Adoption ...

[beckster]

Evening Peeps,

I am seriously thinking of adopting a child and am just wondering if any of you have any experience of going through the adoption process or know someone who has.  Its not something I am going to rush into but I have been talking with my friends about adopting for a quite a while now and I know that I still have a few personal issues to sort out before I do.  I need to take care of my SRS which should hopefully get signed off this November and also get myself out of this depression I am going through at the moment.  I know from the time I have spent with my friends that being a mum can be tough work so anyone who says I am crazy is proably right, lol.  But seriously, its something that I feel I want to do so any thougts from anyone about adoption or experiences with your own children would be greatly appreciated.  From what I understand so far the fact that I am transsexual and am potentially going to be a single parent shouldnt be a problem but adopting is still a huge step to take !!

Becky
xx

[Suzy]

Becky,

It is a huge step.  And it is enormously expensive.  It will be infinitely harder than you imagine and will tax your emotional, physical, spiritual, and financial resources to the limit.  But if you are up for the challenge, it is potentially the most rewarding thing you can ever do.  What could compare with giving another person a home in this world?  I wish you the very best in this step.  The mere fact that you would consider it shows that you are a woman with a great big heart.

Kristi

[daisybelle]

First whether you go thru government or private you have to find a good agency.

A government adoption won't cost you anything but time.  Even still last year my wife & I got the run around completely.  First we applied at Lutheran Social Services.   They were fine with us until we stated we wanted to adopt ( no thought of fostering at that time ).   They said just go to "The Arrow Project".   Halfway thru that program they dropped us.   They do that apparently to trim out people who won't foster.   We then went to One-Church-One-Child which we completed the training.   However One-Church-One-Child is built on the mission statement of assisting minority families with adoption ( even though we were white and willing to consider a minority child )and our "agent" could not get approval for the home study.  At this point we could be transfered directly to the DPS, but unfortunately at that time my job put me in hyper-overdrive for travel.    The whole fiasco put a rather bad taste in my mouth for this process.

I have since changed job, but we basically have to start the process all over.

The weirdest part of this system is that the state has the mindset to get as many foster parents as possible, at the risk of loosing potential adopters who can remove the responsibility of the child from the state.

Daisy