It is working for us now but Susan it has been pure hell getting to this point.  We applied as foster parents because we wanted an infant, that was important to me.  It was a gamble that we would get a child that would ultimately be freed for adoption but we took the gamble and at this point it has paid off.  Don't get me wrong, the first 18 months were pure living hell.  It had nothing to do with Elizabeth, she was an angel, she was born drug addicted and then went from withdrawal into colic and so on down the line.  She was very delayed until she stopped seeing her birth mom at 9 months.  She never sat up til she was 9 months and then flew threw the milestones from there as birth mom was out of her life.  It floored me.  Mom would show up for visits about a third of the time.  It stunned me that an infant, 2 mos old, knew just pulling into the parking lot of the visit center that that is what we were doing.  I had no clue infants truly could have that level of understanding.  It was mind blowing to say the least!  Near the end of the visits, mom stopped wanting them when she was about 9 mos old, we just had to pull into the parking lot, she did not even have to get out of the car!  She was gone for the rest of the day.  She would not eat, she would not drink, she would not sleep, she would cry almost constantly and I was having her in the sling and next to my heartbeat and that was the only thing that would help her at all.  It was horrible to say the least.  More than once I had to take her from a visit with mom immediately to the pediatrician becuase mom was a heavy smoker, smoked 4 pks a day during pregnancy in addition to other drugs and drinking daily, and Elizabeth reacted horribly to even the residual smoke on mom's clothing and hair.  Like gasping for air struggling.  The pediatrician sent a note to DHHS telling them that this child was NOT to be around anyone who had smoked, birth parent or not or that the person had to shower and put on clothing that was freshly washed and not smoke until after the visit otherwise we risked hospitalization for respiratory failure.  DHHS said there was no way they could tell a birth parent to do that and blew it off.  So for a while after visits to birth mom we would rush to the pediatrician's office for a breathing treatment!  YUP, all documented, did not matter! 

No clue who bio dad is, mom named 5 men and it was none of them and they could not find three of them! 

Mom also had other 3 children removed when Elizabeth was born hence why she was removed at the hospital.  It is very rare to get a newborn however we got lucky and for that I am grateful to God everyday!  We wanted the best odds possible, a mom that had other children removed and had a newborn taken at the hospital.  It actually happend for us but I would NEVER do it again. 

One week she was going to be sent to rehab with mom, a few days later nope, she is going with x relative, a few days later or even later that same day she was not going anywhere and then it would change again the following day or week and she was going to be put up on an apt with mom that the state was going to pay for in Portland and they were putting 24/7 help in the home etc etc etc.  It was a living hell that I still don't know how we made it through.

We had a second child placed with us a year ago August.  She was 2 yrs old.  She had older siblings that went to Grandma's but grandma said she could not handle the toddler.  This child needed so much more than we were ready for.  We had not gotten to that age with Elizabeth yet or read that far frankly in the books and WHOA, were we underprepared by a long shot.  This child arrived late in the evening, hid under our kitchen table and stayed there for two days.  She came with a backpack and a bottle.  The bottle had curdled milk in it and mold, the backpack had a bunch of mom's slinky underwear and provocative pictures!  This child was terrified of men, she ran from my husband and would not let me out of her sight.  I had to run out and get her clothing as she came with a diaper on and a shirt, no shoes, no socks, nothing at all.  Had to buy a crib for her and mattress etc.  All we got from DHHS was a voucher to Target for $200.  Great unless you need a bed, mattress and entire wardrobe for a child and are paying retail.  She had some serious issues.  She and mom had been living in a campground.  Dad was abusive etc.  I put her in play therapy as she was out of control and needed help way beyond what we were able to provide alone.  Therapist saw her a number of times and was seriously concerned about RAD (Reactive Attachement Disorder) put that into google and sit down while you read!  Then Thanksgiving weekend she went to her grandmother's for the holiday and we went up to Wayne's parents up north for the long weekend.  We got to his parents Wednesday and got a call Thanksgiving morning from her grandmother stating she could not handle her anymore and we had to come get her right then!  Great, except we were 6 hours away and there was a friggin blizard outside!  We packed Elizabeth into the SUV and headed for home about 1:00 after his mom rushed dinner for us.  We got to the Turnpike onramp in Lincoln and Wayne hit ice and we slammed the truck into the onramp guardrail.  His truck was only 9 months old at the time.  Thankfully being in the middle of no where, there was actually a state trooper about a mile behind us and he did the same thing on the same patch of ice.  It woke Elizabeth and I out of a dead sleep.  Everyone was ok but here we had a nice repair bill on a brand new vehicle.  The deductable sucked and was $500 we had not planned on that is for sure.  We continued to head south and got to her grandmother's 10 hours later and she was like, where have you been!  I just got the girl and we left.  I was furious!  DHHS said nothing and did nothing.  I was not impressed!  She went there for Christmas as well and we stayed home.  It went better at Christmas though apparently. 

