Foster parents: how do you deal when your foster child is adopted by another family?
We’re both gravitating to fostering over adoption for a whole bunch of reasons that basically boil down to it’s what we think would work best for us, save for this one issue. How do you emotionally cope when your foster child moves on to a permanent family?
Where can I go to find answers to all of my non-biological family planning questions?
I have been pregnant. I have had a child. He has reached his first birthday, and passed it by a few months. I feel that now is the time to start thinking about if, when, and how I might add a sibling for him. re there any Offbeat Mamas (or Sponsors!) who know how to find a family planning counseling or advice service for people who are looking to have children in a less conventional way?
A response: why we’re saying yes to a third foster child
On saying no to a second foster child showed up on Offbeat Mama precisely as we were struggling to make a decision on taking an additional foster placement, and I am hoping that we will be able to say the same thing about our decision that I have to say about hers: “I’m glad you did what is right for y’all.”
On saying no to a second foster child
For weeks now, I’ve been feeling this slow and steady ache growing — the feeling that I am not doing enough, can never do enough. I know, rationally that most of us only have the time and resources to do a very little bit. But the idea that there are 16,000 foster children in NYC alone, each as unique and precious as my foster son, each needing stable, loving homes both temporary and permanent, actually hurts me when I think about it, makes it hard to breathe. I can do so, so little.
Our queer family ditched fertility treatments to foster-to-adopt
We are a queer family of two (for now). My husband is transgender and I identify as queer. Obviously, any baby-making to be had wasn’t needed some outside help. We’ve been together for ten years, and I’ve been baby-crazy for all ten of them.
How tubal ligation fits into our family planning
Here I was, ready to talk to a doctor about getting a tubal ligation at twenty-three and with no children. Many doctors will not even consider doing a tubal on a woman unless she is over 30 and/or already has children; they worry that she will one day change her mind. Yet my husband and I had known for months that this was what we wanted.
Two gay dads + twelve adopted kids = fourteen happy family members
AZ Central recently featured the wonderful story of Steve and Roger Ham, a gay couple raising 12 adopted children in a state not historically known for positive attitudes toward the ideas of gay marriage OR gay adoption.
I’m a first-time foster mom… at 53
Sheryl and her partner became first-time foster parents in their fifties. And you thought having a newborn in your twenties could be rough!