"You're Going To Have Your Own Kids, Right?"

This is a question we have heard quite a few times as we have embarked on this foster care journey.

You're going to have your own kids, right?  

After providing our answer several times, I think we have realized that what we are doing is kind of confusing to some people. They may not know much about foster care at all, or may think it is awesome but don't know much about it. Who knows why, but we have gotten some of the same confused looks and versions of the above question repeatedly. It is with zero annoyance or anger that I am writing this post.  Please ask us any questions you have.  But I would like to set the record straight:

1.  Every child that is with us will be treated with the same amount of love and care as if they were our own child, even if they are only with us for a short time.  Our job is to love, nurture, care for and help these children grow and heal.  We're going to pour every ounce of ourselves into that task whether it looks like a child will be with us for a few weeks, the rest of their life or nobody has a flippin' clue yet.

2.  This is our first step to building our family and having/finding our 'own' kids.  As we have said from the beginning, we are signing up to be "foster to adopt" parents, which means that we may have some placements that are just for a short time and we may have a placement that ends up turning into an adoption.  If you knew your child was going to go through terrible heartache, confusion, trauma and possible physical pain before they became your child, wouldn't you want to be there with them from the instant they are pulled from that heartache and given the chance to heal?  Wouldn't you want to be by their side and walk with them through the aftermath, creating a natural bridge into forever?  That's what we want.  We will most likely not get the forever part with some of the children we take care of.

But that is in God's hands.