Meanwhile around Christmas time her father started showing up at our door, got the address somehow, calling my cell phone, our home phone day and night.  It was awful.  I called DHHS and they said there was nothing they could do and they recommended we file a harrassment order.  We did and he was served on January 2nd by his probation officer.  That day he called DHHS and stated that he felt we were neglecting his daughter.  January 3rd DHHS showed up and removed the child to another home.  Elizabeth's caseworker showed up that day as well and checked her head to toe, naked, her butt crack, you name it and said he did not know if they were moving her too or not.  We were terrified.  Her birth mom had terminated her rights the previous August and we were just waiting on the dad issue before we could adopt.  He said there could be charges pending against us for the other child and that he was leaving her here that night.  The next day we got a call from him that he was on his way to take Elizabeth and to get her ready!  My heart hit the floor and I screamed for Wayne (who thankfully was home as the company he worked for folded three weeks before Christmas).  The worker showed up, took her and siad we woudl never see her again.  We were in a lawyers office 10 minutes later to find out that we had no rights.  She was almost 18 months old, we were the only family she had ever known and there was not a damn thing on this earth we could do.  We both left puking and crying like I have never cried in my life.  I called the DHHS office she was out of, Portland, and got a meeting the next day with the head of DHHS Portland, the caseworker's supervisor and our liscensing worker who was horrified that this happend in the first place and we took two witnesses to speak on our behalf.  It was like sitting in a room with ice cubes.  They had no feeling, heart or anything at all.  The GAl was there becuase I called and told her of the meeting.  I asked that when we were cleared by Internal Affairs if they woudl put her back with us and they said they did not know!  DHHS has a HUGE track record of irregardless and when the fosterparents are cleared not placing that child back with them!  All Wayne and I did for the next 9 days was puke and cry!  We had to close the door to her room as I could not handle walking by there and had to to get to the bathroom.  I knew she was in a good home becuase coincidentally she was placed with Susan Titcomb.  They had just been liscensed and she went there.  I had gotten an email from Susan that afternoon stating that she just got a call for a placement out of OOB and the girl was almost 18 months old and was a sure thing for adoption.  My heart sank.  I called and we talked and sure enough it was Elizabeth.  I knew she was in a good hoem but then it became a major issue that I knew where she was even though we had no more contact after that point.  The caseworker told her to not speak to us, we never called or emailed after the caseworker left with Elizabeth.  It was part of the IA investigation and I had to prove how I knew Susan and where they lived and her email etc.  I had to show her the M2M directory and she actually took copies of it with her!

Internal affairs came and the minute the woman walked into our home she felt we were guilty, period.  By the time she left she gave me her home phone number and was stunned that this happend in the first place!  She told me to call her anytime but I did not as I did not want to bother her.  She went on a limb for us and could have lost her job but her recommendation was not only that the neglect charge was 100% unfounded but that we had NO liscence violations at all and that we were the keystone of good parents and that that child was to be returned to our home, the only home she ever knew, IMMEDIATELY!  Mind you this took 10 days start to return.  She was in contact with the daycare we used for the girl (recommended daycare from the therapist) and they sent a letter stating that we were model parents and any child would be lucky to be in our care.  They also sent all the accident reports that had happend there, one of the things that the father had pointed out, her accidents and such.  I also brought up that at the most recent meeting DHHS had decided to stop her play therapy as mom did not want it.  Forget the therapist report sent to the workers and lawyers etc.  I asked to have the child moved several times as she was horrible to Elizabeth, pushed her down, took her toy, caused harm to her, etc and we could not take our eyes off her at all, and we were told that if we asked to have one moved, they woudl move them both.  NICE, so we were stuck. 

