# Foster to Adopt stories



## jend0906 (Sep 28, 2012)

Hi all, 

After completely ruling out fta at the start of the journey, I'm now considering it. I have a long history of IVF and MC's so thought that adoption would be the 'safer' route. However, after the prep days I'm now thinking about changing to fta. The reasons for this being that I would prefer a child as young as possible both for my own reasons and also to be able to make the maximum impact on the child possible. 

I am worried about the risk of this though, although my SW has only come across one case of child going back to birth parents. 

What are your stories and experiences of fta? What were the ups and downs? Did it work out?

Thanks in advance!


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## Tictoc (Aug 20, 2015)

We have recently had the placement order on son who was placed under fta - like you I initially said no way the risk on the family emotionally was too high. Our youngest is the birth brother of our second youngest but this doesn't really present any guarantee that the plan would be adoption as it really is down to the courts to decide.

We were asked if we were going to consider adopting him and we said yes but come back when he has a placement order. I don't know when it all changed but we decided to take the risk so he came to us at 11 weeks old. It's been hard as we had to do contact with the birth mother 3 times a week and there was the added stress of not knowing if we would get a PO. Contact as tough - you're treated as the carer and have to take constant criticism from birth parents (Well I did anyway) despite the fact that you are caring for them 24 7. However I would not change our decision - it's been amazing having a baby and I know the benefits to him of not being moved around so much will be enormous. For us we needed to trust our social workers - we knew they really did think there was little chance of anything but adoption - didn't stop us stressing but was enough for us to make the right decision for us.


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## DRocks (Sep 13, 2013)

Following with interest as this is what we will be doing. There just isn't much first hand information out there.


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## jend0906 (Sep 28, 2012)

Thanks Tictoc, I hadn't even thought contact issue, no idea why!! I'm not comfortable with contact so unless that was not in the plan then maybe fta is not for me. Will have a chat with my SW about that.


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## Tictoc (Aug 20, 2015)

Not sure there are many cases where contact will not happen at all to be honest but SW can advise.

I'm not going to pretend that contact was fine and I don't know if we would have made the same decision if we had realised how much contact there would be but thankfully that is all over and it was all worth it in the end.

Do discuss with SW though to make sure you make the right decision for you and don't feel pushed into anything


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## Thepinklady (Apr 16, 2014)

You may have read some of my posts on here. DH and I did concurrency which is different from f2a as the risks are much higher of them returning home. In conccurrency the active plan is rehabilitation with high level of work being carried out with BF however despite this work around 90% of cases can not go home and adoption becomes the plan hence why a concurrent placement with foster career who will adopt is best for baby. In f2a the active plan is adoption but legalities and perhaps options of kinship carers coming forward and need assessed need ruled out before placement order can be put in place. I think the percentage of cases that go on to complete adoption is around 98%.  As I said we did concurrency and our little one went home to mum. However if it is f2a you are considering then you should not let my outcome put you off. Some people may say ours is a horror story it most certainly was not. We could clearly see that lo was going home to mum where she belonged and was going to be safe. The journey mum went on was tremendous and we are proud of her. Almost a year on she continues to thrive.

Your issues surrounding f2a and contact are understandable. Contact can be very demanding but I think in most f2a cases the child will be collected from you by social worker/contact supervisior and returned which means you are not directly involved. You will be expected to keep a diary of eating/nappy habits, activities and illnesses etc which will be taken to contact. You may also be on the receiving end of criticism from birth family in how you are caring for child but usually social worker will just tell you to let that roll of your back and won't be taking it seriously. Whilst all this will be draining it is not surmountable but the long term gains from having a lo from a much younger age is as tictoc said worth it. We had our lo for 9 months from around 11 weeks and had she stayed I know the long term good for us as a family would have been fantastic. If you can get your head round contact and think of it as a benifit then you might be able to manage it.


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## watakerfuffle (Jan 26, 2011)

We went down f2a route for our second, best thing we ever did. Contact wise we were never involved directly, lo was collected by his Sw and dropped home. Contact was stressful though, especially if birth parent didn't turn up as lo had to travel an hour each way :0( lo 2 now, was 4 months on placement and he so far appears to have a much more secure attachment and normal development compared to our eldest who was in several placements. Good luck


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## ultrafirebug (Oct 22, 2010)

My lo moved in 10 days after we were approved at panel at 4 months old on f2a scheme.  She's now 10 months old and our adoption panel is end of July so we are almost at the end of our journey.  Overall we have had quite a positive experience and pleased we were able to bond with lo at an early age.  Any questions please feel free to pm me.  Good luck!


