something else!

• Although in both cases we have adopted older sibling groups, the "issues" that have come have been somewhat different. Our Liberian children came home and were very much on sensory overload. There were cultural adjustments, language barriers, and a lot of RAD behaviors that we were addressing. We had a TON of defiance, anger, spiritual oppression, pouting, etc. . . This time, our foster/adopt children don't have all of the sensory and cultural adjustments (except for those that are more family specific) but they have more of the sassy, entitled, whining, emotional manipulation behaviors that remind me very much of my junior high years! LOL!

I am going to have to think about this some more, because there are really a LOT of things I could compare and contrast. . . these are just the things that were on my mind tonight.

How much involvment do social workers,the child's bio family, etc.. become involved?

I think this is different depending on which social workers, judges, and agencies you are working with and also dependent upon the specifics of your child's case. At this point, our children's bio. family is not in the picture at all but we are open to it at some point in the future if it is a safe thing for our children. The social workers we have worked with have been awesome, but we have also seen some really poor social workers and situations too. I think most of them are overworked, undertrained, and underpaid so we try to always give them the benefit of the doubt and an extra measure of grace knowing that they, also, are working within a very messed up system.

Also how does fostering with the intention to adopt work? Is it like it was for your Liberian children where you choose the children or does the social worker place any child that needs a foster family with you?

I think it can work either way. We were actually approved to be foster parents who could adopt a child in our home if they became available. We would have been very happy to do that at some point. However, after our first foster children went home, we realized that we really did want to adopt again and began looking to see if there were any children in the foster system now who were ready and available to be adopted. So, like our Liberian adoption, this adoption also began with an email from us requesting information about children on a photolisting. Most states have a photolisting of available children or you can try adoptuskids.com to see children from every state. Always ask if there are other siblings. . . our six children were originally only four!