Bottom line, by the grace of God we got Elizabeth back and are now in the adoption process with her.  When we got her back I stated I wanted a new caseworker and refused to work with her other one (he had refused to let me go to her 18 mos well baby visit).  They assigned us an adoption worker at that point.  This woman was so cold, we were guilty in her eyes, after all that is what she got from a coworker, a social worker who was feeding her bullshit.  How was she to know that in fact we had done nothing at all to anyone and what he was feeding her were 100% lies.  It was not til she caught him in a few that she started to warm up to us.  About a month ago I got an email from her stating she was really sorry for how cold she was at first and I told her that I fully understood.  In the same situation I would not expect anything else.  She met us sitting across a table with THE head of DDHS in Portland, the adoption supervisor and herself with just Wayne and I on the other side.  We were waiting for Susan Titcomb to bring Elizabeth back.  We went over a few things and we were planning on a carribean vacation like 10 days from then and I stated that I needed notorized in writing that day a letter stating we had permission to take Elizabeth out of the country.  We had verbal permission from the original caseworker already but anyway.   We showed them her passport, boy didn't they shit a brick when they realized we had a passport for this child (caseworker gave me info needed and sent me a letter stating it was ok to get etc that was notorized months before), airline tickets for the three of us and the cruise tickets for the three of us.  They gave me the asked for paper and they brough Elizabeth back in.  We were told we could talk to Susan at that point to see how things went, her well baby visit etc and the caseworker in the meantime had told her to leave and not speak to us.  It was not until about 5 months ago that I got an email from Susan.  He was then doing to her what he had done to us and she understood and was so sorry.  I told her it was ok, she only had a professional's information coming to her and did not know me well at all and so forth.  She told me a number of things that he told her about us and a zillion lies etc, not the least of which was that he told Susan that Elizabeth went back to her birth mother for several months.  Anyway...........

Would I do it again for Elizabeth.....in a heartbeat.......for an unknown child, NEVER AGAIN.  I just cannot do that to her or Wayne and I.  We are done.  Once our fingerprints get back from the FBI, currently waiting for them and should be any day now, we get a court date for probate and get this child finally 100% legally ours!  And we are not turning back......I love our liscensing worker, she has gone to bat for us and been nothing short of superb and she fully understands what we have been through as she was there every step of the way. 

We have received calls for other children and not taken any of them.  We woudl take an emergency placement, one night only but that is it and all have been more longterm children. 

I will never risk Elizabeth!  I will never put her through the living hell that Wayne and I went through during that time.  Should a child come and then leave it would be nothing short of harmful to her at her age and I refuse to do that to my daughter.  Perhaps if she was 10 or older I would consider it but we have just been burned too badly and many days it felt like being burned at the stake!

She will be our only child.  I now do home childcare to get my baby and other child fix so to speak.  They leave at night and Elizabeth does great with that.  She was meant to be an only child and will be that way. 

She has some long lasting effects of the drugs and alcohol that her mom did but we have worked very hard with her and she is thriving.  We did Gymboree for a long time and do swimming, gymnastics, art play at Gymboree and I do a lot of that here at home with her now.  Last summer she could not walk on the grass, would not let you put her down, this summer she did great with it and loved it.  Same with sand at the beach.  She now loves water.  She still has some sensory stuff and we just go with it.  We did not go to Grover on ice this year becuase she was having some flares of the sensory thigns, she could not handle the dryer or washer running here at home and other things were bothering her so we decided that that setting was not a good one for her at that moment.  She is now fine with those things but not liking crowds, so we stay with small groups at the moment and such :)

I have never been shy about how I felt about the fostercare thing, esp when it came up onloop many months ago, but never told the whole story as to why til now. 

I am not trying to talk you out of things, just learn from us if nothing else.  Also, talk with Susan Titcomb.  She can give you another perspective as well. 