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## becs40 (Apr 9, 2013)

Our son was placed at 6 months under fta, we were linked with him at 2 months but the la decided to wait for placement order to be issued. Using fta in this way meant he came to us within a week of the placement order and had it gone through the normal adoption route at that stage it would have been a minimum of 3 probably 4 months longer. 
He had a few contact sessions still before the final goodbye one and as pinklady said he was collected from us and returned so we had no contact involvement at all. I'll be honest it was strange, I felt very protective of him almost immediately but at the same time those few hours without him was lovely because it had all happened so fast it literally gave me time to catch up and process things as well as the practical side of being able to get out and get things we still needed etc.
He's been with us 18 months now and we know having him placed so young has had a huge impact on the way things have gone and are going.


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## Alison70 (Dec 8, 2014)

Hi Everyone, 

We have also decided to go down the fta route.  We feel that the risk is worth it in the long run.  I also would love to hear of others story's and any advice would be greatly accepted.

Alison


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## sandytoes (Apr 23, 2016)

We are only just beginning to think about this (I've just been told last week my tubes are blocked, and as I don't respond well to the hormone drugs and we can't afford IVF, we're considering adoption). Thank you for sharing these stories.

For those whose little ones returned to mum, do you still get to see them at all or does the relationship just end there?


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## Thepinklady (Apr 16, 2014)

Hi sandytoes, there is only a couple of us on here where lo returned home. In our case yes we have a very strong ongoing relationship with both lo and mum. Since lo returned (just under a year ago) we have been involved in respite care and have seen her at lease once a month although it was more than that initially. Going forward as we prepare for another placement we imagine that this will reduce further but we have a nice relationship with mum and foresee that in the future it will be like that of a family friend the odd outing together, a visit at birthdays/Christmas etc. This is not always the case and I know in the other concurrency case on this boards which was years ago there was no ongoing contact/relationship once the lo returned. Each case is different and will depend on many factors. You as carers have no rights to ongoing contact/relationship, but for the well being of the lo it is likely that for a while some sort of ongoing relationship would be encouraged, especially in early days of returning home incase the transition home does not go as well as they would have hoped and lo needed to return to care. Good luck with your decision making. F2a and concurrency are not easy routes for the carers but definitely best for the child but only you as adults know what you can deal with emotionally.


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## sandytoes (Apr 23, 2016)

Thank you pinklady - that's helpful. I think we're going to push various doors and see what happens!


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## Poshfi (Jul 31, 2014)

We have just started stage 2 and are 90% sure we're going to go down f2adopt route also. My oh is more concerned with the risk of lo being returned, maybe I'm blocking this thought out. For me the benefits to the child massively outweighs everything. 

Would be great to chat to others who have done it.

Xx


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## Greeniebop is a mummy (Jan 17, 2010)

Hi, I have been reading with interest. Would you mind if I quizzed your brains on F2A. We have seen a profile of a little one with a placement order for F2A. We have always said this time around we would only consider F2A profiles with low risk (if that makes sense) as we have to consider our LO. Am I right in assuming that a LO with a placement order is about as low risk as it gets? Waiting to hear back from our SW.Thanks in advance x


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## Tictoc (Aug 20, 2015)

Yes if they have a PO it's very low risk. Our second youngest came to us under fta with a placement order but really it was only fta until there was time to schedule matching panel etc and officially make it an adoptive placement.


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## superal (May 27, 2005)

I don't often post on here these days but often look in to catch up on peoples news.

As ThepinkLady has already pointed out there are not many of us on here who have experienced a baby going back to their BPs.  I also did concurrency, which I believe is different to F2a & our baby was the first in England to be returned to her BPs, this is 16 years ago now........wow that time has flown by.

Sandytoes.............once the baby was returned that was it for us......no contact, no letters.........NOTHING............that was the hardest part of it all.  Things have hopefully changed since those days many years ago.

I do know that the baby stayed with her BM, her BD from what I know is no longer with them & that this little baby is coming up 17 very soon.  I also know through the power of ******** what she looks like now &when  I first discovered her on there I knew it was her from the start........same name, same big blue eyes, same hair colour & the fact she had her BM listed as one of her friends also confirmed who she was.

I have never contacted her through ** or through SS..........if she wanted to find us, she will, if she was ever told about us, I leave that up to her.......I just know she looks well and has turned out to be doing well.

As for us we went onto adopt a bay girl who was 9 months old, through the traditional route & she is fast approaching 16........if the baby had not gone back we would not have got our forever daughter........so I don't regret we did concurrency, just wish that some form of contact was agreed at the beginning.


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## sandytoes (Apr 23, 2016)

Thank you for sharing your story, Superal. That does sound tough but it's lovely to hear that you had no regrets - you gave that little girl a secure start in life, and then adopted another.

So much to think about!


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