Foster Care

Continuing the adoption theme...

Bob will be blogging more about foster care. They have fostered and adopted. I thought I would write about why we chose adoption rather than foster care back when we were making that decision.

At the time, we didn't have any children of our own. We were just starting out, and we expected children to change our lifestyle completely. MamaLlama was planning to quit her job and stay home full time. We needed a permanent placement, because she wouldn't be able to go back and forth depending on whether a foster placement worked out in our favor. And of course the emotional toll of a placement that "went bad" and did not result in adoption would have been very difficult for us at the time. We wanted "no strings attached".

But, we have discussed being foster parents one day. With or without the goal of permanent placement. Our boys' foster mom was a wonderful person. She did not intend to adopt the boys, she just wanted to give them a good home until a permanent situation could be arranged. Or maybe she did consider keeping them when the birth parents were finally terminated, but she was a single lady and she wanted the boys to have a mommy and and daddy. She gave us a wonderful gift, and perhaps we can do that for someone else one day. Obviously we'd like to adopt more to keep eventually (or, you know, become pregnant, God willing). Maybe we'll foster/adopt some time, and then maybe just foster after that. Who knows, we'll see where life takes us.

We encourage all our readers to remain open to these things as well. This is not a guilt trip, I hate it when people try to guilt you into doing something charitable. That's definitely not the right motivation to foster or adopt anyway, if you don't really desire the children, you are not be doing them any favors by bringing them under your roof. I'm just saying, if it's crossed your mind before, stay open to those "holy temptations". Don't be discouraged if you have heard scary stories, or even looked into it and been set back or put off. The benefits and rewards definitely outweigh the challenges.