One crucial thing that I learned through everything, always honor the birth order in your home.  Do not take a child older than your youngest child.  That is so crucial and yet no one told us til later.  We did not honor the birth order when we took the other girl and it was a nightmare!  We even went through a period where Elizabeth was pushing and pounding the daycare boy I care for, becuase that was done to her by the other girl!  We nipped that in the bud real fast and talked to her about what the other girl did to her and such and explained how that is wrong and hurts and such. 

We also have had to parent her differently than the conventional way becuase of her exposures in life in uterero and such.  We do attachment parenting with her now and don't use time out or any of that.  We are pretty much Becky Bailey and Alphie Kohn at this point.  If she needs to sleep with us, she does (big DHHS no no).  She will give up her bottle when SHE is ready, not on our agenda and same with her pacifier. 

Mind you when I say we have had the year from hell I am not kidding.  We went from this to coming back from vacation and getting a bill from the IRS for a 2004 error to the tune of 5K.  Hired a tax accountant to fix that nightmare and with her fees, ammending 2003, 2004 and filing 2005 we ended up owing the IRS $1,500 and the accountant $1,600 but that was far better than the first amount.  I used tax software in 2004 and put somehting in the wrong category and thus the mess up.  Computer software never picked it up!

Then in March my mom hit a parked car on her way to work and was ultimately diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer with a brain met.  They removed the brain met and in a matter of 10 days I had her packed and a moving company moving her here to our place in Maine, she was in Concord, NH.  My husband was still out of work at this point.  He and my mother in law brough Elizabeth down to the ICU the day my mom had brain surgery becuase Elizabeth was not eating and wanted mommy constantly.  I had been gone for about 5 days at that point.  I was outside of the ICU calling Maine DHHS in Portland to get clearance to add another adult to the home.  I got voicemail after voice mail and got ugly and stated get me XXX who was the head of DHHS and told her what was going on and what i needed, fulltime daycare at my disposal and permission to have Elizabeht cross state lines to NH, this was actually the day before Wayne came down with her.  Cannot take child out of state without their permission!  She granted it and I called our liscensing worker and got permission from her to add my mom to the household.  She was super!  She said, do not worry at this moment about that, get her to Maine, settled and call me and I will come out.  I had a ticked off adoption worker but I just did nto care at that point.  I needed answers THEN, not 36 hours or more later when she got aroudn to calling me back!

Mom moved in in April and we added a bathroom to the basement to the tune of 10K, yeah, no kidding, I could not believe how expensive it was to be either!  Thankfully Wayne got a job this month.  M2M sent a very nice easter basket for Elizabeth which was so welcomed becuase I had not even thought about Easter let alone done anything for it. I will forever be grateful to the moms that did this for me and my daughter!  They also sent Easter dinner! 

Mom had radiation in May to her whole brain.  M2M was super about helping with meals at this point as cooking was just not an option at all for me.  Knowing she would never live alone again I started going through storage and her things and donated 80% of her items to the M2M yard sale (to later be told it was all junk).  Mind you I was going through boxes and storage while taking her back and forth daily to radiation so that things would be ready for the yardsale on time.  Later to be told it was all junk and how could I have sent junk for everyone to have to deal with.  Talk about a slap in the face! 

Mom was in and out of the hospital in June and came home to die July 2nd.  She lived until July 8th.  July they terminated the rights of 5 men, two with names and 3 john does for elizabeth's paternity. (This should have been done this time last year not 6 mos later!)

August I dealt with estate stuff (no estate but debtors and such) and started Lupron for Stage IV endometriosis.  I had been slated for a full hysterectomy this summer but needless to say that got benched quickly.  We also went through reliscensure as our liscense was about up and needed the update for the adoption at this time, meaning doc visits for both of us for clearance medically and such and getting our training in order to turn in and a zillion other things. 

September was rough and I started physical therapy becuase Elizabeth wanted to be carried 100% of the time, she fed off my emotions and then caring for mom just did me in.  I already had 2 buldging disks in my neck we foudn out about a year or so ago on MRI.  I did not hear from my sister or aunt since the funeral and basically made a choice to cut toxic people from my life at this point, they both fell into that category.  I could not take much more.  My psychiastrist (great man) was all for this and told me that he was glad they benched surgery, that we decided to not buy a house and stay in the condo and to just lay low for a bit becuase emotionally, he was very very afraid I could not handle one single thing more this year and he was right.  Hard to hear but he was so right.  He felt I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown at that point and we followed up together often.  He also got in touch with the maker of my antidepressant to find out what the absolute max on my meds was before this point and found out we had room to go up if we needed it.  Somehow by the grace of God we did not have to!  I actually had someone in my life looking out for me and doing their job and it being one I did not have to do for them.  I was and am very grateful to him.  I travel to York to see him now and frankly, would go out of the country if it needed to be to see him! 

October was Halloween and I had a hard month.  We also decided to redo the carpet in the house and tile both bathrooms.  I had to redo the basement or I could never have used this room again.  Just too many memories etc.  Turned into another nightmare that will be fixed and redone in January, ugh.

November was Thanksgiving and I did ok then. 

December has been really rough and our tree is up and the lights are on but nothing else is on it or is done.  Christmas is in a few days and things are wrapped but honestly, I could care less.  :( 

I started grief counseling, a group actually, the end of November that was on a Thursday evening but did not continue with it becuase I was the youngest there and everyone had lost a spouse.  That and my husband decided that in order to help us get out of debt he was taking on a teaching job for Gorham adult ed and had a meeting iwth them on a Thursday night, the second group night which of course meant I had to find a sitter, but with DHHS you have to have a preapproved sitter so that was not happening.  I just gave up and called it quits at that point.  Not doing individual counseling at this point as I am not sure of the good it would do and I am doing ok.  There are good days, bad days and frankly horrible days but they are just that, days.  I get through them and things are getting easier, well excpet for this whole Christmas thing.  Mom always came here :(  She adored Elizabeth and worshiped the ground she walked on.  She wanted to see her adoption done and died before it could happen becuase of her horrible caseworker and his dragging his feet and I have just a tad bit of anger around that. 

Anyway, this is way way way more than you wanted to know so sorry for being so long! 

Here is the answer to your question:

If you are not ready to give a child back or put your family through hell, sign up for adoption only.  Then you only will be presented with children that have their parents rights already terminated but be careful in this one.  Foster parents get first refusal on adoption and if the foster parents are not adopting the child, ask why they are not, talk with the foster parents, ask tons of questions, 99% of these children come with major issues ranging from ADHD, ADD, RAD, Fetal alcohol, and a large number of other issues and generally there are a number of them per child. 

Honor the birth order in your family.

Talk with the child's pediatrician before adopting.  Ask if there are siblings, where they are, what are their diagnoses, that may give you an insight into the child you are looking at's future issues.

Have a therapist lined up for all of you as adding a child with the baggage these children have is hard on any family and you will need someone for this child if they don't already have someone and someone for you and your husband.  Plan on stress in your home.  Your children not accepting this new child after a bit of novelty wears off.  Etc.

All I can tell you honestly, is buckle up becuase it will be a really rough ride no matter what you do or which way you go.

As for what to check on that paper for now, check them both off and make your mind up later on down the line.

It will come up during your homestudy and you can address your needs and wants at that time. 

And I pray you have a better homestudy than we did!  Our homestudy worker, they contract with a company in Gardiner, International Adoptions, walked into our house for the second meeting and told us we were too fat to be foster parents, that we should bench our application and lose 100lbs each.  Yeah, threw him out!  We marched into our liscensing worker's office the next morning I tell ya and she was furious.  (different worker, she has since passed away from cancer)  She called IA in Gardiner and requested our request of a new worker as we were no longer comfortable talking about our sex life, its frequency and satisfactory level with him!  They refused and we were stuck with this clown.  However I told the liscensing worker that I wanted someone from DHHS at our house for the remaining meetings.  He got his butt chewed six ways come Sunday and appologized but the damage was done at that point.  We finished the home study and were liscensed but figured it was becuase they were afraid we would sue them both!  Needless to say we never did anything with my home office, which is now Elizabeth's nursery. 

We got a call on a Friday for her, for me to pick her up at the office in 1 hour.  UGH.  We moved 6 yrs of crud out of that room that weekend, with a newborn as new parents, and went to Babies R Us and put about 2K on the credit card as we had NOTHING at all for a baby!  Ugh.

Hugs

Karen